Key Concept 5.1 Industrialization and Global Capitalism

Like the Neolithic Revolution that occurred 10,000 years before it, the Industrial Revolution dramatically transformed the way humans lived their lives to a degree that is hard to exaggerate. It is not difficult to define industrialization; it is simply the use of machines to make human labor more efficient and produce things much faster. As simple as this sounds, however, it brought about such sweeping changes that it virtually transformed the world, even areas in which industrialization did not occur. The change was so basic that it could not help but affect all areas of people's lives in every part of the globe.

See Crash Course video on the Industrial Revolution HERE.

The Industrial Revolution began in England in the late 18th century, and spread during the 19th century to Belgium, Germany, Northern France, the United States, and Japan. Almost all areas of the world felt the effects of the Industrial Revolution because it divided the world into "have" and "have not" countries, with many of the latter being controlled by the former. England's lead in the Industrial Revolution translated into economic prowess and political power that allowed colonization of other lands, eventually building a worldwide British Empire. See short VIDEO here.

I. Industrialization fundamentally changed how goods were produced.

A. A variety of factors led to the rise of industrial production

Geography - Europe’s location on the Atlantic, with its numerous harbors and ports, gave it

access to natural resources and markets outside its borders. Industrial production occurred at

such a dramatic rate—machines require massive amounts of raw materials and produce huge

quantities of products—that access to foreign resources and markets was a necessity for

industrial growth.

Natural resources - Britain had large and accessible supplies of coal and iron - two of the most

important raw materials used to produce the goods for the early Industrial Revolution. Also

available was water power to fuel the new machines, harbors for its merchant ships, and rivers

for inland transportation. Industrial growth also depended on an abundant supply of navigable

rivers and canals, especially in the early stages before the railroads came.

Social Changes – Factories require large investments of money (capital), so a thriving

bourgeois class with wealth to invest was a basis for industrialization. The hereditary wealth of

the aristocracy was less relevant. In fact, societies without a solid bourgeoisie had to rely on

foreign investment to industrialize (think of the British investing in Ottoman and Russia industrial

development). Because factories concentrate labor into small areas, urbanization was a

requirement for industrialization.

Large agricultural surpluses - The Industrial Revolution would not have been possible without a

series of improvements in agriculture first in England, then spreading to other areas. Beginning

in the early1700s, wealthy landowners began to enlarge their farms through enclosure, or

fencing or hedging large blocks of land for experiments with new techniques of farming. These

scientific farmers improved crop rotation methods, which carefully controlled nutrients in the soil.

The larger the farms and the better the production the fewer farmers were needed. Farmers

pushed out of their jobs by enclosure either became tenant farmers or they moved to cities.

Better nutrition boosted England's population, creating the first necessary component for the

Industrial Revolution: labor.

Advanced financial practices - During the previous era, Britain had already built many of the

economic practices and structures necessary for economic expansion, as well as a middle class

(the bourgeoisie) that had experience with trading and manufacturing goods. Banks were well

established, and they provided loans for businessmen to invest in new machinery and expand

their operations.

A cooperative government – In Western Europe, particularly Britain, governments supported the

interests of the business class and developing industries (think of England’s support of the East

India Company). They gave legal protection for contracts and private property, a move that took

some of the risk out of investing capital. Political stability also allowed for industrial growth.

Britain's political development during this period was fairly stable, with no major internal

upheavals occurring, and industrialization only occurred in earnest in the United States until

after the turmoil of the Civil War. Even then, the government facilitated immigration to need to

need for industrial labor in the U.S.

B. The transformation of labor, power, and machines In a factory, the entire production process took place under one roof. Whereas agricultural societies worked together as families around the place they lived, industrial workers had to leave home to go to work each day. In agricultural settings, a person had to learn many different things and performed a variety of tasks year round. In factories jobs became specialized and a worker usually did the same repetitive thing all day in front of a machine. Labor no longer revolved around the rising and setting of the sun or seasons, but was ordered by the clock. Days became organized mathematically.

C. The first factories emerged near rivers and streams for water power, but with the discovery of the energy stored in fossil fuels such as coal and oil, location on rivers was not as important. Coal transformed power by allowing for steam engines. During the Second Industrial revolution gas engines and electricity emerged.

Women and children were among the laborers in the textile industry during the early Industrial Revolution

The earliest transformation of the Industrial Revolution was Britain's textile industry. In 1750 Britain already exported wool, linen, and cotton cloth, and the profits of cloth merchants were boosted by speeding up the process by which spinners and weavers made cloth. One invention led to another since none were useful if any part of the process was slower than the others. Some key inventions were:

The flying shuttle - John Kay's invention carried threads of yarn back and forth when the weaver

pulled a handle, greatly increasing the weavers' productivity.

The spinning jenny - James Hargreaves' invention allowed one spinner to work eight threads at

a time, increasing the output of spinners, allowing them to keep up with the weavers.

Hargreaves named the machine for his daughter.

The water frame - Richard Arkwright's invention replaced the hand-driven spinning jenny with

one powered by water power, increasing spinning productivity even more.

The spinning mule - In 1779, Samuel Crompton combined features of the spinning jenny and

the water frame to produce the spinning mule. It made thread that was stronger, finer, and more

consistent than that made by earlier machines. He followed this invention with the power loom

that sped up the weaving process to match the new spinners.

The Spinning Jenny was a transitional invention between the spinning wheel and larger steam-driven

machines.

D. The Industrial Revolution occurred exclusively in Britain for about 50 years, but it eventually

spread to other countries in Europe, the United States, Russia, and Japan. British entrepreneurs and

government officials forbade the export of machinery, manufacturing techniques, and skilled workers

to other countries but the technologies spread by luring British experts with lucrative offers, and even

smuggling secrets into other countries. By the mid-19th century industrialization had spread to

France, Germany, Belgium, and the United States.

The earliest center of industrial production in continental Europe was Belgium, where coal, iron,

textile, glass, and armaments production flourished. By 1830 French firms had employed many

skilled British workers to help establish the textile industry, and railroad lines began to appear across

Western Europe. Germany was a little later in developing industry, mainly because no centralized

government existed there yet. After German political unification in 1871, the new empire soon rivaled

England in terms of industrial production.

Industrialization in the United States was delayed until the country had enough laborers and money to invest in business. Both came from Europe, where overpopulation and political revolutions sent immigrants to the United States to seek their fortunes. The American Civil War (1861-1865) delayed further immigration until the 1870s. The United States had abundant natural resources; land, water, coal and iron ore; and after the great wave of immigration from Europe and Asia in the late 19th century; it also had the labor. During the late 1800s, industrialization spread to Russia and Japan, in both cases by government initiatives.

