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09 - 19th century
Fichas del conjunto (17)
- 1Voyage into the 19th Century
- 2The 19th century
- 3The 19th century The Railwaysee above
- 4Social unrest – 1
- 5Social unrest – 2• In the first half of the 19th century, esp. the north of England
experienced a great rise of population. In 1750 existed two towns
with more than 50,000 inhabitants in the United Kingdom: London
and Edinburgh. In 1801, there were eight towns; in 1851 – 29
(and among these more than nine with 100,000 inhabitants).
• Around the middle of the 19th century, more than half of the English
population were living in the big industrial towns.
• John Stuart Mill's "wages fund" theory: Given a constantly filled
overall wages fund, the wages of the workers necessarily had to
drop in times of rising numbers of job-seekers in order not to ruin
the economy.
• Use of violence was the government's reaction against growing
agitation, e.g. Peterloo massacre (August 16, 1819), when
government troops scattered a peaceful congregation of about
50,000 people on St Peter's Field near Manchester: --> Shelley,
"England in 1819" - 6social unrest-Luddites (Maschinenstürmer, were called luddites because of their leader Ludd) brought social unrest
-They were machine breakers because they were afraid of losing their jobs, but also new jobs were brought (because eg. fish could also be eaten in the middle of the land and not only on the coast, because it could be moved so fast that it would still be fresh..)
-first half of 19th century - evil time of workers, when working class became existent, because of the new jobs that were created (new industrial towns were also created, Manchester, …)
-Corn Laws: law in this case misleading; taxes!!! taxes on agricultural products; land-owning aristorcrat classes were benefitting from that, this slowly changed - 7Friedrich Engels, "Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England" (1845)e f
- 8Laws and Reform – 1
- 9Laws and Reform• The aristocratic agrarian south of England still dominated the
House of Commons, although the political situation had undoubtedly
changed in favour of the middle class and the towns. The First Reform
Bill changed the situation in favour of the middle class and
the towns.
• In the thirties and forties, measures were taken to reduce the negative
side-effects of industrial capitalism.
• Details of the Factory Act (1833): No children under nine were
allowed to work in spinning mills, the daily working hours of older
children were limited to 9 to 12 hours. Another factory law limited the
daily working hours of women to 12 and children to 6 hours
a day.
• In 1846 the free-trade movement reached its goal. Parliament repealed
the corn laws, and the bread price dropped. This was a decisive
victory of the middle class over the landed aristocracy, the interests
of industry over agriculture. - 10four meanings of Change
- 11Glamour and Squalor• Great Exhibition (1851): England, the first industrial nation of
the world, was at the height of its power. The Crystal Palace
in London was especially built for the occasion – "Golden
50s and 60s".
• But with the "Hungry 70s" followed the Great Depression
which broke Victorian optimism and belief in progress.
From the 1870s onward, people became more pessimistic.
• Big industrial towns like Manchester, Liverpool and
Birmingham built their own universities catering to the need
for engineers and the new sciences. These "Red Brick
Universities" looked like factories.
• During the 1880s and 1890s colonization reached its final
phase. The exploitation of the colonies lead to conflict
between the industrialized nations. Its climax would be the
First World War (1914-18). - 12The Scramble for Africa
- 13The scramble for AfricaThe English had India, Australia, NZ, .. at End of 19th century
-European States decided who would get which share of Africa (almost all the east coast of Africa)
-Cecil Rhodes - they wanted to build a railway from Cape Town to Cairo. - 14History of Ideas
- 15History of Ideas – 2• Copernicus (16th century) and Galilei (17th century) replaced the
geocentric world picture, the idea that the sun is going round the
earth, by a heliocentric one. The idea of evolution continued this
development.
• Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace explained the birth of the solar
system with the idea of evolution.
Nebular hypothesis: The stars are born by a gradual conglomeration
of nebular fogs in the course of billions of years. This cast some
doubt on the assumption of a singular and definite divine act of
creation. Laplace's pioneering study Astronomy and General
Physics (1833) postulated the universal rule of "limited duration",
and he applied this hypothesis also to the solar system, i.e. the solar
system is not made for eternity, the archaic motif of the dying sun
received a scientific foundation.
-Copernicus replaced geocentric Earth picture by helicentric Earth picture.
-Decentering (against teachings of church: according to bible Earth is only 6 000 yrs old, .. Evolutionists claimed, that Earth must be much older)
-Laplace came up with his nebular hypothesis: still - 16History of Ideas – 3-‘limited duration’ stars die one day; but Church people: God wouldn’t let stars die, therefore this can’t be true
Sir Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology (1830-33): The surface
forms of earth and the shape of the continents continually change
through erosion (influences of water, wind, volcanoes and
earthquakes). His theory was based on the assumption that the
universe had been existing for billions of years. This contradicted
the biblical claim that creation occurred only about 6,000 years
ago and shifted back the beginnings of mankind into a prehistoric
past that was hardly imaginable.
• Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859, although
conceived earlier): Here, the idea of evolution was established in
its most radical form. Darwin claimed that the system of species is
continually evolving, that older species die out and new species
come into existence, and that life on earth evolved from simple
forms and grew into more and more complex ones. This opened
people's eyes for the consequences of the concept of evolution. - 17History of Ideas – 4• The Victorians were deeply shaken by the conclusion that
mankind, endowed with mind, reasoning and consciousness,
should also be nothing but a product of an evolutionary process
determined by the laws of a mindless and mechanistic causality.
• Sharp polemics – The philosopher T.H. Huxley (an admirer of
Darwin) was asked by the sharp-tongued Bishop Wilberforce:
"Are you descended from an ape, Mr Huxley, from your mother's
or your father's side?" And John Ruskin, the famous Victorian
sage, is reported to have remarked: "You can't wash the slugs out
of a lettuce without disrespect to your ancestors."
evolution: some people who got very angry - and still are (creationalism), sharp polemics against this evolutionists. Wilberforce, ..
19 century as a century which made people believe in progress (technological, political, economical, inventions).
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- History of Literatures in English Fichas sobre 09 - 19th century, creado por Lisza Neumeier el 20/02/2018.
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- Lisza Neumeier
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