An age of democracy and progress

The nineteenth century is considered a pivotal moment in history for Western Europe and North America. While European powers continued to extend their territories across the world in a new imperialistic wave, the U.S. saw opportunities of growth to the west. This surge of expansion and progress was possible by the advantages provided by new developments. By the late 1800s, novel energy sources were being developed and new ideas and discoveries in the fields of medicine and science emerged.

## Democratic Reform and Activism

Urbanization and industrialization brought sweeping changes to Western nations. People looking for solutions to the problems created by these developments began to demand reforms. They wanted to improve conditions for workers and the poor. Many people also began to call for political reforms. They demanded that more people be given a greater voice in government. Many different groups, including the middle class, workers, and women, argued that the right to vote be extended to groups that were excluded.

### Britain Enacts Reforms

Britain became a constitutional monarchy in the late 1600s. Under this system of government, the monarch serves as the head of state, but Parliament holds the real power. The British Parliament consists of a House of Lords and a House of Commons. Traditionally, members of the House of Lords either inherited their seats or were appointed.

Members of the House of Commons are elected by the British people. In the early 1800s, the method of selecting the British government was not a true democracy. Only about five percent of the population had the right to elect the members of the House of Commons. Voting was limited to men who owned a substantial amount of land. Women could not vote at all. As a result, the upper classes ran the government.

#### The Reform Bill of 1832

The first group to demand a greater voice in politics was the wealthy middle class—factory owners, bankers, and merchants. Beginning in
1830, protests took place around England in favor of a bill in Parliament that would extend suffrage.

Parliament passed the Reform Bill of 1832. This law eased the property requirements so that well-to-do men in the middle class could vote. The Reform Bill also modernized the districts for electing members of Parliament and gave the thriving new industrial cities more representation.

#### Chartist Movement

Although the Reform Bill increased the number of British voters, only a small percentage of men were eligible to vote. A popular movement arose among the workers and other groups who still could not vote to press for more rights.

The People's Charter of 1838 demanded a secret ballot, and end to property requirements for serving in Parliament and pay for members of Parliament.

### Women Get the Vote

As more men gained suffrage, more women demanded the same. British women organized a reform societies and protested against unfair laws and customs.

Led by Emmeline Pankhurst, women fought for the right to vote, which was not granted to them in Britain until after World War I.

Pankhurst formed the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903. The WSPU became the most militant organization for women’s rights. Its goal was to draw attention to the cause of woman suffrage. Pankhurst, her daughters Christabel and Sylvia, and other WSPU members were arrested and imprisoned many times. When they were jailed, the Pankhursts led hunger strikes to keep their cause in the public eye. British officials force-fed Sylvia and other activists to keep them alive.

### France and Democracy

In 1867, with the exile of Napoleon III, a radical group took control of Paris. They called themselves the Paris Commune. The Communards wanted democratic reforms.

In 1875, the National Assembly set up the "Third Republic." It gave more rights to the workers, but it was threatened by monarchists, aristocrats, clergy and army leaders, who wanted a monarchy to be restablished.

The new government system in France lasted for more than 60 years. This system was full of divisions and eventually it too gave way. Between 1871 and 1914, France experienced a change of government every 10 months.

#### The Dreyfus Affair

Found guilty based on false evidence, Jewish-French military captain Alfred Dreyfus was unfairly imprisoned. Public opinion was sharply divided. This scandal spurred anti-semitic sentiments.

The Dreyfus case showed the strength of anti-Semitism in France and other parts of Western Europe. However, persecution of Jews was even
more severe in Eastern Europe. This led to Jewish people to seek their own homeland in Palestine.

In the 1890s, a movement known as Zionism developed to pursue this goal. Its leader was Theodor Herzl, a writer in Vienna. It took many years, however, before the state of Israel was established.

## Nineteenth Century Progress

The Scientific Revolution had created a modern, rational approach to the study of the natural world. With the Industrial Revolution came a renewed interest in scientific research. By 1830, new discoveries in science led to many practical benefits that affected all Europeans.

### Inventions

Electricity became the new source of energy for factories and homes. This led to a new series of inventions.

#### Thomas Edison

After decades of attempts at creating a commercially viable electric lamp by many inventors, Thomas Edison was finally successful by the end of the 1870s at creating a light bulb for commercial use.

#### Alexander Graham Bell

He is most well known for inventing the telephone. While trying to perfect a method for carrying multiple messages on a single wire, he figured out a way to send human voice over a wire. In 1876 he received a patent for that invention, one of the most valuable ever issued.