E. The period of production from the mid-nineteenth century to World War I is often called the

“Second Industrial Revolution.” Although the basic principles of industrialization remained the same,

this period perfected the production of steel which in turn led to the rise of tall buildings in cities and

more precise machinery to produce more complex goods. This period also saw great advancements

in chemistry and medicine, in electrical motors and the internal combustion engine.

II. New patterns of global trade and production developed and further integrated the global

economy as industrialists sought raw materials and new markets for the increasing amount

and array of goods produced in their factories.

A. As we have seen, the rapid production of goods during the Industrial Revolution created the need

for large amounts of raw materials. This need created economic links between advanced industrial

nations and less developed nations of the world. Many countries in Latin America, sub-Saharan

Africa, south Asia, and Southeast Asia became highly dependent on a single cash crop for export -

such as sugar, cotton, and rubber - giving them the nickname of "Banana Republics." Such

economies were very vulnerable to any change in the international market. Foreign investors owned

and controlled the plantations that produced these crops, and most of the profits went to them. Very

little of the profits actually improved the living conditions for people that lived in those areas, and

since they had little money to spend, a market economy could not develop. A prime example of this

integration between industrial and export economies is the relationship between England, on the one

hand, and India and Egypt on the other.

To meet the needs of its textile industry, the British encouraged the growing of cotton in

undeveloped places like Egypt and India. This became especially important to the British during the

American civil war, when the flow of cotton coming in from the United States dropped significantly.

Large loans from England funded irrigation projects, railroads, and other improvements; much land

was devoted to the cultivation of cotton. However, after the conclusion of the U.S. Civil War,

American cotton took much of this business back from the Egyptians. The Egyptian economy

crashed. Debilitated by crushing debt, Egypt declared bankruptcy in 1876. They were occupied by

the British six years later.

India did not fare better. Indian politicians and landlords converted their fields to cotton in order to

meet the demand in Britain. The indigenous workers were paid next to nothing. The cotton was sent

to textile mills in England, made into clothing, and exported around the world. Some of these textiles

came back to India and were purchased by the upper classes who had earned the money to do so

by exploiting the labor of lower class Indians.

B. One significant result in these undeveloped areas was the decline in agricultural production in

order to supply raw materials to industrial nations. Most families in India supported themselves by

farming and raising livestock. After Britain colonized India, people there began to devote part of their

land to the cultivation of cotton, often in order to pay taxes to the English government. Cotton is

notoriously hard on the soil. It drains the nutrients very quickly and prefers virgin land. As the fertility

of the land dropped, and less land was used to grow food, severe famine came to India in the late

1870s. Several million Indians died of starvation.

In the Congo in central Africa, rubber was the most important export. In the late 19th century the

Africans suffered horrendous atrocities under the Belgian king Leopold II. Natives unable to harvest

set quotas in rubber trees were mutilated and beaten. Agricultural production dropped significantly

and many starved to death. During its colonial period, about 10 million Congolese perished—fifty

percent of its population.

C. Producing large quantities of goods on machines makes no profit unless there are markets—

people to buy those things. Moreover, industrial production occurs so fast that it quickly saturates

local and national markets. Thus industrial societies thrive on being able to sell their goods to people

outside of their borders and they usually depend on their government to secure these overseas

markets.

As the Industrial Revolution grew in the early 19th century, the nations of Europe turned to China

with its seemingly unlimited number of potential consumers. Remember that in the previous unit

(1450-1750) the Qing Dynasty had closed its doors to foreign imports, and would only take payment

in silver and gold for their own exports. To reverse this one-way flow of wealth into China and force

them to open to European goods, Britain used a flower.

The opium flower, which grew in the British colony of India, was long known to be a powerful and

addictive narcotic. The British began to smuggle it into China to create a market for goods that they

could supply from their colony in India. The resulting Opium Wars led to the forced opening of China

as a market for the manufactured goods of Europe.

D. Industrialization also created a renewed interest in mining activities. As mentioned earlier, one of

the advances of the Second Industrial Revolution was the harnessing of electricity. This

revolutionary change brought a surge in demand for a metal that had been known to mankind for

thousands of years. Copper was the ideal metal for conducting and creating electrical current.

Although household electrical power was not generally available in the 19th century, electricity was

beginning to find its first applications. Moreover, copper was the preferred material for the thousands

of miles of telegraph cables that were connecting the world at this time. Thus it quickly gained a new

global importance. The Rothschild family of France, perhaps the world’s premier banking family,

invested heavily in the copper mines in Mexico’s northern frontier. Although the majority of profits

from these copper mines went to foreign investors, many Mexican peasants became wage earning

miners and Mexico became a major player in the global copper market.

Mining also attracted the imperial powers to South Africa. The British first showed interest in South Africa after Napoleon invaded Egypt and cut English trade routes to India. To secure the southern route to India, the British occupied the Dutch colony of Cape Town and drove the settlers, called Afrikaners, to the north where they formed several independent white republics. After the Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, British interest in south Africa began to wane and they tolerated these Afrikaner states. This all changed after diamonds and gold were discovered in the late 19th century. Thousands of British miners and fortune-hunters rushed into south Africa where they clashed with the Afrikaners. The resulting Boer War led to British victory and the Union of South Africa, a British settler colony that created peace between the English and Dutch only by granting them dominion over the black indigenous people. This would culminate into the formal system of Apartheid in the mid 20th century.

III. To facilitate investments at all levels of industrial production, financiers developed and expanded

various financial institutions.

The ideological basis of industrial capitalism

The most important idea behind industrialization is capitalism, the belief that capital (wealth) and the means of production (the tools that increase the value of raw materials) should be owned privately. It is to be contrasted with socialism, which holds that the means of production should be owned communally and the wealth produced therein should be shared.

Adam Smith is considered the father of Capitalism.

Capitalism is associated with the thought of the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith. Smith believed that self-interest is the most basic motivation of economic activity, and should not be interfered with. If people are allowed to keep the wealth they create, and pursue their selfish goals, they will produce more, and this will in turn benefit the most people in a society. He expressed this in his most famous statement:

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.

John Stuart Mill pioneered modern liberalism, the idea of individual freedom.

Thus capitalists believe that the buying and selling of goods should be free from government regulations and tariffs. Free markets will produce the most wealth and benefit the greatest number of people at all levels of society.

