The Mass Society in an “Age of Progress,” 1871-1894

The Growth of Industrial Prosperity

I. At the heart of Europeans’ belief in progress after 1871 was the stunning material growth
produced by the Second Industrial Revolution.
A. In the second revolution, steel, chemicals, electricity, and petroleum led the way to
new industrial frontiers.
New Products
I. The 1st major change in industrial development after 1870 was the substitution of steel for
iron.
A. New methods of rolling and shaping steel made it useful in the construction of
lighter, smaller, and faster machines and engines, as well as railways, ships, and
armaments.
New Chemicals
I. A change in the method of making soda enabled France and Germany to take the lead in
producing the alkalies used in the textile, soap, and paper industries. German laboratories
soon overtook the British in the development of new organic chemical compounds, such
as artificial dyes.
Electricity
I. Electricity was a major new form of energy that proved to be of great value since it could
be easily converted into other forms of energy, such as, heat, light, and motion, and
moved easily through space over wires.
A. In 1870, the 1st commercially practical generators of electrical current were
developed.
B. By 1881, Britain had its 1st public power station. By 1910, hydro-electric power
stations and coal-fired steam-generating plants enabled entire districts to be tied in to
a single power distribution system that provided a common source of power for
homes, shops, and industrial enterprises.
II. Electricity spawned a whole series of inventions.
A. The invention of the light bulb by Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan opened homes
and cities to illumination by electric lights.
B. A revolution in communications was fostered when Alexander Graham Bell invented
the telephone in 1876 and Guglielmo Marconi sent the 1st radio waves across the
Atlantic in 1901.
C. Although most electricity was initially used for lighting, it was eventually used for
transportation. Electricity also transformed the factory.
D. In the First Industrial Revolution, coal had been the major source of energy.
Countries w/o adequate coal supplies lagged behind in industrialization. Thanks to
electricity, they could now enter the industrial age.
The Internal Combustion Engine
I. The development of the internal combustion engine had a similar effect.
A. The 1st internal combustion engine, fired by gas and air, was produced in 1878. It
proved unsuitable for widespread use as a source of power in transportation until the
development of liquid fuels—petroleum and its distilled derivatives.
B. By the end of the 19thc, some naval fleets and ocean liners had been converted to oil
burners.
II. The development of the internal combustion engine gave rise to the automobile and the
airplane.
A. Gottlieb Daimler’s invention of a light engine in 1886 was the key to the
development of the automobile.
B. Henry Ford revolutionized the car industry by w/the mass production of the Model
T.
C. Air transportation began w/the Zeppelin airship in 1900.
D. In 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright made the 1st flight in a fixed-wing plane powered
by a gasoline engine.
E. It took WWI to stimulate the aircraft industry.
New Markets
I. The growth of industrial production depended on the development of markets for the sale
of manufactured goods.
A. After 1870, the best foreign markets were already heavily saturated, forcing
Europeans to take a renewed look at their domestic markets.
B. As Europeans were the richest consumers in the world, those markers offered
abundant possibilities.
C. The dramatic population increases after 1870 were accompanied by a steady rise in
national incomes. The leading industrialized nations, Britain and Germany, doubled
or tripled their real incomes.
D. As prices of both food and manufactured goods declined due to lower transportation
costs, Europeans could spend more on consumer products.
E. Businesses soon perceived the value of using new techniques of mass marketing to
sell consumer goods made possible by the development of the steel and electrical
industries.
F. By bringing together a vast array of new products in one place, they created the
department store. The desire to own sewing machines, clocks, bicycles, electric
lights, and typewriters rapidly created a new consumer ethic that became a crucial
part of the modern economy.
Tariffs and Cartels
I. Increased competition for foreign markets and the growing importance of domestic
demand led to a reaction against free trade.
A. To many industrial and political leaders, protective tariffs guaranteed domestic
markets for the products of their own industries. That is why, after a decade of
experimentation w/free trade in the 1860s, Europeans returned to tariff protection.
II. During this same period, cartels were being formed to decrease competition internally.
A. In a cartel, independent enterprises worked together to control prices and fix
production quotas, thereby restraining the kind of competition that led to reduced
prices.
B. Cartels were especially strong Germany, where banks moved to protect their
investments by eliminating “anarchy of competition.”
Larger Factories
I. The formation of cartels was paralleled by a move toward ever-larger manufacturing
plants, especially in the iron and steel, machinery, heavy electrical equipment, and
chemical industries.
