AP European History Unit 6: Industrialization and Its Effects

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hey there students Thom Richie here with

Marko learning in this video I'm going

to give you an overview of unit six of

the AP European history course which

addresses industrialization and its

effects now first of all what is

industrialization and what we're looking

at here is the mechanization of

production starting around 1750 now why

is that important now what we need to

remember is even the word manufacturing

which we think about factories and

mechanized production the word actually

means to produce something by hand and

so when we're thinking about this that

before 1750 nearly everything was done

by hand so what we're seeing between

1750 and 1914 is that goods are going

from being made by hand to being made by

increasingly automated processes and so

we see a few branches of the industrial

revolution first of all the more

efficient production of textiles the

production of iron and steel

transportation and communication the

Industrial Revolution began in Britain

in the 18th century now there are a lot

of reasons for that first of all we need

to consider the natural factors involved

in Britain as a starting point the

predominance of rivers in Britain also

lots of natural resources like coal and

iron ore there are also human factors in

Britain such as a more advanced state of

property rights lots of inventions that

came from Britain a favorable political

climate and the presence of surplus

labour because all of these folks who

are no longer needed on the farms

because of the British agricultural

revolution now the Industrial Revolution

began gradually at first what we see is

the system of cottage industry where a

lot of these displaced agricultural

workers are actually manufacturing

textiles at home and we see them using

inventions such as the spinning jenny

now other inventions such as the

water frame they facilitate the

transition to the factory system as we

move toward water power where we have

lots of these water frames set up in a

single factory where workers can be

supervised dand production can all be in

one place

now of course production escalates with

the invention of the steam engine and

the perfection of the steam engine by

James Watt um who was an inventor that

you'll want to remember and because of

the steam engine we see the foundation

of industrial cities once the steam

engines there we don't have to put a

factory by a river and then we can get

all kinds of factories in one place in a

very convenient location and the

industrial city of Manchester is a place

that is good for you to remember for

that now even though Britain

industrialised very quickly

industrialization was slower to catch on

in continental Europe in France the

industrialization was much more gradual

it happened with more direct government

support and because of the gradual

nature of the movement it caused less

havoc now Germany was at first also slow

to industrialized but under Bismarck

started to industrialize much more

quickly and by 1914 Germany had replaced

Britain as the largest industrial

producer it's important that we

understand the divisions between the

first and the second Industrial

Revolution the first Industrial

Revolution began around 1750 and went to

about 1830 whereas the second Industrial

Revolution began around 1870 sometimes

we see 1850 but we see in the AP euro

course they like 1870 so let's just go

with it

and lasts until 1914 which is of course

the beginning of World War one now what

makes the Second Industrial Revolution

unique is the Bessemer process which

facilitated the mass production of steel

now we see steel swords going all the

way back to the Romans but not the sort

of mass

production where we can now build

railroads now railroads were around as

early as the 1830s but it's not until

the Second Industrial Revolution that

the Bessemer process makes it possible

to build railroads all over the place

and another thing that we see is the

internal combustion engine which is of

course the same engine that you have in

your vehicle today the invention of

Telegraph's facilitated communication

and when we're thinking about Second

Industrial Revolution technologies we

want to think basically world war one

technologies because you can think of

also chemicals you think about if they

used it in World War one chemical

weapons well they had been experimenting

with chemicals before World War one

moving on now to the effects of

industrialization now first of all the

Industrial Revolution began the

migration of large populations from

rural areas to urban areas we see these

large cities such as Manchester spring

up and in these cities there is this

wide gap between rich and poor people

start to develop a class consciousness

we see the rise of the bourgeoisie as

the dominant class these people who are

professionals and they're not the landed

gentry or the traditional nobility these

are people who own the factories these

are people who are merchants involved in

this new industrialized economy the

people who control the means of

production then we see this large urban

middle class which Marx referred to as

the proletariat the proletariat these

are people who basically have nothing

now conditions in industrial cities were

atrocious especially at first but they

did eventually improve around the mid

19th century we think about the 1840s

1850s we start to see laws being made on

that are protecting especially women in

children we see the beginnings of child

labor laws

an example of a child labor law would be

the 10-hour act now the 10-hour act

limited the amount of time that women

and children could work in British

factories limited it to ten hours a day

now as all these things are going on as

we see people moving from rural areas to

cities and as we see these new classes

springing up the rise of the bourgeoisie

and the urban working classes we need to

also place the Industrial Revolution

within the context of the age of

Medtronic between 1815 and 1848 we see

the continued dominance of the

conservative noble and rural gentry and

this is creating a lot of conflicts that

are going to eventually lead to the

revolutions of 1848 on the continent and

in Britain several parliamentary reforms

resulting in the expansion of suffrage

and in improved conditions for the

working classes now the revolutions of

1848 they were a Continental revolt

against aristocratic control of France

Italy and the German states these

revolutions ultimately were put down in

conservatives regain control but we do

want to note that this is the end of

that age of metonic now there were no

revolutions in 1848 in Britain or Russia

but for different reasons

there was no revolution of 1848 in

Britain because Parliament had been

