AP European History Unit 6 Notes: Social and Political Responses to Industrialization

Urbanization

The movement of people from rural areas to cities, accelerated in industrial Europe by factory jobs and reduced farm labor needs.

Overcrowded housing

Dense, poorly built living conditions common in industrial cities (e.g., tenements, subdivided rooms, poor ventilation).

Inadequate sanitation

Insufficient urban infrastructure for waste removal and clean water (limited sewers, contaminated water, trash buildup), contributing to disease.

Public health reforms

Government or municipal actions to improve sanitation, housing, and disease prevention in response to industrial urban crises.

Interventionist state

A state that takes an active role in addressing social problems (e.g., health, housing, labor conditions) rather than limiting itself to security and property.

Edwin Chadwick’s 1842 sanitary report

A British investigation that helped build support for state action by linking disease and poverty to poor urban infrastructure and sanitation.

Public Health Act (Britain, 1848)

A law reflecting growing acceptance that government should improve living conditions through sanitation and public health measures.

Time discipline

Factory-centered control of work by clock time, set shifts, supervision, and rules, replacing more seasonal/task-based preindustrial rhythms.

Deskilling

The simplification of work into repetitive tasks that reduce the need for skilled labor in many industrial sectors.

Separate spheres

A 19th-century middle-class ideal that men belong in public work/politics and women in domestic life, even though many working-class women still worked for wages.

The social question

The broad challenge of poverty, inequality, labor conditions, and social stability created or intensified by industrial society.

Factory Acts

British laws regulating industrial labor conditions (especially for children and women), showing a shift toward legal solutions to industrial social problems.

Factory Act of 1833

A major British factory law associated with increased regulation of labor, especially limiting child labor and improving oversight.

Ten Hours Act (Britain, 1847)

A British law limiting hours of work (notably for women and young workers), illustrating growing acceptance of state regulation of labor time.

Ideology

A structured set of beliefs about politics and society, especially regarding power, rights, and the economy.

Liberalism (19th-century Europe)

An ideology emphasizing individual rights, equality before the law, representative government, and protections for property; often supportive of market freedom.

Laissez-faire

The idea that markets should operate with minimal government interference, commonly associated with many 19th-century liberals.

Social liberalism

A reform-minded adaptation of liberalism that accepts limited state intervention (education, regulation, welfare) to preserve stability and real opportunity.

Socialism

A broad ideology seeking to reduce inequality and organize the economy to serve the community rather than primarily generate private profit.

Utopian socialists

Early socialists who promoted cooperative model communities and moral persuasion rather than a detailed theory of class revolution (e.g., Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen).

Marxism

A socialist theory (Marx and Engels) arguing that ownership of productive property shapes society and that class conflict drives historical change.

Bourgeoisie

In Marxist terms, the owners of capital and productive property (factories, machinery, investments) in industrial capitalism.

Proletariat

In Marxist terms, wage laborers who must sell their labor to survive and who are positioned in conflict with the bourgeoisie.

Labor union (trade union)

An organization of workers that seeks better wages, hours, and conditions through collective action and negotiation with employers.

Chartism

A British mass working-class movement (1830s–1840s) demanding political reforms such as expanded suffrage and parliamentary changes.