Closely tied to capitalism is the philosophy of Classical Liberalism. In the same way that capitalists believe the economy should not be regulated by the government, Liberalism holds that individual choice should not be limited by those in power. This idea of liberty, most associated with the English philosopher John Stuart Mill, maintains that an individual should be able to do anything they freely chose as long as it does not harm another person. Consequently, Classical Liberals believe in freedom of speech, the press, and individual belief. They echo the voices of the earlier Enlightenment in that a government should have the consent of its people.

New Changes in Financing and Business

These ideas of liberty, private ownership, and the ability to invest capital freely, combined to form new financial instruments that improved methods of industrial investment. Joint-stock companies, which formed in the previous era to fund trade ventures into the Indian Ocean, matured during industrialization into advanced stock markets. Factories are expensive, and it is not often that an individual can fund them, nor is it wise to place one’s entire fortune into a single business venture. To share the cost and risks of operating factories, many investors would pool their capital together. Thus was born the corporation, a business owned by the stockholders who invest in it. Each investor would purchase “shares” (or stock) in the business, and as earnings increased, investors divided the profits or loses according to the number of shares they possessed. Exchanges developed in London and New York for the sole purpose of buying and selling stocks. Now, most anyone with wealth could invest and benefit from expensive business ventures in which they could never have participated individually. A wealthy business class of entrepreneurs emerged; the aristocracy was obsolete. The activities of corporations could cross borders. An example of a transcontinental corporation is the United Fruit Company. Formed in the United States in 1899, the United Fruit Company did most of its business in fruit producing regions of Central America, the Caribbean, and parts of South America. It became so powerful in these areas that it gained a monopoly over them and grew to be a powerful influence on the governments there, urging politicians to create land and taxation policies favorable to their business.

IV. There were major developments in transportation and communications.

Once the textile industry began its exponential growth, transportation of raw materials to factories and manufactured goods to customers had to be worked out. New inventions in transportation spurred the Industrial Revolution further. A key invention was the steam engine that was perfected by James Watt in the late 1790s. Although steam power had been used before, Watt invented ways to make it practical and efficient to use for both water and land transportation. Perhaps the most revolutionary use of steam energy was the railroad engine, which drove English industry after 1820. The first long-distance rail line from the coastal city of Liverpool to inland Manchester was an immediate success upon its completion in 1830, and within a few decades, most British cities were connected by rail. Railroads revolutionized life in Britain in several ways:

1. Railroads gave manufacturers a cheap way to transport materials and finished products.

2. The railroad boom created hundreds of thousands of new jobs for both railroad workers and miners.

3. The railroad industry spawned new industries and inventions and increased the productivity of

others. For example, agricultural products could be transported farther without spoiling, so farmers

benefited from the railroads.

4. Railroads transported people, allowing them to work in cities far away from their homes and travel to

resort areas for leisure.

As revolutionary as the railroads were, they did not replace transportation by water. Steam engines replaced sails as the source of power on large ships. To increase the accessibility of steam powered ships, nations embarked on several projects of canal construction. The Erie Canal, which opened in the United States in 1825, ran over 350 miles to connect the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. More importantly, the British and French constructed the 100 mile Suez Canal in Egypt, which allowed for all-water passage from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea without having to navigate around Africa. Egypt gained a much higher strategic importance because of the Canal. In 1881 work began on the Panama Canal which was completed by the first year of World War I. Shorter ship routes allowed imperial nations to have more direct control over their colonies by reducing the time it took to communicate and travel. Methods of communication were changing as well. The telegraph could send a message from London to India in only a few hours. Now, imperial capital cities could respond to colonial crises faster. Merchants could relay messages about market demand and make orders for raw materials on a daily basis. In short, improved transportation and communication helped empires control and exploit their colonies with greater efficiency; imperial nations could now micromanage colonies.

V. The development and spread of global capitalism led to a variety of responses.

The Industrial Revolution created a huge gap between the wealthy and the laboring masses, a contrast that did not go unnoticed by the critics of the new industrial society.

One group of critics, the Utopian Socialists, interpreted Enlightenment ideas of equality to mean social and economic equality in addition to political equality. They wanted the workers, rather than private investors, to collectively own the means of production and share in the wealth that their labor on machines created. Robert Owen, for example, created an industrial village in which the profits of industrial production when back into the community. At New Lanark, his industrial community in Scotland, workers lived and worked in clean, healthy facilities, a condition that astonished the many visitors drawn to see this experience first hand. Instead of working in factories, children were educated. Owens left Scotland to create another socialist industrial settlement in the United States, New Harmony.

More radical than the Utopian Socialists were the communists. Karl Marx, the founder of modern

communism, wondered how a system that produced enormous amounts of wealth could also perpetuate

such wide spread poverty. Marx first wrote about his interpretation of history and vision for the future in The

Communist Manifesto in 1848. He saw capitalism, or the free market, as an economic system that exploited

workers and increased the gap between the rich and the poor. He believed that conditions in capitalist

countries would eventually become so bad that workers would join together in a Revolution of the Proletariat

(workers), and overcome the bourgeoisie, or owners of factories and other means of production. Marx

envisioned a new world after the revolution, one in which social class would disappear because ownership

of private property would be banned. According to Marx, communism encourages equality and cooperation,

and without property to encourage greed and strife, governments would be unnecessary. His theories took

root in Europe, but never became the philosophy behind European governments, but it eventually took new

forms in early 20th century Russia and China.

The revolution Marx longed for never occurred in the industrial West or the United States. In the late 19th century, various reform movements raised the standard of living for workers to a degree that quenched the revolutionary spirit of the Proletariat. Thus, in England and the United States, the revolution took place at the ballot box. At the beginning of the 19th century, the lower classes in these nations could not vote because property ownership was a requirement for suffrage. Once these requirements were dropped, the working classes gained suffrage, and they voted for politicians sympathetic to their conditions. Soon, laws restricting child labor were passed. Minimum wages and maximum hours of the work per week were set by law. Later on, labor unions were permitted and workers gained the right of collective bargaining. In the newly formed nation of Germany, the government created welfare systems such as unemployment protection, healthcare and retirement programs. It is not surprising that the place where Marxism did become an organized political party was the country in which the workers’ voices could not be heard. Russian industrial laborers did not get the right to vote, so the reforms that benefited workers in Europe and the USA did not come to Russia. Thus Russians were more likely to be drawn to radical ideas and their manifold expressions. The Bolshevik party, Russia’s communist party, was born. Others, called Anarchists, advocated the elimination of government altogether. An anarchist assassinated Tsar Alexander II in the latter half of the 19th century. There were some civilizations whose traditional culture did not provide fertile ground for the growth of industrialization. In China, Confucians had long been suspicious of merchants and their activity. Moreover, the competitive nature of market capitalism impelled businesses to always seek the cheapest sources of materials and the most profitable markets in which to sell them. This practice was corrosive to the bonds of social loyalty and reciprocity favored by Confucian thought. Conservatives in the Ottoman Empire struggled with similar issues. The warrior elites were supported by agriculture, so they attempted to maintain former methods of economic production.