A. The trend was most evident in Germany. B/w 1882-1907, the number of people
working in German factories w/over 9000 employees rose from 205,000 to 879,000.
B. This growth in the size of industrial plants led to pressure for greater efficiency in
factory production at the same time that competition led to demands for greater
economy.
C. The result was a desire to steamline or rationalize production as much as possible.
D. One way to accomplish this was by cutting labor costs through the mechanization of
transport w/I plants, such as using electric cranes to move materials.
E. Even more important, the development of precision tools enabled manufactures to
produce interchangeable parts, which in turn led to the creation of the assembly line
for production.
F. Principles of scientific management were also introduced by 1900 to maximize
workers’ efficiency.
New Patterns in an Industrial Economy
I. The Second Industrial Revolution played a role in the emergence of basic economic
patterns that have characterized much of modern European economic life.
German Industrial Leadership
I. After 1870, Germany replaced Great Britain as the industrial leader of Europe.
A. W/I 2 decades, Germany’s superiority was evident in new areas of manufacturing,
such as organic chemicals and electrical equipment, and increasingly apparent in its
ever-greater share of worldwide trade.
 II. Britain’s early lead in industrialization gave it an established industrial plant and made it
more difficult to shift to the new techniques of the Second Industrial Revolution.
A. As later entrants to the industrial age, the Germans could build the latest and most
efficient industrial plants.
B. British entrepreneurs made the situation worse by their tendency to be suspicious of
innovations and their reluctance to invest in new plants and industries.
C. German managers were accustomed to change, and the formation of large cartels
encouraged German banks to provide enormous sums for investment.
D. The British were not willing to encourage formal scientific and technical education.
III. After 1870, the relationship of science and technology grew closer.
A. Newer fields of industrial activity, such as organic chemistry and electrical
engineering, required more scientific knowledge than what was once employed by
amateur inventors.
B. Companies began to invest in laboratory equipment for their own research or hired
scientific consultants for advice.
European Economic Zones
I. By 1900, Europe was divided into 2 economic zones.
A. Great Britain, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Germany, the western part of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, and northern Italy constituted an advanced
industrialization core that had a high standard of living, decent systems of
transportation, and relatively healthy and educated people.
B. Another part of Europe, the little industrialized area to the south and east, consisting
of southern Italy, most of Austria-Hungary, Spain, Portugal, the Balkan kingdoms,
and Russia, was still largely agricultural and relegated by the industrial countries to
the function of providing food and raw materials.
II. The growth of an industrial economy also led to new patterns of European agriculture.
A. An abundance of grain and lower transportation costs caused the prices of farm
commodities to plummet.
B. Some countries responded w/tariff barriers against lower-priced foodstuffs.
C. Where agricultural labor was scarce and hence expensive, such as in Britain and
Germany, landowners introduced machines for threshing and harvesting.
D. The slump in grain prices also led some countries to specialize in other food
products.
E. This age also witnessed the introduction of chemical fertilizers. Large estates could
make these adjustments easily, but individual small farmers could not afford them
and formed farm cooperatives that provided capital for making improvements and
purchasing equipment and fertilizer.
The Spread of Industrialization
I. After 1870, industrialization began to spread beyond western and central Europe and
North America. Especially noticeable was its rapid development in Japan and Russia.
A World Economy
I. The economic developments of the late 19thc, combined w/the transportation revolution
that saw the growth of marine transport and railroads, also fostered a true world
economy.
A. European capital was also invested abroad to develop railways, mines, electrical
power plants, and banks.
B. High rates of return, such as 11.3% in Latin American banking shares that were
floated in London, provided plenty of incentive.
C. Foreign countries also provided markets for the surplus manufactured goods of
Europe.
D. W/its capital, industries, and military might, Europe dominated the world economy
by the end of the 19thc.
Women and Work: New Job Opportunities
I. The Second Industrial Revolution had an enormous impact on the position of women in
the labor market.
 I. During the course of the 19thc, considerable controversy erupted over a woman’s
“right to work.”
II. Working-class organizations tended to reinforce the underlying ideology
domesticity: women should remain at home to bear and nurture children and
should not be allowed in the industrial workforce.
III. Working-class men argued that keeping women out of industrial work would
ensure the moral and physical well-being of families. In reality, keeping women
out of the industrial workforce simply made it easier to exploit them when they
needed income to supplement their husbands’ wages or to support their families
when their husbands were unemployed.
