Mers Makin' History

Period 5: Industrialization & Global Integration 1750-1900

Key Concept 5.1 Industrialization and Global Capitalism

Industrialization fundamentally altered the production of goods around the world. It not only changed how goods were produced and consumed, as well as what was considered a “good,” but it also had far reaching effects on the global economy, social relations and culture. Although it is common to speak of an “Industrial Revolution,” the process of industrialization was a gradual one that unfolded over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, eventually becoming global.
Focus Question: How did Industrialization affect seemingly unrelated fields like social structures, culture, the economy?

I. Industrialization changed fundamentally how goods were produced.

A. A variety of factors led to the rise of industrial production: Europe’s location on the Atlantic ocean; the geographical distribution of coal, iron, and timber; European demographic changes; urbanization; improved agricultural productivity; legal protection of private property; an abundance of rivers and canals; access to foreign resources; and the accumulation of capital.
Focus Question: What combination of factors were necessary to begin the Industrial Revolution?

B. The development of machines, including steam engines and the internal combustion engine, made it possible to exploit vast new resources of energy stored in fossil fuels, specifically coal and oil. The “fossil fuels” revolution greatly increased the energy available to human societies.
Focus Question: What “fueled” (both literally and metaphorically) the Industrial Revolution?

C. The development of the factory system concentrated labor in a single location and led to an increasing degree of specialization of labor.
Focus Question: How did factories change the nature of labor itself?

D. As the new methods of industrial production became more common in parts of northwestern Europe, they spread to other parts of Europe and the United States, Russia and Japan.
Focus Question: Where did factories start, and where/how did the factory system spread?

E. The “second industrial revolution” led to new methods in the production of steel, chemicals, electricity and precision machinery during the second half of the nineteenth century.
Focus Question: What was the “2nd Industrial Revolution?”

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. The need for raw materials for the factories and increased food supplies for growing population in urban centers led to the growth of export economies around the world that specialized in mass producing single natural resources. (such as cotton, rubber, palm oil, sugar, wheat, meat or guano) The profits from these raw materials were used to purchase finished goods.
Focus Question: What raw materials were commonly exported to industrialized areas?

B. The rapid development of industrial production contributed to the decline of economically productive, agriculturally-based economies. (such as textile production in India)
Focus Question: As industrial production rose, what type(s) of production declined?

C. The rapid increases in productivity caused by industrial production encouraged industrialized states to seek out new consumer markets for their finished goods (such as British and French attempts to “open up” the Chinese market during the nineteenth century)
Focus Question: What “new” markets did industrialized states look/ create for their exports?

D. The need for specialized and limited metals for industrial production, as well as the global demand for gold, silver and diamonds as forms of wealth led to the development of extensive mining centers. (such as copper mines in Mexico or gold and diamond mines in South Africa)
Focus Question: What role did monetary and precious metals play in the Industrial Revolution?

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

A. The ideological inspiration for economic changes lies in the development of capitalism and classical liberalism associated with Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill.
Focus Question: How did industrialists legitimize the economic changes of the Industrial Rev?

B. Financial instruments expanded. (such as stock markets, insurance, the gold standard or limited liability corporations)
Focus Question: What financial institutions facilitated industrial production?

C. The global nature of trade and production contributed to the proliferation of large scale transnational businesses. (such as bicycle tires, the United Fruit Company or the HSBC-Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation)
Focus Question: How did the Industrial Revolution affect the scale of businesses and overall economic activity?

IV.There were major developments in transportation and communication including railroads, steamships, telegraphs and canals.

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

A. In industrialized states, many workers organized themselves to improve working conditions, limit hours and gain higher wages while others opposed capitalist exploitation of workers by promoting alternative visions of society. (such as Utopian socialism, Marxism or anarchism)
Focus Question: How did workers respond to the Ind. Rev., and how did their vision of society compare to industrialists’?

B. In Qing China and the Ottoman Empire some members of the government resisted economic change and attempted to maintain pre-industrial forms of economic production.
Focus Question: How did governments respond to the tremendous economic changes of the Industrial Revolution?

C. In a small number of states, governments promoted their own state-sponsored visions of industrialization. (such as the economic reforms of Meiji Japan, the development of factories and railroads in Tsarist Russia, China’s Self-Strengthening program or Muhammad Ali’s development of a cotton textile industry in Egypt)

D. In response to criticisms of industrial global capitalism some governments mitigated the negative effects of industrial capitalism by promoting various types of reforms. (such as state pensions and public health in Germany, expansion of suffrage in Britain or public education in many states)
Focus Question: How and why did some governments reform their practices because of the Industrial Revolution?

