Strayer 18, Industrialization

1/23/2016

This one's a beast, don't let it sneak up on you!

mabel hartman

1/23/2016 01:47:49 pm

let's get this party started!
mq#2: what was distinctive about britain that may help to explain its status as the breakthrough point of the industrial revolution?
- britain was the most highly commercialized of europe's larger countries
- agricultural innovations (crop rotation, selective breeding of animals, lighter plows and higher-yielding seeds) increased agricultural output, kept food prices low, and freed labor up from the country
- guilds had disappeared, allowing employers to run their manufacturing as they saw fit
- the growing population ensured a steady supply of industrial workers
- british aristocrats took part in mining and manufacturing enterprises
- british commerce extended around the world
- british political life encouraged commercialization and economic innovations
- religious tolerance welcomed people with technical skills regardless of their beliefs
- britain had a unified internal market
- in britain, the scientific revolution was based on observation/experimentation, precise measurements, mechanical devices, and practical commercial applications
- britain had a ready supply of coal and iron ore
- its island location protected it from invasions and its fluid society allowed for adjustments in social changes without widespread revolutions
if anyone has something they want to add, please don't hesitate to do so! :-)

Bingham

1/24/2016 10:35:34 am

This looks great!

mabel hartman

1/24/2016 08:41:18 am

i'm feeling a little iffy about this one, so feedback would be appreciated!
mq#3: how did the industrial revolution transform british society?
- caused a rapid population growth
- the british aristocracy declined, as they had to make way for businessmen, manufacturers and bankers who had been enriched by the industrial revolution
- tariffs on foreign agricultural imports were abolished
- landownership ceased to be the basis of great wealth and businessmen led the work parties

Bingham

1/24/2016 10:39:53 am

I would add a couple of fleshy points to this:

As Britain’s industrial economy matured, it gave rise to a sizeable “lower middle class”—people employed in the growing service sector as clerks, salespeople, bank tellers, hotel staff, secretaries, telephone operators, police officers, and the like. This group distinguished itself from the working class because they did not undertake manual labor.

The laboring classes lived in new, overcrowded, and poorly serviced urban environments; they labored in industrial factories where new and monotonous work, performed under constant supervision designed to enforce work discipline, replaced the more varied drudgery of earlier periods. Ultimately, members of the laboring classes developed new forms of sociability, including “friendly societies” that provided some insurance against sickness, a decent funeral, and an opportunity for social life in an otherwise bleak environment. Over time, laboring classes also sought greater political participation, organized after 1824 into trade unions to improve their conditions, and developed socialist ideas that challenged the assumptions of capitalist society.

Artisans and those who labored in agriculture declined in prominence.

mabel hartman

1/24/2016 12:14:01 pm

thanks, mr. bingham!

Bingham

1/24/2016 10:47:55 am

From our world history perspective, I think this is a key question. (I've sort of reworked a BPQ that wasn't in the form of a question.)

What was common to the process of industrialization everywhere, and in what ways did that process vary from place to place?

In the process of industrialization everywhere, new technologies and sources of energy generated vast increases in production, and unprecedented urbanization took place.

Class structures changed as aristocrats, artisans, and peasants declined as classes, while the middle classes and a factory-working class grew in numbers and social prominence.

Middle-class women generally withdrew from paid labor altogether, while working-class women sought to do so after marriage.

Working women usually received lower wages than their male counterparts, had difficulty joining unions, and were subject to charges that they were taking jobs from men.

Working-class frustration and anger gave rise to trade unions and socialist movements.

The pace and timing of the Industrial Revolution varied by country. Other variables include the size and shape of major industries, the role of the state, the political expression of social conflict, and the relative influence of Marxism.

Bingham

1/24/2016 10:52:52 am

And because I'm in a generous mood (I went to a great wedding last night) I'll answer one more thorny question for you.

How did Karl Marx understand the Industrial Revolution? In what ways did his ideas have an impact in the industrializing world of the nineteenth century?
Marx saw the Industrial Revolution as the story of class struggle between the oppressor (the bourgeoisie, or the owners of industrial capital) and the oppressed (the proletariat, or the industrial working class).

For Marx, the Industrial Revolution bore great promise as a phase in human history, for it made humankind far more productive, thus bringing the end of poverty in sight.

However, according to Marx, capitalist societies could never eliminate poverty, because private property, competition, and class hostility prevented those societies from distributing the abundance of industrial economies to the workers whose labor had created that abundance.

Marx predicted the eventual collapse of capitalism amid a working-class revolution as society polarized into rich and poor. After that revolution, Marx looked forward to a communist future in which the great productive potential of industrial technology would be placed in the service of the entire community.