IV. The desperate need to work at times forced women to do marginal work at home
or labor as pieceworkers in sweatshops.
V. “Sweating” referred to the subcontracting of piecework usually in the tailoring
trades; it was done at home since in required few skills or equipment.
VI. Pieceworkers were poorly paid and worked long hours.
VII. Often excluded from factories and in need of income, many women had no
choice but to work for pitiful wages of the sweated industries.
White-Collar jobs
I. After 1870, new job opportunities for women became available.
A. Although the growth of heavy industry in the mining, metallurgy, engineering,
chemicals, and electrical sectors meant fewer jobs for women in manufacturing, the
development of larger industrial plants and the expansion of government services
created a large number of service white-collar jobs.
B. The increased demand for white-collar workers at relatively low wages, coupled w/a
shortage of male workers, lad employers to hire women.
C. The expansion of government services created opportunities for women to be
secretaries and telephone operators and to take jobs in health and social services.
Compulsory education necessitated more teachers, and the development of modern
hospital services opened the way for an increase in nurses.
II. Many of the new white-collar jobs were unexciting. The work was routine and required
few skills beyond basic literacy.
A. Although there was little hope for advancement, these jobs had distinct advantages.
For some middle-class women, the new jobs offered freedom from the domestic
patterns expected of them.
B. B/c middle-class women did not receive an education comparable to that of men, the
careers they could pursue were limited.
Prostitution
I. Despite the new job opportunities, many lower-class women were forced to become
prostitutes to survive.
A. The rural, working-class girls who flocked into the cities in search of job
opportunities were often naïve and vulnerable. Employment was unstable, and wages
were low.
II. In most European countries, prostitution was licensed and regulated by government and
municipal authorities.
A. Although the British government provided minimal regulation of prostitution, it did
attempt to enforce the Contagious Diseases Acts of the 1870s and 80s by giving
authorities the right to examine prostitutes for venereal disease.
B. Opposition to the Contagious Diseases Acts soon arose from middle-class female
reformers. They were successful in gaining the repeal of the acts in 1886.
Organizing the Working Class
I. In the 1st ½ of the 19thc, many workers had formed trade unions that had functioned
primarily as mutual aid societies.
A. In the late 19thc, the desire to improve their working conditions led many industrial
workers to form political parties and labor unions, often based on the ideas of Karl
Marx.
Socialist Parties
 I. Under the direction of 2 Marxist leaders, Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel, the
German Social Democratic Party espoused revolutionary Marxist rhetoric while
organizing itself as a mass political party competing in elections for the Reichstag.
A. Once in the Reichstag, SPD delegates worked to enact legislation to improve the
condition of the working class.
B. Despite government efforts to destroy it, the German Social Democratic Party
continued to grow. By 1912, it was the largest single party in Germany.
II. Socialist parties also emerged in other European states, although none proved as
successful as the German Social Democrats.
A. France had a variety of socialist parties, including a Marxist one.
B. The leader of French socialism, Jean Jaures, was an independent socialist who
looked to the French revolutionary tradition rather than Marxism to justify
revolutionary socialism.
C. In 1905, the French socialist parties succeeded in unifying themselves into a single,
mostly Marxist-oriented socialist party.
III. As socialist parties grew, agitation for an international organization that would strengthen
their position against international capitalism also grew.
A. In 1889, leaders of the various social parties formed the Second International, which
was organized as a loose association of national groups.
B. Although the Second International took some coordinated actions—May Day, for
example, was made an international labor day to be marked by strikes and
demonstrations—differences often wreaked havoc at the organization’s congresses.
C. 2 issues proved particularly divisive: revisionism and nationalism.
Evolutionary Socialism
I. Some Marxists believed in a pure Marxism that accepted the imminent collapse of
capitalism and the need for socialist ownership of the means of production.
A. A severe challenge to this orthodox Marxist position arose in the form of
evolutionary socialism, or revisionism.
II. Most prominent among the evolutionary socialists was Eduard Bernstein, a member of
the German Social Democratic Party, who had been influenced by moderate English
socialism and the British parliamentary system.
A. He challenged Marxist orthodoxy, arguing that the capitalist system had not broken
down. The middle class was expanding, not declining. At the same time, the
proletariat was improving as its workers experienced a higher standard of living.
B. Bernstein rejected Marx’s emphasis on class struggle and revolution. The workers,
he asserted, must continue to work together w/the other advanced elements in a
nation to bring about change.