VI. The ways in which people organized themselves into societies also underwent significant transformations in industrialized states due to the fundamental restructuring of the global economy.

Focus Question: How did the Ind. Rev. affect social and demographic characteristics?

A. New social classes, including the middle class and the industrial working class, developed.

B. Family dynamics, gender roles and demographics changed in response to industrialization.

C. Rapid urbanization that accompanied global capitalism often led to unsanitary conditions, as well as to new forms of community.

Key Concept 5.2 Imperialism and Nation-State Formation

As states industrialized during this period, they also expanded 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 both facilitated the spread of transoceanic empires and new states, as well as justifying anti-imperial resistance and the formation of new national identities.
Focus Question: What are the similarities & differences between colonialism and imperialism?
Focus Question: How did imperialism affect Europe’s influence around the world?

I. Industrializing powers established transoceanic empires.

A. States with existing colonies (such as the British in India or the Dutch in Indonesia) strengthened their control over those colonies.

B. European states (such as the British, the Dutch, the French, the Germans or the Russians) as well as the Americans and the Japanese established empires in throughout Asia and the Pacific, while Spanish and Portuguese influence declined.
Focus Question: Which states increased their influence and control over their pre-existing colonies, and which saw their influence decrease?

C. Many European states used both warfare and diplomacy to establish empires in Africa (such as Britain in West Africa or Belgium in the Congo)
Focus Question: What methods and tactics did industrialized states use to establish and expand their empires?

D. In some parts of their empires, Europeans established settler colonies. (such as the British in southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand, or the French in Algeria)

E. In other parts of the world, industrialized states practiced economic imperialism. (such as the British and French expanding their influence in China through the Opium Wars or the British and the United States investing heavily in Latin America)

II. Imperialism influenced state formation and contraction around the world.

A. The expansion of U.S. and European influence over Tokugawa Japan led to the emergence of Meiji Japan.

B. The United States, Russia and Qing China emulated European transoceanic imperialism by expanding their land borders and conquering neighboring territories.
Focus Question: How did imperialism help, hurt, or change various states?

C. Anti-imperial resistance led to the contraction of the Ottoman Empire. (such as the establishment of independent states in the Balkans, semi-independence in Egypt. French and Italian colonies in North Africa or later British influence in Egypt)
Focus Question: How did anti-imperialism affect the Ottoman Empire’s territories?

D. New states (such as the Cherokee nation, Siam, Hawai’i or the Zulu kingdom) developed on the edges of empire.
Focus Question: What were the effects of nationalism on various peoples and regions?

E. The development and spread of nationalism as an ideology fostered new communal identities. (such as the German nation, Filipino nationalism or Liberian nationalism)

III. New racial ideologies, especially Social Darwinism, facilitated and justified Imperialism.
Focus Question: How did imperialists justify imperialism?

Key Concept 5.3 Nationalism, Revolution, and Reform

The eighteenth century marked the beginning of an intense period of revolution and rebellion against existing governments and the establishment of new nation-states around the world. Enlightenment thought and the resistance of colonized peoples to imperial centers shaped this revolutionary activity. These rebellions sometimes resulted in the formation of new states and stimulated the development of new ideologies. These new ideas in turn further stimulated the revolutionary and anti-imperial tendencies of this period.
Focus Question: How did both the Enlightenment and colonized peoples’ actions affect political developments after 1750?
Focus Question: How did political rebellions affect the political structures and ideologies around the world?

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.

Focus Question: What role did the Enlightenment play in making political revolutions & rebellions possible?

A. Thinkers (such as Voltaire or Rousseau) applied new ways of understanding the natural world to human relationships, encouraging observation and inference in all spheres of life.
Focus Question: How did Enlightenment thinkers affect understandings of the relationship between the natural world and humans?

B. Intellectuals critiqued the role that religion played in public life, insisting on the importance of reason as opposed to revelation
Focus Question: How did the Enlightenment evaluate the role of religion in public life?

C. Enlightenment thinkers (such as Locke or Montesquieu) developed new political ideas about the individual, natural rights and the social contract.
Focus Question: What new political ideas re: the individual, natural rights, and the social contract did the Enlightenment develop?

