The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment (1650-1815)

• What was the Enlightenment

  • It was an intellectual movement

    • Not a monolithic movement 

 Influences

• Influenced by the Scientific Revolution 

  • Descartes and Bacon 

    • Their views on how to gather information, what is true, and how to get there heavily influenced the Enlightenment.

•  Spread

  • Spread through the intellectual society 

    • Academic Journals 

      • Middle Class and Upper Class knowledge with others 

    • Academic Societies 

      • will be there to critique it, so they can read over it.  

      • Publish things so that people can read them, critique them, and, as a group, come to a shared knowledge. 

    • Universities 

      • overflowing into the everyday life of middle and upper-class people. (used to be the domain of the church) 

    • Coffee Houses 

      • People discussed the great issues of the day with their peers. 

The Importance of Reason

• Supreme confidence in the rational world 

• Summation of the Scientific Revolution 

 Influence of the Scientific Revolution

 Traditions Questioned by the Enlightenment

• Morality 

• Human Nature 

• Political Philosophy 

  • Where does a ruler get their power from? 

• Religion

  • Especially Christianity 

What Changed in Europe? 

• Cultural Changes

 Population Growth 

• Lots of reasons, the BIGGEST CHANGE IS Agricultural Growth  

 Agricultural Growth 

• Most people are farmers 

• Better Infrastructure 

• Farming innovations 

 Colonial Trade

• Wealth is important to live in healthier and sanitary conditions 

• People are getting richer from 

  • Industry 

  • Commercial Ventures 

  • Products from the New World 

• Sugar is a luxury product 

  • Came from modern day India 

• New, cheap crops and filled with nutrients 

  • kept them strong and healthy, resulting in longer life spans, which resulted in population growth

 Plagues 

• Fewer plague outbreaks 

 The “Putting-Out” System 

• How do products come into the world/market 

  • City merchants purchase raw materials

  • Raw materials distributed to rural workers

  • Workers fashioned materials into textiles

  • Workers paid by what they produced 

  • Rural economy changed

 Process and impact

• The rural economy changed

• interaction with city dwellers

Urbanization

• Industrial towns grew significantly

  • Especially towns that were dedicated to industry  

  • By 1800s, London had nearly one million people 

    • London, Liverpool, and Frankfurt grew exponentially 

 Growth of the Middle Class 

• Education 

  • More people got an education 

    • Able to read and write journals 

    • The better the education, the more likely one is to succeed in society 

  • Money 

    • Didn’t have a ton of money in the Middle Class  

  • Fashion 

    • Clearly able to purchase fashionable/fancy items 

  • Elegant furniture 

    • Beds

    • Dresser 

    • Mirrors 

 Urban Changes

 Poor

• Don’t have land, aren’t farming, have no houses

• Living on the streets in places like London and Liverpool 

• Couldn’t get jobs because they couldn’t get them 

• Doesn’t have a place to live and is low-income 

• Living on the streets 

• Bad sanitary places 

• No welfare and healthcare benefits 

• No income from the government 

 Waste 

• Dumping garbage in the streets  

• Sewage system with bad toilets 

• Most houses do not have flushing toilets  

 Manufacturing

•  Journeymen and Apprentices  

  • Live and learn from the masters about trade 

Commercial Revolution 

• Increased demand for luxury goods  

• Service industries expanded