responsive with legislation maybe not as

responsive as some folks would have

liked but responsive nonetheless and in

Russia the government was so repressive

that people just didn't even bother they

remembered the Decembrist revolt in the

early nineteenth century which was

brutally crushed by the Czarist

autocracy and speaking of Russia we want

to note in the context of the Industrial

Revolution that Eastern Europe was very

slow to industrialize in comparison to

Western Europe and because of the

Industrial Revolution we see new

political philosophies coming around now

we've already addressed

ilysm and nationalism now liberalism and

the Industrial Revolution really go hand

in hand especially when we look at what

happened in Britain where the government

is largely supporting industrialization

but not with a lot of regulations

remember liberals wanted an unregulated

laissez faire economy in the next unit

overview we will get more into

nationalism and its effects in the

nineteenth century

we also want to remember radical

movements now when we talk about

radicalism

in the context of the nineteenth century

what we're essentially talking about is

democracy

okay people like the Chartist in England

who were asking for the expansion of

suffrage they wanted universal male

suffrage now that's not seen as a

radical idea today but in the early 19th

century the idea of the un-- propertied

working classes voting that was very

scary to a lot of people and it's

important that we note that classical

liberals weren't necessarily fans of

democracy because remember that

liberalism is about the protection of

life liberty and property and when you

let the unprovoked that threatens the

protection of property at least in the

eyes of the classical liberals who were

trying to protect their own property now

beyond the radicals we see various

socialist movements coming up the most

high-profile would-be Marxism Marxism is

a form of scientific socialism now Marx

uh put together an analysis what he said

here what why is calling this scientific

is that he says there's this whole

process that Marxism is based on this

idea of history being a cycle of class

struggles and we see as people are

starting to become class conscious

Marxism is coming about that there have

been all of these class struggles and

finally we see the current class

struggle between the bourgeoisie and the

proletariat and the proletariat

according to Marx would eventually rise

up on its

because it forms its own sense of class

consciousness and in a violent

revolution will overthrow the

bourgeoisie and put an end to this

historical cycle of class conflict and

that would be as Marx called it the end

of history and so we would see the

establishment of communism now as far as

how that's happened later on we'll get

into in other units and let's not forget

anarchism which was another philosophy

that was actually in the 19th century

more common than Marxism as far as the

number of adherents and anarchist wanted

to eliminate centralized government and

replace this with a form of voluntary

cooperation a form of socialism but not

the sort of authoritarian socialism that

we see in the 20th century

industrialization also transformed

Europe in terms of politics and society

I've already made an allusion to the

beginning of mass politics by the end of

the 19th century universal male suffrage

is pretty much a given throughout at

least throughout Western Europe and we

see the beginnings of labor unions labor

unions of course being these

associations of laborers who are getting

together to try to protect their rights

to promote higher wages and better

working conditions and then we see the

foundation of labor parties so labor

unions are about protecting the economic

interest of labor and labor parties to

protect their perceived political

interests now labor parties in the late

19th century started out largely as

democratic socialist parties now when we

get into the 20th century

we'll see labor parties transition into

center-left parties but they began

largely as democratic socialist parties

meaning that they wanted to implement

socialism through the democratic process

so when we think about this it's not

Marxism because Marxism is about a

violent revolution and then we see

feminism in the 19th century

now feminism focused on two things in

the nineteen

century first of all better working

conditions for women so we see things as

I've mentioned the ten-hour act and also

the women's suffrage movement now one

name that you want to remember there is

Emeline pan cursed who was a prominent

British suffragette and then the

abolitionist movement we see things

which at the same time are happening in

the United States for any of you've had

US history movements to end slavery and

other movements to basically promote a

more just society not only in Europe but

around the world in this age of mass

politics at the turn of the twentieth

century we also see divisions within the

liberal movement remember that classical

liberalism was largely about the

government staying out of the economy

and keeping taxes low regulations low

staying away from social welfare

policies whereas as the electorate

increased liberal parties in order to

make themselves more relevant started to

endorse government interventions to help

the lower classes one of the best

examples of this would be David Lloyd

George I'm in Britain and then we see

also the advent of public health Edwin

Chadwick was a British reformer who was

very instrumental in having public

health measures and advocating for the

people in these industrial cities and

having things like vaccinations and

clean water and sewers and all of these

other things to make urban life less

unhealthy and then we see the foundation

of compulsory public education in most

European states in order to promote

public order and a spirit of nationalism

and to summarize unit six which focuses

on industrialization and its effects we

want to remember that the Industrial

Revolution was about the mechanization

of production going from hand power to

machine power and ultimately to full-on

automation the Industrial Revolution

began in Britain because of both natural

and human factors we see increase

urbanization during this time as large

populations move from rural areas to

urban areas we see the development of a

sense of class consciousness in these

urban areas which is leading to new

ideologies and political reforms during

this period we see unprecedented

economic growth and while conditions

were not that great for the lower

classes at first we see the expansion of

the middle class and by the time that we

turn into the 20th century an

improvement in the quality of life for

these working classes and that sums up

unit six it's always a pleasure

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