State sponsored Industrialization outside the West In Russia the tsarist government encouraged the construction of railroads to link places within the vast reaches of the empire. The most impressive one was the Trans-Siberian line constructed between 1891 and 1904, linking Moscow to Vladivostock on the Pacific Ocean. The railroads also gave Russians access to the empire's many coal and iron deposits, and by 1900 Russia ranked fourth in the world in steel production. The Tsar ordered the emancipation of the serfs, in large part to provide an industrial labor force. During the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese government also pushed industrialization, hiring thousands of foreign experts to instruct Japanese workers and mangers in the late 1800s. Railroads were constructed, mines were opened, a banking system was organized, and industries were started that produced ships, armaments, silk, cotton, chemicals, and glass. By 1900 Japan was the most industrialized land in Asia, and was set to become a 20th century power.

The Welfare state The conditions of industrial society led some people to change their conception of the role of government. The Enlightenment taught that governments were to protect people’s individual freedoms and property. Beyond this, they were to basically stay out of people’s lives and the economy. But with industrialization, some nations began to conceive of a new role for government: looking after the welfare of its people. The first nation in Europe to adopt this view was the newest. Germany had only formed in 1871, but its government, under Bismarck, created a state pension (retirement) plan, government sponsored healthcare, and unemployment benefits for those out of work. The welfare state had been born, and in the next 50 years would spread across Europe and North America to varying degrees.

VI. The ways in which people organized themselves into societies also underwent significant

transformation in the industrialized states due to the fundamental restructuring of the global

economy.

Industrial changes: social classes

A major social change brought about by the Industrial Revolution was the development of a relatively large middle class, or "bourgeoisie" in industrialized countries. This class had been growing in Europe since medieval days when wealth was based on land, and most people were peasants. With the advent of industrialization, wealth was increasingly based on money and success in business enterprises, although the status of inherited titles of nobility based on land ownership remained in place. However, land had never produced such riches as did business enterprises of this era, and so members of the bourgeoisie were the wealthiest people around.

However, most members of the middle class were not wealthy, owning small businesses or serving as managers or administrators in large businesses. They generally had comfortable lifestyles, and many were concerned with respectability, or the demonstration that they were of a higher social class than factory workers were. They valued the hard work, ambition, and individual responsibility that had led to their own success, and many believed that the lower classes only had themselves to blame for their failures. This attitude generally extended not to just the urban poor, but to people who still farmed in rural areas. The urban poor were often at the mercy of business cycles; swings between economic hard times to recovery and growth. Factory workers were laid off from their jobs during hard times, making their lives even more difficult. With this recurrent unemployment came public behaviors, such as drunkenness and fighting, that appalled the middle class, who stressed sobriety, thrift, industriousness, and responsibility. Social class distinctions were reinforced by Social Darwinism, a philosophy by Englishman Herbert Spencer. He argued that human society operates by a system of natural selection, whereby individuals and ways of life automatically gravitate to their proper station. According to Social Darwinists, poverty was a "natural condition" for inferior individuals.

Industrial changes: gender roles Changes in gender roles generally fell along class lines, with relationships between men and women of the middle class being very different from those in the lower classes.

Lower class men and women: Factory workers often resisted the work discipline and pressures imposed by their middle class bosses. They worked long hours in unfulfilling jobs, and in their leisure time often engaged in things thought unrespectable by the middle class such as going to bars and pubs, and staging dog or chicken fights. Meanwhile, most of their wives were working, most commonly as domestic servants for middle class households, jobs that they usually preferred to factory work. Young women in rural areas often came to cities or suburban areas to work as house servants. They often sent some of their wages home to support their families in the country, and some saved dowry money. Others saved to support ambitions to become clerks or secretaries, jobs increasingly filled by women, but supervised by men. Middle class men and women:

Paus family portrait NFB-18645

When production moved outside the home, men who became owners or managers of factories gained status. Industrial work kept the economy moving, and it was valued more than the domestic chores traditionally carried out by women. Men's wages supported the families, since they usually were the ones who made their comfortable life styles possible. The work ethic of the middle class infiltrated leisure time as well. Many were intent on self-improvement, reading books or attending lectures on business or culture. Many factory owners and managers stressed the importance of church attendance for all, hoping that factory workers could be persuaded to adopt middle-class values of respectability. Middle class women generally did not work outside of the home, partly because men came to see stay-at-home wives as a symbol of their success. What followed was a "cult of domesticity" that justified removing women from the work place. Instead, they filled their lives with the care of children and the operation of their homes. Since most middle-class women had servants, they spent time supervising them, but they also had to do fewer household chores themselves.

Historians disagree in their answers to the question of whether or not gender inequality grew because of industrialization. Gender roles were generally fixed in agricultural societies, and if the lives of working class people in industrial societies are examined, it is difficult to see that any significant changes in the gender gap took place at all. However, middle class gender roles provide the real basis for the argument. On the one hand, some argue that women were forced out of many areas of meaningful work, isolated in their homes to obsess about issues of marginal importance. On the farm, their work was "women's work," but they were an integral part of the central enterprise of their time: agriculture. Their work in raising children was vital to the economy, but industrialization rendered children superfluous as well, whose only role was to grow up safely enough to fill their adult gender-related duties. On the other hand, the "cult of domesticity" included a sort of idolizing of women that made them responsible for moral values and standards. Women were seen as stable and pure, the vision of what kept their men devoted to the tasks of running the economy. Women as standard-setters, then, became the important force in shaping children to value respectability, lead moral lives, and be responsible for their own behaviors. Without women filling this important role, the entire social structure that supported industrialized power would collapse. And who could wish for more power than that?

Industrial changes: the family Because machinery had to be placed in a large, centrally located place, workers had to go to factories to perform their work, a major change in lifestyles from those of agricultural societies. In previous days all family members did most of their work on the farm, which meant that the family stayed together most of the time. Now, people left their homes for hours at a time, often leaving very early and not returning till very late. Usually both husband and wife worked away from home, and for most of this period, so did children. Family life was never the same again. In agricultural societies, what one meant by the word “family” usually consisted in a larger group of people than what we typically mean by that word today. Farm work required many members of extended families two work together: parents, children, aunts uncles and cousins blended together and usually thought of themselves as a single family unit. In industrial societies, parents and their children earned wages and became economically independent from other members of the extended family. This “nuclear” family lived under a single roof, often married later in life, were not arranged marriages like in previous times, and had fewer children.

