The Second Industrial Revolution and the Growth of a Mass Society Key Terms and Key People

Second Industrial Revolution

A dramatic process of economic expansion in the middle of the 19th century in Europe

“Age of Steel”

What the second half of the 19th century was called, because steel was being produced in greater quantities WITHOUT increasing costs

Henry Bessemer, Bessemer process

Introduced a method of producing steel that produced it in far greater quantities without increasing costs

William Siemens

A German who introduced an even better method of making steel that produced a higher quality product at significantly reduced costs

Electrical power

Most of the most important inventions, Thomas Edison invented the incandescent lamp, stations began to built, European cities began to be lit after dark, cities were made safer and there was an uptick in nighttime activities

Suez Canal

Built by the French in 1869, waterway that almost halved the amount of time it took to travel from Great Britain to India

Alfred Nobel

Swedish chemist who invented dynamite, which made it possible to blast tunnels through rock and to remove inconvenient hills, he was scared of the destructive uses of his invention so in his will he entrusted money for a prize under his name to those who served the cause of peace

Marie Curie

Studied radioactivity, and in 1910 isolated radium

Ernest Rutherford

Laid the groundwork for an understanding of atomic structure by showing that atomic particles had a central core called the nucleus, he also said that a theory in physics wasn’t any good unless it could be explained to a barmaid, yet his own work left people confused and alienated from the world as revealed by science

Max Planck

1901, devised a theory based on the idea that energy did not flow in a steady stream, but rather was delivered in discrete units, or quanta, these physics ended the dominance of the mechanistic interpretation of physics that stemmed from the work of Newton (think Planck’s constant in Stranger Things)

Albert Einstein

Created the special theory of relativity in which time, space, and movement are not absolute entities but are understood to be relative in accordance with the position of the observer

Friedrich Nietzcshe

Philosopher who began to question and reject ideas of the Enlightenment, he argued that it was necessary to break free from traditional morality, and that it was necessary to “kill” God, because religion was at the center of a Western model of civilization that he despised

Sigmund Freud

Founder of psychoanalysis, took the methods of modern science and proposed to find a way to treat mental disorders by delving into the human subconscious, and he believed that dreams revealed the inner workings of a subconscious world, he also questioned the continuous progress for the human race and instead posited that despite attempts to suppress it, violence lies at the very core of our being

Louis Pasteur

Discovered the microbes caused diseases, and explained how vaccines worked within the body by stimulating the immune system to produce antibodies after coming in contact with a weak form of the bacilli

Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, The Descent of Man

An English naturalist, he came up wtih natural selection and he put it in the book On the Origin of Species, in The Descent of Man he argued that humans were not exempt from this process of evolutionary change and that humans have evolved from simpler forms of life, religious groups saw his ideas as a direct threat to their basis of beliefs

“Natural selection”

The idea that certain members of a species inherit traits that, over time, may make them more successful in the struggle for survival, and these traits are then passed down, while those members of the species who lack such characteristics ultimately do not reproduce

Herbert Spencer

A follower of Darwin who first used the phrase “survival of the fittest,” he believed that giving aid on the behalf of the poor would upset the natural order of survival, these types of ideas helped lead to Social Darwinism

“Survival of the fittest”

The idea that those who survive are those best adapted to their environment

Social Darwinism

Basically Darwinism but in the lens of our social world, used to justify racist ideas that Europeans were superior to Africans and therefore should dominate them. It also played a role in heightened antisemitism

Age of the Middle Class

Second half of the 19th century, the middle class was growing in size and importance, merchants were joined by members of newly created professions and of newly wealthy ones, and they were “middle class” in the sense that they fell outside the earlier class system, significant not because the middle class was new but because it was larger than before

Anarchism

Belief that the true laws of society had little to do with authority and came from the nature of society itself, and they believed that bringing these laws to the surface should be the ultimate goal of any society, they wanted workers to organize small groups of independent producers that would govern themselves without interference from the state (an institution that these people wanted to see abolished)

Joseph Proudhon

A self educated typesetter who is considered to be the founder of anarchism

Edwin Chadwick

A famous reporter who helped make public parks, public lighting, and the first public housing make an appearance

Papal infallibility

A controversial doctrine that alarmed moderate Catholics, as it says that when making an official statement on matters of faith, the Pope cannot be in error

Antisemitism

Basically racism towards Jews

Dreyfus Affair

The Dreyfus Affair was a political and social scandal in France that lasted from 1894 to 1906. It centered around the false accusation and conviction of Jewish French army officer Alfred Dreyfus for treason, despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence. The scandal exposed widespread antisemitism within French society and the military, and it led to significant political upheaval and societal divisions. 

