3/23/11
How did England gradually become more democratic in the 2nd half of the 19th century?
v Victorian Era
¨ Age of stability based on willingness to reform to prevent unrest and revolution
Ø Reform acts
Ø Economic stability
Growth showcased in the Industrial Exhibition 1851
Working class gained- real wages increased 25% between 1850 and 1870
Ø National pride
¨ Political
Ø Uneasy stability- things were stable, but people were not sure things would stay that way, middle class/upper middle class shift/blur of party lines
Ø Most of 1855-65 John Henry Temple (Lord Pamerston) was usually Prime Minister
Whig, but was willing to compromise
Most concerned with foreign policy, and defending British interest worldwide
Not a reformer- did not want to extend the vote (it would increase the amount of bribery)
Ø After Palmerston died, and movement to extend the franchise (right to vote) increased
Mass meetings in Hyde Park, where a riot occurred
Ø Whigs became the Liberals
Spoke a lot about reform, but never followed through
Tories (conservatives) DID extend the franchise- this is so radical!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why are the conservative Tories extending the franchise?
¶ Benjamin Disraeli (not a Jew) was the Tory leader in Parliament, and he expected the poor people who were given the right to vote will vote conservative (follow the directions of their social superiors). Liberals, as the “party of reform” can’t vote against it
Reform Bill of 1867
¶ Many urban males can vote à double the number of voters from 1 million to over 2 million
¶ Disraeli was wrong! New voters helped to elect the Liberals in 1868
¶ Competition to get votes à increased party discipline- leaders of the party told the leaders how to vote
Personal and political rivalry between Disraeli and the Liberal leader, William Gladstone
Ø Gladstone PM 1868-1874
Reforms = apex of “classical British liberalism”
¶ Competitive exams for civil service jobs (like China) instead of patronage
¶ Ended the religious requirements for degrees at Oxford and Cambridge
¶ Secret ballot (stops bribery in voting)
¶ End purchase of military commissions (people were chosen for high military jobs based on their talent, not because they paid for it)
¶ Education Act of 1870- elementary education for all children
Ø 2nd Gladstone ministry 1880-1884
Reform Act 1884- enfranchised agricultural workers (now all men can vote, but women still did not have the right to vote)
Redistribution Act of 1885
¶ Ended old (rotten) boroughs and counties and set up approximately = sized voting districts with one representative for each
1911 pay members of House of Commons
¶ Members no longer need to be independently wealthy to be able to serve in the House of Commons, and not need a separate job to support the family
3/25/11
¨ Ireland
Ø 1801 Act of Union united England and Irish Parliaments
Irish resented absentee English landlords: high rents, high taxes and tithes to the Anglican Church (they were mad that many English people owned land in Ireland, did not live there, and made them pay a lot of taxes and stuff the Anglican Church, even though they are Catholic)
Nationalism growing
Ø 1840s Potato famine
Partly a plant disease, partly government mismanagement (liberals don’t believe in ‘interfering’, so they did nothing to help the starving people)
Results
¶ Emigration (many people left Ireland)
¶ Bitterness against England because the government did not do anything to help them
Ø Gladstone tried some reforms (fair rents, “fixity of tenure”) but some tenants still evicted (tenants who were kicked off their land by the landlord were angry) in 1870s à terrorism
Government used force to put down terrorists
