Chapter 6: Life in the Industrial Age
Section 3: Changing Attitudes and Values
Three Social Classes Emerge-Late 1800s
New Upper Class
Wealthy entrepreneurs married into aristocratic families, gaining the status of noble titles. Nobles needed the money brought by the industrial rich to support their lands and lifestyle.
Middle Class
mid-level business people and professionals such as doctors and scientists.
Lower Middle class included teachers and office workers.
Working Class
Workers from factories and peasants that worked as farmers in less industrialized countries.
Critical Thinking
1. How did the division of labor in middle class households change?
Earlier, middle-class women had helped run family businesses out of the home. By the later 1800s, most middle-class husbands went to work in an office or shop. A successful husband was one who earned enough to keep his wife at home. Women spent their time raising children, directing servants, and doing religious or charitable service.
2. Describe the ideal middle class woman.
The ideal woman was seen as a tender, self-sacrificing caregiver who provided a nest for her children and a peaceful refuge for her husband to escape from the hardships of the working world.
3. Describe the typical lower class woman.
Working-class women labored for low pay in garment factories or worked as domestic servants. Young women might leave domestic service after they married, but often had to seek other employment. Despite long days working for wages, they were still expected to take full responsibility for child care and homemaking.
4. What is the cause of the temperance movement?
Temperance leaders argued not only that drinking threatened family life, but that banning it was important for a productive and efficient workforce.
5. Why were some people against giving women suffrage?
Some critics claimed that women were too emotional to be allowed to vote. Others argued that women needed to be “protected” from grubby politics or that a woman’s place was in the home, not in government.
6. How does Elizabeth Cady Stanton believe that Education would benefit women?
She believes that a well rounded education would better prepare women for the unexpected and teach women to be more independent .
7. How were boys and girls treated differently in schools?
Middle-class girls were sent to school primarily in the hope that they might marry well and become better wives and mothers. Education for girls did not include subjects such as science, mathematics, or physical education because they were not seen as necessary subjects for girls to learn.
8. Why did more children attend school in the late 1800s than before?
Fewer children were needed to work on the farm and the middle class that could afford to send their children to school was also growing.
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism is a belief which states that the strongest or fittest should survive and flourish in society, while the weak and unfit should be allowed to die.
Herbert Spencer quickly adapted Darwinian ideas to his own ethical theories (Social Darwinism).
He said the rich and powerful were better adapted to the social and economic climate of the time.
The concept of natural selection allowed him to argue that it was natural, normal, and proper for the strong to thrive at the expense of the weak.
After all, he claimed, that is exactly what goes on in nature every day.
It was also morally correct.
Applications of Social Darwinism
Used to justify the exploitation of others considered as too weak and unfit to survive, and therefore felt justified in seizing land and resources.
Applied to military action as well; the argument went that the strongest military would win, and would therefore be the most fit.
Brutal colonial governments justified the use of oppressive tactics against their subjects.
It provided a justification for the more exploitative forms of capitalism in which workers were paid sometimes pennies a day for long hours of backbreaking labor.
It has been used to justify eugenics programs aimed at weeding “undesirable” genes from the population; such programs were sometimes accompanied by sterilization laws directed against “unfit” individuals.
Historically, eugenics has been used as a justification for coercive state-sponsored discrimination and human rights violations, such as forced sterilization of persons with genetic defects, the killing of the institutionalized and, in some cases, genocide on races perceived as inferior.
From1910-1930, 24 states passed sterilization laws and Congress passed a law restricting immigration from certain areas deemed to be unfit.
Nazi party in Germany to justify their eugenics programs.
Critical Thinking
1. How did Charles Darwin’s ideas become connected with racist ideas?
Some thinkers used his theories to support their own beliefs about society. Applying the idea of survival of the fittest to war and economic competition that came to be known as Social Darwinism.
2. What was the purpose of the social gospel?
It was a movement that urged Christians to social service. They campaigned for reforms in housing, healthcare, and education.
3. What do John Dalton, Charles Lyell, and Charles Darwin have in common?
They all developed scientific theories that went against traditional beliefs.
4. Why did living conditions in industrialized nations encourage compassionate and charitable feelings?
Industrialization created harsh living conditions for many people. Many felt the need to push for reform for the working poor, and religious organizations were looking for a way to accomplish that.
