Chapter 24-Life in the Emerging Urban Society

Question 1

Haussmann’s Paris

Answer 1

1. Mid-late 19th century France
2. Napoleon III sought to promote the welfare of his subjects through government action and put baron George Haussmann in charge of rebuilding Paris.
3. Napoleon III believed that rebuilding Paris would lead to increased employment, improved living conditions, greater control of revolutionary crowds, and glorification of his empire

Question 2

Germ theory

Answer 2

1. Theorized by Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) in the mid 19th century
2. Diseases were caused by germs in the air
3. Brought about dramatic improvements in hospitals and surgery and improved health

Question 3

Upper-class in the 19th century

Answer 3

1. Nobles, aristocrats,
2. In the late 19th early 20th century, the richest 5% of population owned 33% of all national income, and the richest 20% of households received 50%-60% of all national income
3. Tended to marry with the upper-middle class for economic gains

Question 4

Middle-class in the 19th century

Answer 4

1. Consisted of 3 groups: upper, middle, and lower
2. Upper: a. Composed mainly of the most successful business families in banking, industry, and large-scale commerce
   b. Tended to marry the old aristocracy for land
   c.
3. Middle: a. Composed of moderately successful industrialists and merchants as well as lawyers and doctors
   b.
4. Lower: a. Composed of independent shopkeepers, small traders, tiny manufactures, and landless laborers.
   b.
5. In the late 19th early 20th century, the entire bottom 80% of all households received only 40%-50% of national income
6. In the late 19th century early 20th century, the middle class accounted for less than 20% of the population
7. Food was the largest item on the household budget, for the middle class liked to eat very well
8. Food and servants together absorbed about 50% of income at all levels of the middle class
9. The middle-class generally agreed upon a strict code of behavior and morality:
   a. Great stress on hard work, self-discipline, and personal achievement
   b. Men and women who fell into crime or poverty were generally assumed to be responsible for their own circumstances
   c. Christian morality was reaffirmed by this code and was preached tirelessly by middle-class people
   d. Drunkenness and gambling were denounced as vices
   e. Sexual purity and fidelity were celebrated as virtues
   f. In short, the middle-class person was expected to know right from wrong and was expected to act accordingly

Question 5

Lower/working-class of the 19th century

Answer 5

1. Consisted of 3 groups: highly skilled (labor aristocracy), semiskilled, and unskilled
2. Labor aristocracy: a. highly skilled workers, such as factory foreman and construction bosses, who made up about 15% of the working classes from about 1850-1914
   b. also included members of the traditional highly skilled handicraft trades that had not been mechanized in factories, like cabinetmakers, jewelers, and printers.
   c. Wives seldom sought employment outside the home
   d. One of the social functions of the labor aristocracy’s strict moral code was to maintain their unstable social and economic position
   e.
3. Semiskilled: a. Consisted of bricklayers, carpenters, pipe fitters, and factory workers
   b.
4. Unskilled: a. consisted of day laborers such as longshoreman, wagon-driving teamsters, teenagers, and every kind of “helper”
   b. wives had to join the working class women in “sweated industries” because the husbands couldn’t make enough money, but stilled earned pitiful wages
   c. Domestic servants were the largest group of unskilled workers with a great majority being women
   d.
5. In the late 19th early 20th century, the bottom 30% of all households received 10% or less than the national income
6. In the late 19th century early 20th century, 80% of the population was working class and earned less than both the middle and upper class combined
7. Drinking was unquestionably the greatest the favorite leisure-time activity of working people
8. In more serious moments, religion continued to provide working people with solace and meaning

Question 6

Realism (often called naturalism)