C. W/the extension of the right to vote, workers were in a better position than ever to
achieve their aims through democratic channels. Evolution by democratic means, not
revolution, would achieve the desired goal of socialism.
D. German and French socialist leaders, as well as the Second International, condemned
evolutionary socialism as heresy and opportunism. But many socialist parties
followed Bernstein’s approach.
The Problem of Nationalism
I. A 2nd divisive issue for international socialism was nationalism.
A. Congresses of the Second International passed resolutions in 1907 and 1910
advocating joint action by workers of different countries to avert war but provided no
real machinery to implement the resolutions.
B. In truth, socialist parties varied from country to country and remained tied to national
concerns and issues.
C. Socialist leaders always worried that in the end, national loyalties might outweigh
class loyalties among the masses.
The Role of Trade Unions
I. Workers also formed trade unions to improve their working conditions.
A. Attempts to organize workers did not come until after unions had won the right to
strike in the 1870s. Strikes proved necessary to achieve the workers’ goals.
 II. Trade unions failed to develop as quickly on the Continent as they had in Britain.
A. In France, the union movement was from the beginning closely tied to socialist
ideology. As there were a number of French socialist parties, the socialist trade
unions remained badly splinters.
B. Not until 1895 did French unions create a national organization called the General
Confederation of Labor. Its decentralization and failure to include some of the more
important individual unions, however, kept it weak and ineffective.
III. German trade unions, also closely attached to political parties, were formed in the 1860s.
A. Although there were liberal trade unions comprising skilled artisans and Catholic or
Christian trade unions, the largest German trade were those of socialists.
B. By 1899, even the latter had accepted the practice of collective bargaining
w/employers. As strikes and collective bargaining achieved successes, German
workers were increasingly inclined to forgo revolution for gradual improvements.
The Anarchist Alternative
I. Despite revolutionary rhetoric, socialist parties and trade unions gradually became less
radical in pursing their goals.
A. This lack of revolutionary fervor drove some people from Marxist socialism into
anarchism, a movement that was especially prominent in less industrialized and less
domestic countries.
II. Initially, anarchism was not a violent movement.
A. Early anarchists believed that people were inherently good but had been corrupted by
their state and society. True freedom could be achieved only by abolishing the state
and social institutions.
B. The Russian Micheal Bakunin believed that small groups of well-trained, fanatical
revolutionaries could perpetrate so much violence that the state and all its institutions
would disintegrate.
C. After Bakunin’s death in 1876, anarchist revolutionaries used assassination as their
primary instrument of terror.
The Emergence of Mass Society
I. The new patterns of industrial production, mass consumption, and working-class
organization that we identify w/the Second Industrial Revolution were only one aspect of
the new mass society that emerged in Europe after 1870.
A. A larger and vastly improved urban environment, new patterns of social structure,
gender issues, mass education, and mass leisure were also important features of
European society.
Population Growth
I. B/w 1850 and 80, the main cause of the population increase was a rise in birthrate, at
least in Western Europe, but after 1880, a noticeable decline in death rates largely
explains the increase in population.
A. 2 main factors—medical discoveries and environmental conditions—stand out.
B. Some historians have stressed the importance of developments in medical science.
Smallpox vaccinations, for example, were compulsory in many European countries
by the mid-1850s.
C. More important were improvements in the urban environment in the 2nd ½ of the
19thc that greatly reduced fatalities from diseases which had been spread through
contaminated water supplies and improper elimination of sewage.
D. Improved tradition also made a significant difference in the health of the population.
E. The increase in agricultural production combined w/improvements in transportation
facilitated the shipment of food supplies. Better nutrition and food hygiene were
especially instrumental in the decline in infant mortality by 1900.
Emigration
I. Although growing agricultural and industrial prosperity supported an increase in the
European population, it could not do so indefinitely, especially in areas that had little
industrialization and severe overpopulation.
A. Some of the excess labor from undeveloped areas migrated to the industrial areas of
Europe.
 B. The industrialized areas of Europe, however, were not able to absorb the entire
surplus population of heavily agricultural regions like southern Italy, Spain,
Hungary, and Romania, where the land could not support the growing numbers of
people.
C. The booming economies of North America after 1898 and cheap shipping fares after
1900 led to mass emigration from southern and eastern Europe to North America at
the beginning of the 20thc.
II. It was not only economic motives that caused people to leave eastern Europe.
A. Migrants from Austria and Hungary, for example, were not the dominant
nationalities, the Germans and Magyars, but mostly their oppressed minorities, such
as Poles, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats, Romanians, and Jews.
