European Social Shifts Overview
Overview
European Social Shifts Overview
The Industrial Revolution and the Agricultural—or Neolithic—Revolution are two of the most consequential revolutions in human history. Each generated profound economic, political, social, and technological advances, among other changes. Each shifted the social structures of peoples who embraced the other changes in these revolutions.
Learning Objectives
- Analyze the human and environmental consequences of Industrialization and the factory system in England.
- Compare the lives of factory owners and workers in England during Industrialization.
The social shifts that occurred with the Industrial Revolution in Europe redefined each class, realigned the class structure, and altered relationships among members of each class. Each class was redefined on the basis of quantification—the principle criterium for measuring prosperity and success in the Industrial Revolution. Quantification in terms of monetary wealth and factory production was easier to measure and simpler to discern as manifestations of status. These two criteria supplanted the old system of discerning class by hereditary status and the manifestations of wealth that accompanied it.
As part of these social shifts in Europe the upper classes came to include new groups and classes of manufacturers, merchants, and bankers who owned and/or controlled the wealth created by the Industrial Revolution. They came to the forefront of European society at the expense of the old aristocracy, with factories, banks, and new department stores replacing landed estates as the generators of wealth. While members of these new upper classes embraced the styles of dress, menus, and home design of the old upper classes, they asserted their new identities.
The new European middle classes grew out of new and evolved professions that came with industrialization, scientific advances, and technological advances. These new and evolved professions included doctors, lawyers, and new management positions, which required new training and brought higher salaries.
Members of the new middle classes used the additional money they earned to purchase the growing number of new consumer goods being produced. A number of these new products marked a new type of conspicuous consumption that increased the distance between the middle classes and the working classes, while shortening the distance between the middle classes and the upper classes.
The new working classes grew out of the new factory positions based on tending machines that produced the new products rather than making the products individually as the preindustrial artisans used to do. Members of these new working classes were cogs in the machines of production, which lessened their status by way of contrast with the old preindustrial artisans. The new consumer products, department stores, and mail order catalogs provided these working classes with tangible goals and status symbols to which to aspire for those interested in working their way up the new class hierarchy, along with visible reminders of what separated them from the new middle and upper classes.
Relationships among members of these classes did not change. Many in the working classes sought to move up and saw industrialization as opening a new path for upward mobility. Others continued to resent those in the middle and upper classes, resentment which precipitated political and economic revolution, along with the formation of new parties. Members of the middle classes also strove to move up or make that opportunity available for their children, including through marriage. Members of the upper classes sought to solidify their positions. The approaches of members of each of these classes evolved with the economic and technological advances of industrialization and the political changes in Europe from the French Revolution to the First World War.
This new class structure based on industrial wealth reflected the other changes that accompanied the Industrial Revolution, including standardization and rationalization. The new class structure also was part of a new set of more democratic cultures in terms of scientific research and conceptualization, religious affiliation, economic consumption, and political participation. Ultimately it was part of a new conception of the place of the individual in society.
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Title Image - "Pyramid of Capitalist System", published in 1911 Industrial Worker. Attribution: Unknown artist, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Provided by: Wikipedia. Location: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pyramid_of_Capitalist_System.jpg. License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
Boundless World History
"Social Change"
Adapted from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/social-change/
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