Industrial changes: demographics

This era saw a basic change in the population structures of industrialized countries. Large families had always been welcome in agricultural societies because the more people a family had, the more land they were able to work. Children's work was generally worth more than it costs to take care of them. However, in the west, including the United States, the birth rate declined to historically low levels in the 19th century. This demographic transition from high birth rates to low reflected the facts that child labor was being replaced by machines and that children were not as useful as they were in agricultural societies. Instead, as life styles changed in urban settings, it became difficult to support large families, both in terms of supporting them with salaries from industrial jobs and in housing them in crowded conditions in the cities. High birth rates continued elsewhere in the world, so the west's percentage of total world population began to slip by 1900 even as its world power peaked.

Urban life During the Industrial Revolution, cities often grew faster than the infrastructure that supported them; rapid urbanization outpaced the implementation of sewage systems and other utilities. In this unsanitary environment, disease spread rapidly. In 1854, an outbreak of cholera in London led the city government to install a massive network of underground sewers. Dr. John Snow, by applying the scientific method, discovered the contamination source in a single water pump on Broad Street. Civil engineers designed a major underground sewage system to solve the problem of contaminated drinking water. Government action and science were solving major urban problems caused by industrialization and urban growth.

Key Concept 5.2 Imperialism and Nation-State Formation

"As states industrialized during this period, they also expanded their existing overseas colonies and established new types of colonies and transoceanic empires. Regional warfare and diplomacy both resulted in and were affected by this process of modern empire building. The process was led mostly by Europe, although not all states were affected equally, which led to an increase of European influence around the world. The United States and Japan also participated in this process. The growth of new empires challenged the power of existing land-based empires of Eurasia. New ideas about nationalism, race, gender, class, and culture also developed that facilitated the spread of transoceanic empires, as well as justified anti imperial resistance and the formation of new national identities." [1]

I. Industrial powers established transoceanic empires.

Key Concept 5.3 Nationalism, Revolution, and Reform In the late eighteenth century many people changed their mind about what made authority legitimate. Rather than basing political authority on divine right, some advocated new ideas about how the right to rule was bestowed. Many Enlightenment thinkers wanted broader participation in government and leaders who were more responsive to their people. This led to rebellions and independence movements against existing governments and the formation of new nations around the world. No longer content to be subjects of a king, new forms of group identity were formed around concepts such as culture, religion, shared history and race. Colonized people developed identities separate from the European societies from which they emerged.

I. The rise and diffusion of Enlightenment thought that questioned established traditions in all areas

of life often preceded the revolutions and rebellions against existing governments.

A. During the previous era (1450-1750) Europeans grew less reluctant challenging established authorities

on matters of culture, science and religion. Borrowing the methods of science, the new ways of

understanding the world began with one's direct observations or experience, organizing the data of that

experience, and only then evaluating political and social life. In a movement known as the Enlightenment,

European intellectuals applied these methods to human relationships around them. They did not hesitate to

question assumptions about government and society that had gone unquestioned for centuries. Dismissing

all inherited beliefs about social class and religion, they began from direct experience and asked why things

had to be the way they were.

B. Since the middle ages, religion formed the basis of most every aspect of life in Europe. The Church

sanctioned a hierarchical class system, supported the divine right of kings, and claimed to be the supreme

authority on all knowledge claims. It did so by claiming to be the custodians of divine revelations which

formed the basis of all that was true and were taken without question. During the Enlightenment, thinkers

doubted the church's claim to possess a source of divinely revealed absolute truth. They instead

emphasized the capacity of human reason and experience to arrive at knowledge. They despised all dogma-

-the belief in propositions given by authorities which are not open to be challenged or examined for one's

self--and waged war against intolerance. In this regard, the most prominent figure is the French

philosopher Voltaire. After wars of religion and the intolerance Catholics and Protestants demonstrated

toward each other, Voltaire sought to destroy dogma and struggle against the power of the Catholic Church

in European society.

C. The most profound influence of the Enlightenment was in political thought. New and radical ideas

emanated from philosophers that challenged accepted notions of power. The English philosopher John

Locke believed that all knowledge arises through experience, a belief that implies that experience rather

than birth makes individuals who they are, thus calling into question the basis for the class system of

Europe. He went on to argue that every individual has inalienable rights--rights that cannot be taken away

without a grievous violation of natural law. For Locke, the most fundamental inalienable rights were life,

liberty, and the right to own property. The French philosopher Rousseau argued that the relationship

between a government and its people was similar to a contract. This assumes that both parties are on equal

footing and either side could violate the contract. Another English philosopher named Thomas Hobbes said

that the only legitimate role of a government was to protect people from each other and anything beyond

that was oppressive. The French philosopher Montesquieu also argued for a limited government. He

believed the best way to limit the power of a government was to divide its most fundamental powers--the

power to make laws, execute laws, and interpret laws in specific instances-- into three distinct and separate

locations of the government. This had a strong influence on the American system of dividing government

into legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government with checks and balances between them.

The net effect of all these philosophers was to deny the legitimacy of a government with absolute power

supported by religion rather than the general will of the people. The philosophers of the Enlightenment used

the same assumptions about knowledge as the Scientific Revolution but used the methods to change how

life was lived.

Rousseau

D. The philosophies of the Enlightenment influenced several important political documents that were used to

challenged traditional forms of political authority and call for radical changes in society and independence

from political regimes.

The Declaration of Independence Written by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of

Independence set forth a justification for the independence of Britain's colonies in North America

by claiming the actions of the English government violated the inalienable rights of the colonists

as British subjects. It evoked John Locke's ideas of the contractual relation between a

government and its people and made the case that King George III had overstepped his

legitimate political power thus giving the colonists the right to separate from England. See the

text of the Declaration of Independence HERE

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 is a fundamental document of the French

Revolution and in the history of human rights

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen The Declaration of the Rights of Man was a

product of the French Revolution. It was drafted by Lafayette, who was instrumental in the American

Independence movement. This document proclaims the rights of all humans, regardless of social status.

It effectively tore down the rights and privileges of the feudal class system and claimed that its concept

of social equality and liberty were true of all people at all times and in all places. As an abstract

declaration of rights for all people it claimed universal and abstract liberty and was a permanent gain of

the French Revolution. See the text of the Declaration of the Rights of Man HERE.

Letter From Jamaica This is another document motivated by the political ideas of the

Enlightenment. Written by Simon Bolivar in 1815, it justifies Spanish America's independence from

Spain. The document outlines the grievance the colonies have against Spain and speculate about the

future of Latin America. Bolivar repeats his conviction that unity, rather than a US style confederation, is

necessary for the states of northern South America. See English translation of the text HERE.