Catholics demanded independence
Ø Liberal proposals for home rule failed in 86 and 93 but it passed in the Home Rule Act 1914 à more conflict
Irish Protestants (especially in Ulster) did not want to be a part of country ruled by Irish Catholics
WWI: suspended home rule for duration of the war until 1921
Early 20th century Sinn Fein- nationalist group who wanted independence, not home rule
¶ 1916 Easter Rebellion was suppressed, but fighting reappeared in 1919-21 when the Irish Free State was created (Protestant northern Ireland refused to join the Irish Free State and stayed part of Great Britain)
¨ Working class demands à Liberals were pushed to move away from their ideology and into supporting social reforms
Ø Trade unions and the Labor Party pushed for significant change
Trade unions + Fabian Socialists wanted democratic change to socialism
Ø Liberals wanted to keep power, so they embraced social welfare reform: David Lloyd George
No more laissez-faire- support government intervention
National Health Insurance 1911 (pay in cases of sickness, unemployment)
Small pensions for workers over 70 and workmen’s compensation
¶ Pay for all of this by tax on the wealthy
Ø Now in the 20th century, Liberals believed the government should help the working class, but not be socialistic
¨ Women’s rights develop very slowly
Ø 1830s women focused on rights in marriage and family laws
1870 British women gained control over their own property, 1900 in Germany, and 1907 in France
Ø Education and jobs
Women looked for better education and jobs
Middle and upper class women wanted higher education and “men’s jobs”
¶ Teaching
Ø England needed a lot of teachers, and did not want to pay them so much
¶ No medical school access for women à profession of nursing
Ø Germany: Amalie Sievking started the Female Association for the Care of the Poor and Sick (help the poor and sick as well as help middle class ladies have jobs)
Ø Britain: Florence Nightingale
Ø 1840-50s focus on political rights
Argument: natural rights
¶ If men have certain natural rights, so should women
2 approaches
¶ Millicent Fawcet (liberal)
¶ Radical Emmeline Pankhurst
¶ (Already in notes)
By 1914 only Finland and Norwat and some US states gave women the right to vote
Ø “New Women”- wanted freedom from social expectations
Dr. Maria Montessori (first Italian women doctor 1896)
New woman- someone rational and scientific
School for the retarted
Peace movements- Bertha von Suttner
¶ Austrian Peace Society
¶ 1905 Lay Down Your Arms- won Nobel Peace Prize
¶ Wanted to be different from what the classic women was supposed to be like3/28/11
Why was Alexander II considered relatively “liberal” for a Russian czar?
v Paul
¨ Catherine the Great’s son
v Alexander I
¨ Seemed liberal at the start of his reign
Ø Relaxed censor
Ø Liberal advisor: Michael Speransky- wanted to impose some liberal ideas unto Russia
Ø Freed political prisoners
Ø Education
¨ BUT
Ø No constitution
Ø No freedom for serfs
Ø After Napoleon’s defeat, Alexander became a reactionary
Strict censorship
Secret societies develop to oppose Alexander- Northern Union
¨ 1825 Alexander died
Ø Constantine, the older brother and heir to the throne, was liked by the Liberals- they hoped he would modernize and make changes in Russia. However, Constantine did not want to be czar. He abdicated in favor of his younger brother, Nicholas
Ø Nicholas took the throne à uprising of the Northern Union and the peasants
There was a huge demonstration of Decembrists who stood outside the palace and screamed “Constantine and Constitution”- but really the peasants were so uneducated, they thought constitution was Constantine’s wife (silly goose!)