Pogroms

Attacks on Jews used in Russia

Zionism

The idea that the only hope to live in peace would be through the establishment of a Jewish homeland

Theodore Herzl

Leading advocate for Zionism, Austrian journalist who was horrified over the antisemitism that bubbled over the surface as a result of the Dreyfus Affair, and he argued that Jews must have a state of their own and began to form a worldwide organization to achieve this goal

Cult of domesticity

The idealization of the household and the female’s place within it, used in the Victorian period, women were expected to exhibit certain traits to make the home a “blissful paradise”

Feminism

A growing number of women criticizing the civil disabilities under which they lived, such as the lack of right to divorce or to possess property, and they developed organizations to bring about change

Suffragists

Women who worked peacefully for the right to vote

Women’s Social and Political Union

Formed by Emmeline Pankhurst to pursue a military campaign to help gain rights

Emmeline Pankhurst

A feminist who led the suffragettes

Romanticism

A rejection of what was viewed as the cold rationalism of 18th-century Neoclassicism and instead place a much higher value on the primacy of emotions and feeling

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emilie

Inspired Romanticism with his novel, which proposed an educational program for a young man in which the education was derived from nature and not from rote memorization of facts

William Wordsworth

“I’ve come too far to watch some name dropping sleaze tell me what are my WORDSWORTH,” a famous poet who completely ignored the rules of punctuation which revealed their rejection of classical poetic forms

Victor Hugo

Invented the popular image of the Middle Ages in their novels since people during this time were fascinated with the Middle Ages and they romanticized it

Percy Bysshe Shelley

An English Romantic poet who rebelled against the conservative values found in his country

Wolfgang von Goethe

Was a highly influential German writer, poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, and statesman. He was a key figure in the Weimar Classicism movement and is considered one of the most important figures in German literature. His works, particularly Faust and The Sorrows of Young Werther, continue to be studied and admired for their exploration of human emotions and the human condition

Ludwig von Beethoven

Important composer who began to write compositions that broke with earlier classical forms by adjusting their length and doing unheard-of-things, he was able to break from tradition because he was the first composer to earn his living directly with proceeds from compositions and performances

Frederic Chopin

Influenced by the music of the peasants of his native Poland

Photography

Beginning to have a significant impact on painting while also serving as a new art form in its own right

George Eastman

Introduced flexible film and the first box camera, which made photography into something far less expensive that could be enjoyed by the masses

Realists

Wanted to show people the actual condition of those on the bottom of the social order through art and literature

Gustave Courbet

Painted works that rejected the romantic traditions of the day and instead focused on showing the world of the peasants it all its grim reality

Charles Dickens

Used his brief experience in a blacking factory as the basis for his critique of industrialized society

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Almost executed for his participation in an illegal political group, this experience transformed him and pushed him in a conservative directions in both his politics and his interest in the psychological and moral obligations of man

Emilie Zola, “J’accuse”

French man who applied social sciences to his novel, wrote a series of novels dealing with a family over several generations which showed how environment and heredity were the critical factors in explaining their moral and physical degeneration, he also defended Alfred Dreyfus in the letter “J’accuse”

Impressionists

Wanted to capture the shimmering effects of light, and they started painting outdoors

Claude Monet

Impressionist painter who would paint themes at different times of day or in different seasons to show how the impact of light would transform it, most famous for his landscapes

Vincent van Gogh

Painter who influenced 20th century Expressionists, who sought to put their deepest emotions on canvas, he painted landscapes of sunflowers and cypress trees with bright colors and bold brush strokes in provide them with a deep emotional intensity

Pablo Picasso

Most revolutionary artist of the 20th century, made an irreparable break with the single-point perspective that had been central to Western art since the time of the Italian Renaissance