In terms of its impact in the industrializing world of the nineteenth century, Marx’s ideas were echoed in the later decades of the nineteenth century among more radical trade unionists and some middle-class intellectuals in Britain, and even more so in a rapidly industrializing Germany.

But the British working-class movement by then was not overtly revolutionary, and when the working-class political party known as the Labour Party was established in the 1890s, it advocated a reformist program and a peaceful democratic transition to socialism, largely rejecting the class struggle and revolutionary emphasis of Marxism.

cathleen

1/24/2016 07:42:21 pm

I'll go for number 4, mostly because of the picture on this page. Seriously. Take out strayer and open it to The Middle Classes and just appreciate it. You will not regret it.
How did Britain's middle classes change during the nineteenth century?
-Upper levels of the middle class had wealthy business men who were assimilated into aristocratic life, living it up. (I envision late 1800s era middle class men with beards, sipping champagne to Fergalicious in a limousine)
-There was a different level of middle class business men with your doctors and lawyers and more intellectual professions and they had their own values and outlooks going on. (liberal politically and wanted a constitutional government, private property, free trade, and social reform) Their main value was respectability-being morally and socially upright. They focused on thriftiness, hard work, and cleanliness.
-Women in the middle class were the educators of these values. They were also homemakers and wives and and started shopping for hobby and had to create a safe haven at home for her man while he was busy working out in cruel capitalism -hey, this is starting to sound really familiar... some middle class women worked in the teaching, clerical, and nursing professions later on.
(laboring class women did work alongside their husbands, but still weren't getting any groundbreaking equality, so don't get excited.)
-as the economy progressed, the lower middle class increase with jobs like clerks, police officers, hotel workers, secretaries, the work. They represented 20 percent of britian's population and gave job opportunity to women and men in the level.
Okay, so there is not a margin question for the laboring strata- They wouldn't be lumped with the middle class, would they? Aren't they their own distinct class? Are we going to have to make a diy margin question for this section?

Bingham

1/25/2016 04:05:50 am

The working class are distinct, they're dealing with low wages, horrible working conditions, and ultimately will turn to trade unions. Think Tiny Tim, or Oliver Twist.

Carson Introligator

1/26/2016 07:09:50 pm

Alright so here's my answer to MQ1. Please add anything I neglected to find cause I definitely feel like I'm missing something on this answer.

In what respects did the roots of the Industrial Revolution lie within Europe? In what ways did that transformation have global roots?
-Some patterns of European internal development favored innovation.
-European rulers had an unusual alliance with the merchant class.
-Europe was at the center of the most varied exchange network.
-The Americas provided raw materials, silver, and foods for Europe.
-Contact with culturally different peoples encouraged change and innovation.

here's the switch to the "global roots" part of the question

-Other parts of the world (like China and the Islamic world) had times of great technological and scientific flourishing.
-Other parts of the world (China, Japan, and India) had developed market-based economies by the eighteenth century.

elle norman

1/26/2016 07:22:31 pm

I'm gonna answer mq question 6 because I know it needs a little work:

What were the differences between industrialization in the United States and that in Russia?

1. In the United States, an industrialized economy was created without much direct government intervention.
2. In Russia, change was initiated by the state itself
This was their continuing effort to catch up with the more powerful states of Europe.
3. In the United States, working-class consciousness did not develop as quickly and did not become as radical unlike Russia,
USA workers were allowed to unionize and vote=USA workers got better wages and conditions.
4. Russian industrialization was associated with the 5 year plan of Stalin and socialism

I know I'm missing some more too so if anybody has any suggestions

cathleen

1/27/2016 09:57:34 am

With comparison questions, I always try to show the direct differences between both places- like for your first point, you might want to say how russia was different from the us in terms of government intervention. When we were taking a test a few chapters ago, bingham said one of the comparison questions needed to have eight points- everyone started freaking out, but you only needed four differences. From those four differences, you had to say how the two places differed-which gave eight points. Does that make sense? This is my answer for this question, maybe it'll make more sense:
-US industrialization took place in western democracy
-Russian industrialization took place under absolute monarchy with immense state control
(that's one difference, but two points)
-any social and economic change in the us was due to the workers and businessmen seeking new opportunities
-any kind of change in russia was by the state trying to keep up with europe
-US working class consciousness was not as radical as Russia's, because of the better treatment and conditions US workers had than russians
-industrialization in russia was associated with the violent revolution inspired by socialism

Just so you get full credit for your answers on these differences questions, try to say how that compares to the other place.
Picking up what I'm putting down?

Strayer 18, Industrialization

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