Uprising suppressed à Nicholas became a total reactionary
v Tradition
¨ Autocracy (one rule, dictator, basically did whatever he wanted), censorship, political repression, secret police
¨ Put down liberal and nationalistic revolutions in Poland 1831 and Hungary 1848
v Crimean War loss à felt a need to “set house in order”
¨ Even conservatives realized Russia was behind the West
¨ New czar- Alexander II 1855
v Alexander II
¨ Realist rather than liberal- imposed reform from the top down (similar to Joseph II of Austria)
¨ Abolished serfdom
Ø System was failing
Serfs labor could not keep up with more modern agriculture or factories
Serfs can’t seem to learn to use more modern weapons
Unhappy serfs à serf rebellions
Ø 3/3/61 Serfs were freed BUT
Government purchased land for the peasants to farm
Peasants had to pay for the land over time
Landlords sold the worst land for the peasants
Peasants under the authority of the mir (village commune)
¶ Mir does not want anyone to leave
¶ Individual would work on the land as part of the mir, and the mir was responsible for collecting taxes to pay for the land they were given. The mir did not want anyone to leave because they all needed to pay back the government together
¶ Now, instead of being bound to a noble, they were bound to the community
Farm methods did not really change and production did not improve
¨ Other reforms
Ø Created Zemstvos (local assemblies) that have some self government
Includes everyone but dominated by landowning classes (nobles)
Power to tax
Provided education, famine relief, roads, and bridges
Bureaucrats opposed the local governments
Liberals hoped zemstvos would lead to a national parliament (but that would never happen- Alexander II isn’t liberal enough)
Ø Reformed courts and started trial by jury
Ø Town councils
Ø Universal military service
¨ Radicals wanted much more reform
Ø Alexander Herzen (living in England)
Called for land and freedom
Peasants should bring reform, not the czar
Mir should be independent and self governing à socialism
Ø Herzen’s followers created a movement called “populism” which called for revolutionary acts by peasants à creation of a new society
Herzen’s followers were students and intellectuals from the middle class and some liberal nobles. Peasants were not interested and did not follow Herzen’s ideas
Populists = Narodniki
¶ Plan to become teachers, nurses, vets, scribes “to help the peasants” and teach them to be revolutionary
¶ Peasants were so against change that they reported the populists to the czar’s police à 1870 trials ended the idealistic narodnik movement
¨ More radical groups
Ø The People’s Will- a more radical populist group organized in 1879
Used terrorism to try to influence the government à assassinated Alex II in 1881 (he wasn’t revolutionary enough) à Alex III became czar, and was totally against reform
Thought that committing murder would get them noticed
Police tracked down the revolutionaries, and the group shrank in the 1890s
Ø Socialist Revolutionaries (S.R.s) started in 1905
Goals: socialism based on the mir
Democracy- wanted to give people the right to vote
Methods included political assassination to get attention
(Very similar to the People’s Will, they just came later)
Ø Marxists- those who followed Karl Marx
Exile group
¶ George Plekhanov (Liberation of Labor)
¶ Were able to do and say whatever they wanted because they were not in Russia
In Russia- Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (Marxian Socialist)
¶ Hiding underground in Russia
v Literary Achievements
¨ 19th century was a high point for Russian literature
¨ Alexander Pushkin
Ø Poet
Ø Opposed autocracy and oppression
Ø Expressed the Russian soul and feeling
¨ Nikolai Gogol
Ø Father of the Russian novel
Ø Dead Souls
Satire about serfdom and the government
¨ Ivan Turgenev
Ø A “Westernizer”- believed that Russia should follow the examples of the West
Ø Fathers and Sons
“Nihilist” referred to someone who would not accept any authority- threat that nihilism would spread if reform does not come
¨ Fyodor Dosotoevsky
Ø Slavophile- opposite of a westerner. Loves Slavic culture and did not want it to become like the West
Ø Emphasized emotion and Slavic heritage
Ø “Conscious of Russia”- points out the flaws and looks at basic life values
Ø Crime and Punishment
¨ Leo Tolstoy
Ø War and Peace
Ø Anti-war, pro-peasant, he was a noble but dressed like the peasants and identified with them
¨ Anton Chekhov
Ø Playwright and short stories
Ø Realist
Ø Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard
v 3/28/11
What changes took place in continental Europe 1870-1914?
