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European History Unit 6: Industrialization and its effects (c. 1815–1914)

Industrialization changed how Europeans worked and lived, and new ideologies competed to explain and respond to those changes.

Covers: Spread of industry, second wave of industrialization, social effects, political ideologies, reform, responses to industrialization

Study guide

The Industrial Revolution began in Britain and spread to Belgium, France and the German states. Railroads drove growth, and governments supported industry through tariffs and infrastructure; Friedrich List promoted the German Zollverein customs union. The Second Industrial Revolution after 1870 brought steel, chemicals, electricity and the internal combustion engine, with Germany becoming a leading industrial power. Eastern and southern Europe industrialized more slowly.

Industrialization transformed society. Cities grew rapidly, with crowded housing, pollution and disease such as cholera. A working class (proletariat) faced long hours, low pay and child labor, while a growing middle class (bourgeoisie) gained wealth and status. The cult of domesticity idealized women as homemakers in separate spheres, though many working-class women worked in factories. Reforms followed: Britain's Factory Acts limited child labor, public health measures improved sanitation, and Baron Haussmann rebuilt Paris with wide boulevards.

New ideologies responded. Conservatism defended tradition and monarchy. Liberalism supported individual rights, constitutions and free markets, and in Britain the Reform Act of 1832 expanded voting. Nationalism called for unified nation-states. Socialism wanted to reduce inequality; utopian socialists like Robert Owen built model communities, and Karl Marx's scientific socialism predicted class struggle and revolution. Anarchists rejected the state entirely. Workers formed labor unions, and political parties like Germany's Social Democrats grew. Revolutions of 1848 spread across Europe, demanding liberal and national rights, but most were crushed. Britain repealed the Corn Laws in 1846, moving toward free trade.

Chartism (1830s–1840s) demanded universal male suffrage, the secret ballot and pay for members of Parliament. It failed at the time, but most of its goals were later adopted. The Reform Act of 1867 extended the vote to many urban workers. By the 1890s some socialists, led by Eduard Bernstein, argued for winning reforms through elections ('revisionism') rather than revolution. Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) defended private property but supported fair wages and workers' unions.

Civil codes modeled on Napoleon's placed married women under their husbands' legal authority, and feminists campaigned for property rights, education and the vote. In Britain, Emmeline Pankhurst's suffragettes (the WSPU) used militant tactics, while suffragists lobbied peacefully. In France, the 1848 revolution created the Second Republic, which set up national workshops for the unemployed and then elected Louis Napoleon president. In Germany, the Frankfurt Parliament tried to unite the country under a liberal constitution, but it failed when Prussia's king refused a crown offered by an elected assembly.

The Irish Potato Famine (1845–1849) killed about a million people and drove mass emigration, and anger at British policy fed Irish nationalism. The Second Industrial Revolution created a mass consumer culture of department stores, advertising and cheaper manufactured goods. It also gave women new jobs as clerks and shop assistants.

Key ideas

• Industrialization spread from Britain to continental Europe.
• Rapid urbanization caused crowded, unhealthy cities and later reforms.
• Industrial society created a working class and a growing middle class.
• Liberalism, conservatism, nationalism and socialism competed as ideologies.
• The revolutions of 1848 demanded rights but mostly failed.

Formulas and rules

Common mistakes

• Confusing nineteenth-century liberalism (individual rights, free markets) with modern American liberalism.
• Thinking the revolutions of 1848 succeeded; most were crushed.

Words to know

Zollverein

German customs union that encouraged trade and industry.

Second Industrial Revolution

Industrial growth after 1870 based on steel, chemicals and electricity.

Urbanization

The growth of cities.

Proletariat

The industrial working class.

Bourgeoisie

The middle class of business owners and professionals.

Cult of domesticity

The ideal of women as homemakers.

Factory Acts

British laws limiting child labor and working hours.

Conservatism

Ideology defending tradition, monarchy and the Church.

Liberalism (19th century)

Ideology supporting individual rights, constitutions and free markets.

Utopian socialism

Early socialism based on model communities.

Scientific socialism

Marx's theory of class struggle leading to revolution.

Anarchism

Ideology rejecting all government.

Revolutions of 1848

Wave of liberal and nationalist uprisings across Europe.

Corn Laws

British tariffs on imported grain, repealed in 1846.

Reform Act of 1832

British law expanding voting rights to more men.

Sample practice questions

5 more questions like these, from level 1 to 5, are in the practice set.