Transformation of the Urban Environment
I. One of the most important consequences of industrialization and the population explosion
of the 19thc was urbanization.
A. In the course of the 19thc, urban dwellers came to make up an ever-increasing
percentage of the European population. The size of cities expanded dramatically,
especially in industrialized countries.
II. Urban populations grew faster than the general population primarily b/c of the vast
migration from rural areas to cities.
A. People were driven from the countryside to the cities by sheer economic necessity—
unemployment, land hunger, and physical want.
B. Urban centers offered something positive as well, usually mass employment in
factories and later in service trades and professions.
C. Cities also grew faster in the 2nd ½ of the 19thc b/c health and living conditions in
them were improving.
Improving Living Conditions
I. Legislative acts created boards of health that brought governmental action to bear on
public health issues.
A. Urban medical officers and building inspectors were authorized to inspect dwellings
for public health hazards.
B. New building regulations made it more difficult for private contractors to build
shoddy housing.
C. The Public Health Act of 1875 in Britain prohibited the construction of new
buildings w/o running water and an internal drainage system. For the 1st time in
Western history, the role of municipal governments had been expanded to include
detailed regulations for the improvement of living conditions of urban dwellers.
II. Essential to the public health of the modern European city was the ability to bring clean
water into the city and to expel sewage from it.
A. The accomplishment of these 2 tasks was a major engineering feat in the 2nd ½ of the
19thc.
B. The problem of fresh water was solved by a system of dams and reservoirs that
stored the water and aqueducts and tunnels that carried it from the countryside to the
city and into individual dwellings.
III. The treatment of wastewater was improved by building mammoth underground pipes that
carried raw sewage far from the city for disposal.
A. In many places, new underground sewers simply discharged their raw sewage into
what soon became highly polluted lakes and rivers.
B. The development of pure water and sewage systems dramatically improved public
health.
Housing Needs
I. Middle-class reformers who denounced the unsanitary living conditions of the working
classes also focused on their housing needs.
A. Overcrowded, disease-ridden slums were viewed as dangerous not only to physical
health but also to the political and moral health of the entire nation.
B. V.A. Huber, the foremost early German housing reformer, thought that good housing
was a prerequisite for a stable family life and hence a stable society.
 II. Early efforts to attack the housing problem emphasized the middle-class, liberal belief in
the efficacy of private enterprise.
A. Reformers such as Huber believed that the construction of model dwellings renting
at a reasonable price would force other private landlords to elevate their housing
standards.
B. An example of this approach was Octavia Hill, who rehabilitated some old dwellings
and constructed new ones to house 3,500 tenants.
III. Other wealthy reformer-philanthropists took a different approach to the housing problem.
A. One approach was the garden city.
B. At the end of the 19thc, Ebenezer Howard founded the British garden city movement,
which advocated the construction of new towns separated from each other by open
country that would provide the recreational areas, fresh air, and sense of community
that would encourage a healthy life.
IV. As the number and size of cities continued to grow, governments by the 1880s came to
the conclusion that private enterprise could not solve the housing crisis.
A. In 1890, a British law empowered local town councils to collect new taxes and
construct cheap housing for the working classes.
B. Everywhere, however, the lukewarm measures failed to do much to meet the real
housing needs of the working classes. In Britain, for example, only 5% of all
dwellings erected b/w 1890-1914 were constructed by municipalities under the
Housing Act of 1890.
C. In housing, as in many other areas of life in the 19thc, the liberal principle that the
government that governs least governs best had simply proved untrue. More and
more, governments were stepping into areas of activity that they would not have
touched earlier.
Redesigning the Cities
I. Housing was but one area of urban reconstruction after 1870. As urban populations
expanded in the 19thc, the older layout, confining the city to a compact area enclosed by
defensive walls, seemed restrictive and useless.
A. In the 2nd ½ of the 19thc, many of the old defensive walls were pulled down, and the
areas were converted into parks and boulevards.
B. While the broad streets served a military purpose—the rapid deployment of troops to
crush civil disturbances—they also offered powerful symbols of middle-class social
values.
II. Like Vienna, many European urban centers were redesigned during the 2nd ½ of the 19thc.
A. The old residential districts in the central city, many of them working-class slums,
were demolished and replaced w/town halls, government office buildings, retail
stores, museums, cafés, and theaters, all of which provided for the shopping and
recreational pleasures of the middle class.