E. All of these Enlightenment-inspired documents imply a radically different arrangement of society than

what was practiced at the time. For most of human history, varying levels of rights and privileges were

assigned to groups in a society rather than to individuals. Such groups were differentiated hierarchically by

caste, race, religion, ownership of land, or some other criteria, and laws were different for each of them;

inequality between groups was taken as a given. Enlightenment thought explicitly contradicted these

assumptions. Lifting group designations completely, at least in theory, society was viewed as a collection of

individuals who deserved to be treated in a uniform fashion. This new concept of individuality and universal

rights initiated struggles to bring equality to women, dissolve feudal class systems, emancipate slaves, and

expand suffrage to a wider range of people. But social reform was not without challenges. The mulattoes in

Haiti who claimed equality with the creoles did not think for a moment that those same rights belonged to

slaves; landowning planters fought the emancipation of serfs and other groups of coerced laborers; and in

Europe Pope Pious IX referred to universal suffrage as a "horrible plague which affected human society." [1]

II. Beginning in the eighteenth century, peoples around the world developed a new sense of

commonality based on language, religion, social customs and territory. These newly imagined

national communities linked this identity with the borders of the state, while governments used this

idea to unite diverse populations.

Since the dawn of human societies, people have inclined to identify themselves as part of a group, whether

it be tribe or clan, Caliphate or kingdom. Enlightenment ideas, particularly those emanating from the French

Revolution, created a modern way of establishing group identity. Previous identities usually centered around

the leader who possessed some kind of mandate--religious or otherwise--to exercise authority over the

people. Before the revolution in France, for example, people thought of themselves as subjects of the king

who ruled by divine right. When they went to war, they marched for the monarch. However, after the French

demoted--and then executed--their king during the Revolution, this concept of identity necessarily ended.

They were no longer subjects of the king, but citizens of the nation of France. Nations are human constructs

based on commonalities, usually language, ethnicity, territorial claims, religious bonds or a shared history,

whether real or imagined. This cohesive force is called nationalism, and most nations seek to be politically

autonomous on a specific territory (a nation-state). Thus it can be deadly to empires as it encourages

different ethnic or religious groups to break away to form independent states. As a powerful force in uniting

and motivating people, politicians can exploit nationalist feelings for their own objectives. At its worst,

nationalism marginalizes groups of people who do not fit the ethnic or religious identity of the nation, which

can lead to persecution and violence. For a video on nationalism, click HERE

III. Increasing discontent with imperial rule propelled reformist and revolutionary movements.

A. Enlightenment ideas and nationalism intensified already strained relations between subjects and the

imperial powers who ruled over them. The Mughal Empire, which had ruled South Asia since 1526, was

weakened by the rise of the Marathas on the western border of the subcontinent. The Marathas were a

collection of farming, landowning and warrior castes united by a single language. [2] Their strict adherence to

Hinduism further set them apart from their Islamic Mughal overlords.

Shivarji, who welded together the Maratha confederacy that weakened the Mughal Empire.

In the previous era, Akbar (1542-1605) inaugurated a period of peace and prosperity in the Mughal Empire

by tolerating other faiths. Shortly after his death, conservative leaders returned the dynasty to its policy of

favoring Islam above other religions. The Hindu majority once again had to pay the hated Islamic tax on non-

Muslims, alcohol was forbidden, and Hindu temples were permitted to go into disrepair. [3] These measures

galvanized the Hindu Marathas against the Islamic Mughals. A leader named Shivaji (1627-1680) forged a

powerful Marathan confederacy which launched major revolts against the Mughals. By the early 1700s the

Mughals were in an advanced state of decline. Divided by religion and doctrine, plagued by suspicion and

accumulated grievances, India was vulnerable: Afghans conquered part of the Punjab in the north, despite

staunch opposition from Mughal viceroys, the Marathas had gained the right to collect taxes in six Mughal

provinces, [4] and the East India Company gained de facto control over large areas of India. After defeating

the Maratha Empire in 1818, the East India Company briefly became the protectors of the Mughal Empire.

By 1858 the British had colonized them outright.

The portion of India where the Maratha Empire emerged.

B. Unlike South Asia, where the spirit of independence led to India being colonized by the British, in the

Americas rebellion against imperial powers led directly to the formation of independent states. The

participation of the French in the North American independence movement would influence revolutions in

Europe against absolute monarchy and the feudal class system.

American Revolution

The American Revolution was a political independence movement that used British Enlightenment ideas to

sever colonial political ties to England. Trouble between Britain and its 13 American colonies began after

the French and Indian War (The Seven Year's War) when Parliament, to pay for this costly war, levied

several new taxes on the colonists and began to enforce duties that had formerly been ignored. In taxing the

colonists without giving them representation in British Parliament, the colonists claimed their rights as British

citizens were violated by the crown. After residents in Boston destroyed British tea by throwing it into the

harbor, the city fell under martial law. The colonists were required to quarter the British troops who had been

sent by the king to hold back rebellion. Tensions escalated into armed resistance in 1775 when colonists

and the British fired on each other at Lexington and Concord. In the following year, Thomas Jefferson

penned the Declaration of Independence in which he argued that the colonists were justified in breaking

their political bonds with England because the king no longer had the people's consent. As military clashes

increased, the French decided to aid the colonists in an attempt to weaken the British. Six years of battle

ended in 1783 when the British surrendered to the Franco-American forces at Yorktown, Virginia.

The surrender of British general Cornwallis to the Americans.

The struggle for American independence was only a revolution in a limited sense. It had indeed brought

independence to the colonists who went on to create an enduring constitution and democratic institutions.

However, the colonial structure of society remained intact. The new states of the United States of America

retained the social characteristics of settler colonies. Despite the rhetoric of Enlightenment ideals and liberty,

slavery was kept intact. Indigenous people had no place in the new nation and were progressively pushed

out of the way of westward expansion. In this sense, the American Revolution provided a model for the

creoles in Latin America who desired independence from Spain but did not want to lose their privileged

status in society.

French Revolution

The French Revolution was inspired in part by the American Revolution and influenced by many of the same

Enlightenment principles. However, the French were attempting to solve a different set of problems than the

Americans were, a reality which made the outcome and character of their revolution much different. Unlike

the American colonies, France had a class system that was deeply entrenched in the soil of its civilization.