Answer 6

1. Mid-late 19th century
2. A literary movement that stressed the depiction of life as it actually was
3. Realist writers exemplified the late 19th century glorification of science because they attempted to observe and record life in an “objective” manner
4. Émile Zola (1840-1902): a. most famous for his seamy, animalistic view of working-class life
   b. Zola’s sympathy with socialism is evident in the novel “Germinal”
5. Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850):
   a. “The Human Comedy”: a series of books that portrays more than 2000 characters from all corners of French society
   b. “Le Père Goriot”: the hero, a poor student from the provinces, eventually surrenders his integrity to ambition and greed
6. Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910):
   a. “War and Peace”: a novel set against the historical background of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812
7. Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880):
   a. Pen name: George Eliot
   b. “Middlemarch: the study of Provincial life”: examines the ways in which people are shaped by their social medium as well as their own inner strivings, conflicts, and moral choices
8. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928):
   a. “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” & “The Return of the Native”: both depict men and women crushed by fate and luck

Question 7

Charles Darwin

Answer 7

1. 1809-1882
2. The most influential of all 19th century evolutionary thinkers
3. “All life had gradually evolved from a common ancestral origin in an unending ‘struggle for survival’”

Question 8

Sex and gender roles in the 19th century

Answer 8

1. In Paris alone, 155,000 women were registered as prostitutes and 750,000 others were suspected as prostitutes
2. My secret life: the anonymous eleven-volume auto-biography of an English sexual adventurer from the servant-keeping classes
3. Masturbation was viewed with horror
4. The program followed by many middle-class feminists followed in the footsteps of Mary Wollstonecraft
5. One positive aspect of the rigid separation of men and women was a larger role for the women in managing the household

Question 9

Second industrial revolution

Answer 9

1. Late 19th- early 20th century
2. The burst of industrial creativity and technological innovation that promoted strong economic growth toward the end of the 19th century
3. Industrial and urban development made 19th century society more diverse and less unified

Question 10

The impact of industrialization on family structure in the 19th century

Answer 10

1. Improved economic conditions in the 19th century led to the expectation that married women would not work outside the home
2. After 1850, husbands and wives, in the cities, were able to work together only in small-scale retail stores
3. The decline in illegitimacy rates after 1850 was probably the result of higher incidence of marriage for expectant mothers
4. The revolutionary reduction in the size of European families was large in part caused by the families desire to improve its economic and social position
5. Working-class children probably were under less parental control than than middle-class children in the later 19th century because working-class children went to work and became independent earners

Question 11

Miasmatic Theory

Answer 11

1) 19th century
2) the belief that people contract diseases when they breathe the bad odors of decay and putrefuing excrement
3) idea was weakened when it was discovered that contagion was spread through filth and not caused by it

Question 12

Child rearing in the late 19th century

Answer 12

1. 19th century, Europe
2. A striking sign of deepening emotional ties within the family was the growing love and concern that mothers gave their infants
3. Mothers increasing breast-fed their infants rather than paying wet nurses to do so
4. Gustave Droz
   a. Wrote books on child rearing and infant hygiene
   b. “Mr., Mrs., and baby”:
5. Children were no longer an economic asset

Question 13

Thermodynamics

Answer 13

1. 19th century, Europe
2. A branch of physics built on Newton’s laws of mechanics that investigated the relationship between heat and mechanical energy
3. By mid 19th century, physicists had formulated the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, which were applied to mechanical engineering, chemical process, and many other fields

Question 14

Social Darwinists

Answer 14

1. 19th century, Europe
2. A group of thinkers who applied the theory of biological evolution to human affairs
3. Saw the human race as driven by an unending economic struggle that would determine the survival of the fittest

Question 15

Edwin Chadwick

Answer 15

1. Believed death and disease caused poverty
2. “Sanitary idea”: disease could be prevented by cleaning up the urban environment
3. Benthamite
4. Realized removal of sewage by water would be more cost-effective than removal by hand
5. Created the basis for Great Britain’s first public health law
6. Commissioner of the Poor Law of 1834

Question 16

Benthamite

Answer 16

1. 1800’s
2. Follower of the philosopher Jeremy Bentham
3. Believe that public problems can be solved with science and rational thinking
4. The “greatest good for the greatest number” of people

Question 17

Factors that contributed to the extremely awful living conditions urban populaces experienced in Great Britain in the 19th Century

Answer 17

1. Growing population
2. No public transportation
3. Slow government response to the problems
4. No personal hygiene
5. Poor housing