v 2nd Industrial Revolution
¨ Steel
¨ Chemical
¨ Electricity
¨ Germany and the United States took over industry (over England)
v General patterns in all of Europe
¨ General prosperity
Ø “Great Depression of 1873-1895”
Not everyone believes in this depression (Spielvogel believes there were some minor set backs in some countries)
Ø 1895-1914 “la belle époque” (the beautiful time period)- economic boom
Ø 2 zones
More industrialized north and west
Less industrialized south and east
Ø More industrial machines on farms à more abundant grain à drop in price of grain
Landowners prospered
Used chemical fertilizers
Ø Increased trade à development of a true world economy
¨ Socialists everywhere tried to help and organize workers
3/29/11
v Socialism
¨ Germany
Ø Marxists- William Leibknecht and August Bebel- German Social Democratic Party (SPD)
Not really acting like Marxists because conditions need to be very bad for the revolution to occur, but really they just created a political party to help the workers, which Marx said was impossible
Competed in elections
Tried to get legislation to help the workers
1890: 1.5 million votes 35 seats in Reichstag
1912: 4 million votes
¨ France
Ø Variety of socialist parties
Ø Jean Jaures- leader of a French revolutionary tradition
Party was mostly Marxist
Tried to help the people
¨ 1889 Social Democratic parties in most countries à 2nd International- unity problems like the 1st International that Marx created
¨ Problems of the Socialists
Ø Competing views of socialism
Orthodox (closely followed Marx): August Bebel expected revolution and wanted socialist ownership of the “means of production”
Revisionists: Eduard Bernstein- Evolutionary Socialism
¶ Lived in England, and viewed that conditions were getting better, so maybe Marx was sometimes wrong- capitalism did not collapse, workers were getting better conditions, and the middle class was getting larger
¶ Socialism should develop democratically, by people voting to have socialism
¶ Revisionists were condemned by the leadership and the 2nd International, but those who condemned Bernstein (SPD and others) actually followed his ideas
Ø Nationalism
Marx and Engels said the workers have no country, workers from all countries were all united
2nd International passed resolutions in 1907 and 1910 against war, BUT socialist often were nationalistic and workers and many socialists supported their own nations in WWI
Even though the socialists were socialist, they were also nationalistic towards their own country
v Trade unions grew
¨ Governments legalized the right to strike in the 1870’s à growth of trade unions
¨ French trade unions were more socialist and less unified, and were tied to various political parties
Ø General Confederation of Labor was a national union that was very weak
¨ Germany
Ø Liberal trades unions of skilled workers
Ø Catholic or Christian trade unions- being a good Christian meant caring about your fellow man, and therefore giving a decent deal to workers
Ø 85% of the trade unions were socialist
By 1899, even socialists used collective bargaining and some strike à better conditions and workers who wanted gradual improvement, not revolution
v Anarchism (discussed earlier)
¨ Mostly in less industrialized and less democratic countries (Eastern Europe)
¨ Early anarchists
¨ Radical anarchists- 2nd half of the 19th century
Ø Wanted to use small groups of well trained fanatics to violently overthrow the state
Ø Bakunin- used violence to try to destroy the state (assassination of Alex II and McKinley in US) but the state did not fall for their plot
v Social Structure of the 19th Century
¨ Upper class
Ø Old traditional landowning aristocrats
Ø Invited the wealthy industrialists, bankers, and merchants into the upper class elite
Ø Education and marriage brought together the people
Ø Also, the landowners bought townhouses in the cities and the upper middle class bought country homes, so these two classes coalesced
¨ Middle class
Ø Upper middle (hobnobbed with the elites), middle middle (lawyers, doctors, upper civil service, industrialists, merchants, engineers, basically the professionals), lower middle (smaller shopkeepers, richer peasants), submiddle (middle class wannabees- white collar workers who were not working class, but got paid the same as the working class. They had the same values as the middle class, even though they had different income)
Ø Middle class values dominate Victorian society
One can get ahead through hard work
Patriotism
Respected science and progress, as well as education
Ø Values spread to army and state run schools