III. As cities expanded and entire groups of people were displaced from urban centers by
reconstruction, city populations spilled over into the neighboring villages and
countrysides, which were soon incorporated into the cities.
A. The construction of the streetcar and commuter train lines by the turn of the century
enabled both working-class and middle-class populations to live in their own
suburban neighborhoods far removed from their places of work.
B. Cheap, modern transportation essentially separated home and work for many
Europeans.
Social Structure of the Mass Society
I. Historians generally agree that after 1871, the average person enjoyed an improving
standard of living. Great poverty did remain in Western society, and the gap b/w rich and
poor was enormous.
A. There were many different groups of varying wealth b/w the small group of the elite
at the top and the large number of poor at the very bottom.
The Upper Classes
I. At the top of European society stood a wealthy elite, constituting 5% of the population
but controlling 30-40% of its wealth.
 A. In the course of the 19thc, aristocrats coalesced w/the most successful industrialists,
bankers, and merchants to form a new elite.
B. Big business had produced this group of wealthy plutocrats, while aristocrats, whose
income from landed estates had declined, invested in railway shares, public utilities,
government bonds, and businesses, sometimes on their own estates.
C. Gradually, the greatest fortunes shifted into the hands of the upper middle class .
II. Increasingly, aristocrats and plutocrats fused as the wealthy upper middle-class purchased
landed estates to join the aristocrats in country living and the aristocrats bought town
houses for part-time urban life.
A. The educated elite assumed leadership roles in government bureaucracies and
military hierarchies.
III. In Germany, class lines were sometimes strictly drawn, especially if they were
complicated by anti-Semitism.
A. Although the upper middle class was allowed into the bureaucracy of the German
Empire, the diplomatic corps remained an aristocratic preserve.
The Middle Classes
I. The middle classes consisted of a variety of groups.
A. Below the upper middle class was a level that included such traditional groups as
professionals in law, medicine, and the civil service as well as moderately well-to-do
industrialists and merchants.
B. The industrial expansion of the 19thc also added new groups to this segment of the
middle class. These included business managers and new professionals, such as
engineers, architects, accountants, and chemists, who formed professional
associations as the symbols of their importance.
C. A lower middle class of shopkeepers, traders, manufacturers, and prosperous
peasants provided goods and services for the classes above them.
II. Standing b/w the lower middle class and the lower classes were new groups of white-
collar workers who were the product of the Second Industrial Revolution.
A. They were traveling sales representatives, bookkeepers, bank tellers, telephone
operators, department store salesclerks, and secretaries.
B. Although largely property less and often paid little more than skilled laborers, these
white collar workers were often committed to middle-class ideals and optimistic
about improving their status.
III. The moderately prosperous and successful middle classes shared a common lifestyle and
values that dominated 19thc society.
A. The members of the middle class were especially active in preaching their world-
view to their children and to the upper and lower classes of their society. This was
particularly evident in Victorian Britain, often considered a model of middle-class
society.
B. It was the European middle classes who accepted and promulgated the importance of
progress and science. They believed in hard work, which they viewed as the primary
human good, open to everyone and guaranteed to have positive results.
C. They were also regular churchgoers who believed in the good conduct associated
w/traditional Christian morality.
D. The middle class was concerned w/property and the right way of doing things.
The Lower Classes
I. Almost 80% of Europeans belonged to the lower classes. Many of them were landholding
peasants, agricultural laborers, and sharecroppers, especially in eastern Europe.
A. Many prosperous, landowning peasants shared the values of the middle class.
B. Military conscription brought peasants into contact w/the other groups of society,
and state-run elementary schools forced the children of peasants to speak the national
dialect and accept national loyalties.
II. The urban working class consisted of many different groups, including skilled artisans in
such trades as cabinetmaking, printing, and jewelry making.
A. Semiskilled laborers, who included such people as carpenters, bricklayers, and
factory workers, earned wages that were about 2/3 as high as skilled workers.
 B. At the bottom of the working-class hierarchy was the largest group of workers, the
unskilled laborers. They included day laborers and large numbers of domestic
servants.
III. Urban workers did experience a real betterment in the material conditions of their lives
after 1871.
A. Urban improvements meant better living conditions. A rise in real wages,
accompanied by a decline in many consumer costs, made it possible for workers to
buy more than just food and housing.
B. Workers’ budgets now provided money for more clothes and leisure at the same time
that strikes and labor agitation were winning shorter workdays.