The king, an absolute monarch, ruled by divide right. Legitimizing both of these social and political

institutions was the Roman Catholic Church. Thus religion, society, and politics were intertwined deeply in

an arrangement known as the ancien regime. The French Revolution abolished the feudal class system,

separated politics from religion, and ended absolute monarchy. Rather than an anti-colonial independence

movement, the French Revolution was a true transformation of the social order.

The class system of France was divided into three basic ranks, or estates. The first estate (the clergy), the

second estate (the nobles and aristocracy), and the third estate (the serfs or peasants) each had varying

degrees of rights. The top two estates had the most privileges and paid little taxes. The third estate, about

85% of the population, supported the extravagant lifestyles of the other two with hard agricultural labor and

heavy taxation. As unfair as this system was, it made sense in the context of the feudal economy of the

middle ages. But much had changed since then. Enlightenment notions of the equality of all individuals

struck at the heart of this social system. Moreover, the three estates did not adequately describe the social

and economic reality of France in the 18th century. Between 1720 and 1780 France's foreign trade

quadrupled.[5] Merchants and middle class businessmen who comprised the bourgeoisie (urban middle

class) grew enormously in size and wealth but had the same level of rights as the third estate.

Haitian Revolution

The Haitian Revolution has often been described as the largest and most successful slave rebellion in the Western Hemisphere. Slaves initiated the rebellion in 1791 and by 1803 they had succeeded in ending not just slavery but French control over the colony. The Haitian Revolution, however, was much more complex, consisting of several revolutions going on simultaneously. These revolutions were influenced by the French Revolution of 1789, which would come to represent a new concept of human rights, universal citizenship, and participation in government.

In the 18th century, Saint Dominigue, as Haiti was then known, became France’s wealthiest overseas colony, largely because of its production of sugar, coffee, indigo, and cotton generated by an enslaved labor force. When the French Revolution broke out in 1789 there were five distinct sets of interest groups in the colony. There were white planters—who owned the plantations and the slaves—and petit blancs, who were artisans, shop keepers and teachers. Some of them also owned a few slaves. Together they numbered 40,000 of the colony’s residents. Many of the whites on Saint Dominigue began to support an independence movement that began when France imposed steep tariffs on the items imported into the colony. The planters were extremely disenchanted with France because they were forbidden to trade with any other nation. Furthermore, the white population of Saint-Dominique did not have any representation in France. Despite their calls for independence, both the planters and petit blancs remained committed to the institution of slavery.

The three remaining groups were of African descent: those who were free, those who were slaves, and those who had run away. There were about 30,000 free black people in 1789. Half of them were mulatto and often they were wealthier than the petit blancs. The slave population was close to 500,000. The runaway slaves were called maroons; they had retreated deep into the mountains of Saint Dominigue and lived off subsistence farming. Haiti had a history of slave rebellions; the slaves were never willing to submit to their status and with their strength in numbers (10 to 1) colonial officials and planters did all that was possible to control them. Despite the harshness and cruelty of Saint Dominigue slavery, there were slave rebellions before 1791. One plot involved the poisoning of masters.

Inspired by events in France, a number of Haitian-born revolutionary movements emerged simultaneously. They used as their inspiration the French Revolution’s “Declaration of the Rights of Man.” The General Assembly in Paris responded by enacting legislation which gave the various colonies some autonomy at the local level. The legislation, which called for “all local proprietors…to be active citizens,” was both ambiguous and radical. It was interpreted in Saint Dominigue as applying only to the planter class and thus excluded petit blancs from government. Yet it allowed free citizens of color who were substantial property owners to participate. This legislation, promulgated in Paris to keep Saint Dominigue in the colonial empire, instead generated a three-sided civil war between the planters, free blacks and the petit

blancs. However, all three groups would be challenged by the enslaved black majority which was also influenced and inspired by events in France.

Led by former slave Toussaint l’Overture, the enslaved would act first, rebelling against the planters on August 21, 1791. By 1792 they controlled a third of the island. Despite reinforcements from France, the area of the colony held by the rebels grew as did the violence on both sides. Before the fighting ended 100,000 of the 500,000 blacks and 24,000 of the 40,000 whites were killed. Nonetheless the former slaves managed to stave off both the French forces and the British who arrived in 1793 to conquer the colony, and who withdrew in 1798 after a series of defeats by l’Overture’s forces. By 1801 l’Overture expanded the revolution beyond Haiti, conquering the neighboring Spanish colony of Santo Domingo (present-day Dominican Republic). He abolished slavery in the Spanish-speaking colony and declared himself Governor-General for life over the entire island of Hispaniola.

At that moment the Haitian Revolution had outlasted the French Revolution which had been its inspiration. Napoleon Bonaparte, now the ruler of France, dispatched General Charles Leclerc, his brother-in-law, and 43,000 French troops to capture L’Overture and restore both French rule and slavery. L’Overture was taken and sent to France where he died in prison in 1803. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, one of l’Overture’s generals and himself a former slave, led the revolutionaries at the Battle of Vertieres on November 18, 1803 where the French forces were defeated. On January 1, 1804, Dessalines declared the nation independent and renamed it Haiti. France became the first nation to recognize its independence. Haiti thus emerged as the first black republic in the world, and the second nation in the western hemisphere (after the United States) to win its independence from a European power.

Latin American Revolutions

As late as 1808, Spain's New World Empire stretched from parts of the present-day western US to Tierra del Fuego in South America, from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. By 1825, it was all gone except for a handful of islands in the Caribbean—broken into several independent states. How could Spain's New World Empire fall apart so quickly and completely? The answer is long and complicated, but here are some of the essential causes of the Latin American Revolution.

Lack of Respect for the Creoles

By the late eighteenth century, the Spanish colonies had a thriving class of Creoles (Criollo in Spanish), wealthy men and women of European ancestry born in the New World. The revolutionary hero Simon Bolivar is a good example, as he was born in Caracas to a well-to-do Creole family four generations of whom who had lived in Venezuela, but as a rule, did not intermarry with the locals.

Spain discriminated against the Creoles, appointing mostly new Spanish immigrants to important positions in the colonial administration. In the audiencia (court) of Caracas, for example, no native Venezuelans were appointed from 1786 to 1810. During that time, ten Spaniards and four creoles from other areas did serve. This irritated the influential Creoles who correctly felt that they were being ignored.

No Free Trade

The vast Spanish New World Empire produced many goods, including coffee, cacao, textiles, wine, minerals and more. But the colonies were only allowed to trade with Spain, and at rates advantageous for Spanish merchants. Many Latin Americans began selling their goods illegally to the British colonies and after 1783, U.S. merchants. By the late 18th century, Spain was forced to loosen some trade restrictions, but the move was too little, too late as those who produced these goods now demanded a fair price for them.

