Unit 7: Chapter 24 * The Victorian Age Life in the Emerging Urban Society.

Unit 7: Chapter 24

* The Victorian Age

Life in the Emerging Urban Society

I. Urbanization

A. By 1900 Europe had become urban

and industrial

1. Great Britain was the first to

become a modern industrial

society

2. problems of mass urbanization

a. magnified poor conditions

1) high death rate due to

poor sanitation & crowding

European Cities of 100,000 or More, 1800 and 1900

Dudley Street, Seven Dials, London, By Gustave Doré

B. Public Health Movement

1. miasmatic theory – disease spread by odor

2. Edwin Chadwick (health reformer &

Benthamite)

a. “sanitary idea” – poverty was caused

by death from disease

1) Cholera

Dung heaps among living quarters

C. Bacterial Revolution

1. Disease was spread through filth

NOT caused by it

2. Germ Theory – specific diseases were

caused by specific living organisms

a. Louis Pasteur

1) pasteurization

b. Robert Koch – described lifecycles

of harmful bacteria

c. Joseph Lister: antiseptic principle

1) sterilization in hospitals

II. Urban planning and public transportation

A. Workhouse movement - “Poorhouses” EDWIN CHADWICK:Poor Law reformer. He believed that existing relief, being too generous, encouraged idleness and larger families.

B. Rebuilding Paris

Opera House and surrounding area of Haussmann's Paris

1. Napoleon III a. sought to promote the welfare of all his subjects through government action 1) rebuilding Paris would provide employment,

improve living conditions, and testify to the

glory of France

b. Georges Haussmann – planner 1) Destroyed slums – replaced w/better housing &

open spaces (parks)

2) built wide, straight, tree lined avenues =

to prevent the building of barricades

3) improved sewage system & fresh water aqueducts

4) public transportation = street cars & railroads

Antoine Blanchard,Along the Boulevard, Paris (Boulevard Haussmann)

Champs de lise

III. Social Structure A. Increase in standard of living 1. Middle Class: had servants, educated, strict

code of behavior, committed to hard work.

a. Upper middle class – merged with

old aristocracy

b. Middle middle class – professionals

(engineers, doctors, etc.)

c. Lower middle class – white collar employees,

small shop owners

2. Impact of industrialization

a. expanded and diversified middle class

3. culture: traditional Christian morality & self-

discipline (The Victorian Era)

B. Working Classes 1. 80% of population in 1900

2. Less homogenous and unified

than middle classes

3. Highly skilled workers: Labor Aristocracy

4. Semi-skilled workers domestic service

5. Unskilled workers & sweated industries

6. Lifestyle: drinking, spectator sports, music hall,

gambling

7. Decline in church attendance due to:

lack of faith, growth of secularism, lack of churches

in cities

a. Church associated with the upper classes

IV. The Changing FamilyA. Marriage

1. working class: romantic sentiment 2. middle class: economic considerations

B. Illegitimacy explosion (1750-1850)– declined in later 19th century

C. Sexual division: men & women worked in separate spheres

D. Child Rearing 1. closer bond b/w parent and child 2. strict upbringing of middle class children 3. working-class children worked & were more independent E. Sigmund Freud: human behavior is motivated

by unconscious emotional needs F. Gustave Droz: Mr.,Mrs.,and Baby - family

manual

V. Science and Intellectual AchievementsA. Physical science

1. Industrial technology 2. Thermodynamics 3. Chemistry: Dmitri Mendeleev a. periodic table

b. organic chemistry

4. Electromagnetism: Michael Faraday 5. Geology: Charles Lyell –

uniformitarianism 7. Biology: Charles Darwin: On the Origin of Species by the Means of Natural Selection

* Evolution

B. Social Science

1. August Comte (1798-1857)•positivism – the discovery of the

eternal laws of human behavior

• Sociology – science applied to society

2. Social Darwinism: Herbert Spencer “Survival of the fittest”Perverted Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution applying it to the human race

VI. Realism: 1850A. Literature

1. Depict life as it really was

2. Determinism

3. Rejected Romanticism

4. Movement began in France

a. Honoré de Balzac – The Human Comedy

b. Gustave Flaubert – Madame Bovary

c. Émile Zola - Germinal

5. England: George Eliot(Mary Ann Evans)

6. Russia: Leo Tolstoy – War & Peace

7. Scandinavia: Henrik Ibsen

The Meeting or "Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet“, 1854 painting by Gustave Courbet

Gustave Courbet, The Stonebreakers, 1849

Gustave Courbet, The Grain Sifters, 1855

Honore Daumier, The Third-Class Carriage, 1862

Honore Daumier, The Burden (A Laundress), 1862

Eduard Degas, Laundry Girls Ironing, c. 1884