D. They also challenged existing notions of social relations which led to the expansion of rights as seen in expanded suffrage, the abolition of slavery and the end of serfdom as their ideas were implemented.
Focus Question: What social & political norms did Enlightenment thinkers challenge? What were the effects of their questioning?

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.

Focus Question: What is the basis of national identity and nationalism? How did governments use these new ideas on their populations?

III. Increasing discontent with imperial rule and the spread of Enlightenment ideas propelled reformist and revolutionary movements.

A. Subjects challenged the centralized imperial governments (such as the challenge of the Marathas to the Mughal Sultans)
Focus Question: How did subject peoples relate to their ruling governments?

B. American colonial subjects led a series of rebellions which facilitated the emergence of independent states in the United States, Haiti and mainland Latin America. French subjects rebelled against their monarchy. These revolutions generally attempted to put the Enlightenment’s political theory into practice. Evidence of this can be found in the American Declaration of Independence, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen or Bolivar’s Jamaica Letter.
Focus Question: How did rebellions and revolutions in the Americas and Europe reflect Enlightenment ideals?

C. Slave resistance (such as the establishment of Maroon societies) challenged existing authorities in the Americas.
Focus Question: How did slaves’ resistance affect existing authorities in the Americas?

D. Increasing questions about political authority and growing nationalism contributed to anti-colonial movements. (such as the Indian Revolt of 1857 or the Boxer Rebellion)
Focus Question: What was the relationship between nationalism and anti-colonialism?

E. Some of the rebellions were influenced by religious ideas and millenarianism,. (such as the Taiping Rebellion, the Ghost Dance or the Xhosa cattle killing)
Focus Question: How did religion influence nationalism?

F. Responses to increasingly frequent rebellions led to reforms in imperial policies. (such as the Tanzimat movement or the SelfStrengthening Movement)
Focus Question: How did imperial governments react to nationalistic rebellions?

IV. The global spread of European political and social thought and the increasing number of rebellions stimulated new transnational ideologies and solidarities.

Focus Question: What other new ideologies did the Enlightenment stimulate?

A. Discontent with monarchist and imperial rule encouraged the development of political ideologies including liberalism, socialism and communism.
Focus Question: What new political ideologies developed from c. 1750-1900?

B. Demands for women’s suffrage and an emergent feminism challenged political and gender hierarchies. (such as Mary Wollstonecraft’s “A Vindication of the Rights of Women,” Olympe de Gouges’ “Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female Citizen” or the resolutions passed at the Seneca Falls Conference in 1848)
Focus Question: What people or issues did Enlightenment thinkers ignore or overlook?

Key Concept 5.4 Global Migration

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 benefitted economically from migration, while other peoples 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.
Focus Question: How did migrations in this period compare to earlier periods? What were the main social, economic, and political causes and effects of this new age of migration?

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.

Focus Question: How did the Industrial Revolution affect migration patterns during this period?

A. Changes in food production and improved medical conditions contributed to a significant global rise in population.
Focus Question: What were the causes of world population growth?

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.
Focus Question: How did new modes of transportation affect migration?

II. Migrants relocated for a variety of reasons.

Focus Question: Why did people migrate?

A. Many individuals (such as manual laborers or specialized professionals) chose freely to relocate, often in search of work.
Focus Question: What were the economic motives behind migration?

B. The new global capitalist economy continued to rely on coerced and semi-coerced labor migration, including slavery, Chinese and Indian indentured servitude and convict labor.
Focus Question: What types of migration were voluntary vs. involuntary?

C. While many migrants permanently relocated, a significant number of temporary and seasonal migrants returned to their home societies. (such as Japanese agricultural workers in the Pacific, Lebanese merchants in the Americas or Italians in Argentina)
Focus Question: How permanent were migrations?

III. 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.

Focus Question: What were the social consequences and reactions to 19 century migrations?

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.

Focus Question: How were gender roles affected by migration?

B. Migrants often created ethnic enclaves, (such as concentrations of Chinese and Indians in different parts of the world) which helped transplant their culture into new environments and facilitated the development of migrant support networks.

Focus Question: How did migrants preserve and transplant their culture in their new homes?

C. Receiving societies did not always embrace immigrants, as seen in various degrees of ethnic and racial prejudice and the ways states attempted to regulate the increased flow of people across their borders. (such as the Chinese Exclusion Act or the White Australia Policy)

Focus Question: How did receiving societies react to the new presence of foreign migrants?

Chapter 17 and 18 Learning Targets, Notes and Videos