#### Guglielmo Marconi

Another invention that revolutionized communications was the development of the Radio. Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi developed the first radio in 1895 using electromagnetic waves.

#### Other Important Developments

* **Transportation:** The development of the internal combustion engine, fired by oil and gasoline, provided a new source of power.
* **Flight:** In 1903, the Wright brothers powered a flying machine that gave rise to the aircraft industry.

### New Ideas in Medicine

Earlier centuries had established the scientific method. Now this method brought new insights into nature as well as practical results.

#### Louis Pasteur

An important breakthrough in the history of medicine was the germ theory of disease. It was developed by French chemist Louis Pasteur in the mid-1800s. While examining the fermentation process of alcohol, Pasteur discovered that it was caused by microscopic organisms he called bacteria. He also learned that heat killed bacteria. This led him to develop the process of pasteurization to kill germs in liquids such as milk. Soon, it became clear to Pasteur and others that bacteria also caused diseases.

#### Joseph Lister

Joseph Lister, a British surgeon, read about Pasteur’s work. He thought germs might explain why half of surgical patients died of infections. In 1865, he ordered that his surgical wards be kept spotlessly clean. He insisted that wounds be washed in antiseptics, or germ-killing liquids. As a result, 85 percent of Lister’s patients survived. Other hospitals adopted Lister’s methods. Public officials, too, began to understand that cleanliness helped prevent the spread of disease. Cities built plumbing and sewer systems and took other steps to improve public health. Meanwhile, medical researchers developed vaccines or cures for such deadly diseases as typhus, typhoid fever, diphtheria, and yellow fever. These advances helped people live longer, healthier lives.

#### Florence Nightingale

Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, in which she organised care for wounded soldiers. She significantly reduced death rates by improving hygiene and living standards. Nightingale gave nursing a favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture and wrote *Notes on Nursing* (1859), which served as the cornerstone of the curriculum at nursing schools. In 1860, she laid the foundation of professional nursing with the establishment of her nursing school at St Thomas' Hospital in London. It was the first secular nursing school in the world.

### New Ideas in Science

#### Charles Darwin

Darwin published his theory *On the Origin of Species* in 1859. He stated that each species had evolved over a long period of time from earlier and simpler forms of life. This process was possible thanks to what he called "natural selection." This implied the "survival of the fittest" idea.

#### Gregor Mendel

Although Darwin said that living things passed on their variations from one generation to the next, he did not know how they did so. In the 1850s and 1860s, an Austrian monk named Gregor Mendel discovered that there is a pattern to the way that certain traits are inherited. Although his work was not widely known until 1900, Mendel’s work began the science of genetics.

#### John Dalton

In 1803, the British chemist John Dalton theorized that all matter is made of tiny particles called atoms. Dalton showed that elements contain only one kind of atom, which has a specific weight. Compounds, on the other hand, contain more than one kind of atom.

#### Dmitri Mendeleev

In 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev, a Russian chemist, organized a chart on which all the known elements were arranged in order of weight, from lightest to heaviest. He left gaps where he predicted that new elements would be discovered. Later, his predictions proved correct. Mendeleev’s chart, the Periodic Table, is still used today.

#### The Curies

A husband and wife team working in Paris, Marie and Pierre Curie, discovered two of the missing elements, which they named radium and polonium. The elements were found in a mineral called pitchblende that released a powerful form of energy. In 1898, Marie Curie gave this energy the name radioactivity. In 1903, the Curies shared the Nobel Prize for physics for their work on radioactivity. In 1911, Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize for chemistry for the discovery of radium and polonium.

### The Rise of Mass Culture

The new urban and industrial world pattern led to the emergence of a mass society. Population continued to move to the urban aread. Eighty percent of the British popuation lived in cities by 1914.

**New job opportunities for women:**

* Large businesses and retail shops
* Governmental agencies
* Schools
* Hospitals

**New leisure activities:**

* Music concerts
* Vaudeville
* Amusement parks
* Movies
* Sports

#### Public Education

Between 1870 and 1914, Western governments began to set up state-financed primary schools. Public education contributed to expand nationalist feelings. Compulsory elementary education increased the need for teachers. Higher literacy rates contributed to the rise of mass newspapers.

 Improvements in communication ⇒ Cheaper and more accessible publications
 Invention of phonograph and records
 Shorter work days ⇒ More leisure time