Other Revolutions

By 1810, Spanish America could look to other nations to see revolutions and their results. Some were a positive influence: The American Revolution (1765–1783) was seen by many in South America as a good example of elite leaders of colonies throwing off European rule and replacing it with a more fair and democratic society—later, some constitutions of new republics borrowed heavily from the U.S. Constitution. Other revolutions were not as positive. The Haitian Revolution, a bloody but successful uprising of slaves against their French colonial owners (1791–1804), terrified landowners in the Caribbean and northern South America, and as the situation worsened in Spain, many feared that Spain could not protect them from a

similar uprising.

A Weakened Spain

In 1788, Charles III of Spain, a competent ruler, died and his son Charles IV took over. Charles IV was weak and indecisive and mostly occupied himself with hunting, allowing his ministers to run the Empire. As an ally of Napoleon's First French Empire, Spain willingly joined with Napoleonic France and began fighting the British. With a weak ruler and the Spanish military tied up, Spain's presence in the New World decreased markedly and the Creoles felt more ignored than ever.

After Spanish and French naval forces were crushed at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Spain's ability to control the colonies lessened even more. When Great Britain attacked Buenos Aires in 1806–1807, Spain

could not defend the city and a local militia had to suffice.

American Identities

There was a growing sense in the colonies of being separate from Spain. These differences were cultural and often a source of great pride among Creole families and regions. By the end of the eighteenth century, the visiting Prussian scientist Alexander Von Humboldt (1769–1859) noted that the locals preferred to be called Americans rather than Spaniards. Meanwhile, Spanish officials and newcomers consistently treated creoles with disdain, maintaining and further widening the social gap between them.

Racism

While Spain was racially "pure" in the sense that the Moors, Jews, gypsies and other ethnic groups had been kicked out centuries before, the New World populations were a diverse mixture of Europeans, Indians and blacks brought in as slaves. The highly racist colonial society was extremely sensitive to minute percentages of black or Indian blood. A person's status in society could be determined by how many 64ths

of Spanish heritage one had.

To further muddle things up, Spanish law allowed wealthy people of mixed heritage to "buy" whiteness and thus rise in a society that did not want to see their status change. This caused resentment within the privileged classes. The "dark side" of the revolutions was that they were fought, in part, to maintain a racist status quo in the colonies freed of Spanish liberalism.

Final Straw: Napoleon Invades Spain 1808

Tired of the waffling of Charles IV and Spain's inconsistency as an ally, Napoleon invaded in 1808 and quickly conquered not only Spain but Portugal as well. He replaced Charles IV with his own brother, Joseph Bonaparte. A Spain ruled by France was an outrage even for New World loyalists: Many men and women who would have otherwise supported the royalist side now joined the insurgents. Those who resisted Napoleon in Spain begged the colonials for help but refused to promise to reduce trade restrictions if they won.

Rebellion

The chaos in Spain provided a perfect excuse to rebel and yet not commit treason. Many Creoles said they were loyal to Spain, not Napoleon. In places like Argentina, colonies "sort of" declared independence,

claiming they would only rule themselves until such time as Charles IV or his son Ferdinand was put back on the Spanish throne. This half-measure was much more palatable to those who did not want to declare independence outright. But in the end, there was no real going back from such a step. Argentina was the first to formally declare independence on July 9, 1816.

The independence of Latin America from Spain was a foregone conclusion as soon as the creoles began thinking of themselves as Americans and the Spaniards as something different from them. By that time, Spain was between a rock and a hard place: The creoles clamored for positions of influence in the colonial bureaucracy and for freer trade. Spain granted neither, which caused great resentment and helped lead to independence. Even if Spain had agreed to these changes, they would have created a more powerful, wealthy colonial elite with experience in administering their home regions—a road that also would have led directly to independence. Some Spanish officials must have realized this and so the decision was taken to

squeeze the utmost out of the colonial system before it collapsed.

Of all of the factors listed above, the most important is probably Napoleon's invasion of Spain. Not only did it provide a massive distraction and tie up Spanish troops and ships, it pushed many undecided Creoles over the edge in favor of independence. By the time Spain was beginning to stabilize—Ferdinand reclaimed the throne in 1813—colonies in Mexico, Argentina, and northern South America were in revolt.

Key Concept 5.4 Global Migration Patterns changed dramatically throughout this period, and the numbers of

migrants increased significantly. These changes were closely connected to

the development of transoceanic empires and a global capitalist economy. In

some cases, people benefited economically from migration, while other

people were seen simply as commodities to be transported. In both cases,

migration produced dramatically different societies for both sending and

receiving societies, and presented challenges to governments in fostering

national identities and regulating the flow of people.

I. Migration in many cases was influenced by changes in demography in both industrialized and

unindustrialized societies that presented challenges to existing patterns of living.

A. Changes in food production and improved medical conditions contributed to a significant global rise in

population.

B. Because of the nature of the new modes of transportation, both internal and external migrants

increasingly relocated to cities. This pattern contributed to the significant global urbanization of the

nineteenth century.

II. Migrants relocated for a variety of reasons.

A. Many individuals chose freely to relocate, often

in search of work.

Examples of such migrants:

• Manual laborers • Specialized professionals

B. The new global capitalist economy continued to

rely on coerced and semi-coerced labor

migration.

Required examples of coerced and semi-coerced

labor migration:

• Slavery

• Chinese and Indian indentured servitude

• Convict labor

C. While many migrants permanently relocated, a

significant number of temporary and seasonal migrants

returned to their home societies.

Examples of such temporary and seasonal migrants:

• Japanese agricultural workers in the Pacific • Lebanese

merchants in the Americas • Italians in Argentina

II. The large-scale nature of migration, especially in the nineteenth century, produced a variety of

consequences and reactions to the increasingly diverse societies on the part of migrants and the

existing populations.

A. Due to the physical nature of the labor in demand, migrants tended to be male, leaving women to take on

new roles in the home society that had been formerly occupied by men.

B. Migrants often created ethnic enclaves in different parts of the world which helped transplant their culture

into new environments and facilitated the development of migrant support networks.

Examples of migrant ethnic enclaves in different parts of the world:

• Chinese in Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, South America, and North America • Indians in East and

southern Africa, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia

C. Receiving societies did not always embrace immigrants, as seen in

the various degrees of ethnic and racial prejudice and the ways states

attempted to regulate the increased flow of people across their

borders.

Examples of the regulation of immigrants:

• The Chinese Exclusion Acts • The White Australia Policy

An interactive map showing nationwide migration patterns in the United States since 1900 - click on map