Ø Bourgeoisie could get high jobs in the military and bureaucracy
¨ Lower class = 80% of the population
Ø Urban workers were the top part of the lower class
Skilled artisans- at first printers, then machine tool operators
Semi skilled- carpenters, bricklayers,
Unskilled (most of the lower class)- domestic servants, day laborers
¨ Life was getting better
Ø Rise in real wages
Ø Consumer costs were going down
Ø People had more clothes and more leisure time (work day was getting shorter- 10 hour days and half day Saturday)
3/30/11
¨ Education
Ø New emphasis because of nationalism- emphasized nation’s history and civic duty
Ø More useful/practical- learned different languages, as well as natural sciences. Education became more middle class oriented
Ø Results
Mass literacy
Newspapers, fiction, and literature for the lower classes became more popular
More skilled labor
Conservatives hoped to improve the military- soldiers will follow directions and use complicated machinery
Ø Girls were taught home economics (sewing and cooking)
Ø Boys were taught carpentry and emphasized sports to whip them into shape for the military
¨ Leisure
Ø Decline of traditional fairs, festivals
Ø New transportation, technical ability
Amusement parks were invented, as well as athletic events, music and dance halls, trips to the beach, and tourism
There was more leisure, and people used their leisure differently
¨ Literature
Ø Late 19th century Naturalism
Explored social problems to help people understand them
Like earlier realists but less optimistic- they weren’t hopeful that their work would change society
Emile Zola
¶ Impressed by Darwin and studied struggle for survival, environment, and heredity in urban slums and coal fields
¶ But his article J’Accuse seemed to be more optimistic about righting injustice and trying to correct it
Ø Symbolists
Mostly poets
Objective knowledge of the world in “impossible”- you cannot really know what the world is like, because everything is biased
External world = a collection of symbols for the “true reality of the individual mind”
Art for arts sake- not to serve society
Y.B. Yeats and Rainer Maria Rilke
No one in society really understand what the symbolists were all about
¨ Modernism in the Arts
Ø Impressionism
Started in France- people went out into the streets to pain nature directly
Pissaro
¶ If you draw very precisely it is difficult to give impression of the whole. Paint what you observe and feel
¶ Painted the same street scene in different times of day and seasons
Monet- light, water, atmosphere, painted the same scene at different seasons
Berthe Morisot
¶ Painted professionally
¶ Believed women had a special vision and are different, but upset because men did not treat women equally
Ø Post impressionism
Also started in France
Kept the ideas of light and color from the impressionists, but added interest in structure and form- used “color and line to create a personal statement of reality” i.e. a subjective reality rather than a picture of the external world
Cezanne- Woman With Coffee Pot
¶ Interesting uses of color
¶ Exact structure of woman and coffee pot
¶ Geometric
Van Gogh- The Starry Night
¶ Color
¶ Swirls and heavens were a spiritual force that overwhelmed the village
Ø Causes for the artistic changes
Cameras existed which could capture reality (what was actually there), so artists wanted to create their own reality and portray their feelings in their art to show the subjective
New ideas in psychology and physics à less certainty about what is “reality”
Ø Cubism
Geometric shapes replaced traditional forms
Create reality in your own mind based on the shapes
Picasso
¶ Les Demoiselle d’Avignon- first cubist painting
Ø Les recognizable
¶ Nude Descending a Staircase
Ø Can’t really tell what anything is
Ø Abstract Expressionism
Kandinsky
¶ Non representational
¶ Simply use color to speak to the soul. Does not represent anything
¶ Painting VIII, no 2 (Painting with a White Border)
¨ Music
Ø 1st ½ of the century- Romantics, exotic, primitive, nationalism
Edvard Grieg- Peer Gynt Suite
¶ Nationalist music
Ø Impressionist music came 30 years after impressionist art (20th century)
Elusive sensations, moods
Beuty, elegant sound
Claude Debussy- inspired by poems but not telling a story, rather created a mood
Ø Musical primitivism- Stravinsky The Firebird, Petrushka, The Rite of Spring
Pulsating rhythms, sharp dissonances (lack of harmony)
Tried to show a different type of music
This is great. Thank you so much
ReplyDeleteMasterfully done!
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