Question

Identify and discuss the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. In what ways did those phenomena shape the world in the nineteenth century in terms of politics, society, economy, and ideas? Your essay should be four paragraphs long, minimum. Budget your time!

Answer 1

• The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, was a philosophical movement that took place primarily in Europe and, later, in North America, during the late 17thand early 18thcentury. Its participants thought they were illuminating human intellect and culture after the "dark" Middle Ages. Characteristics of the Enlightenment include the rise of concepts such as reason, liberty and the scientific method.
• The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement. Its followers considered that human reason is the only thing able to ‘light’ the way to reaching human happiness. The Enlightenment brought a move from theory to practice, from criticism to reforming action - in education, in household administration, in social reactions and in politics.
• Diderot declared that “man has only one duty: to be happy.” The Enlightenment thinkers’ goal was to apply rational analysis to all areas. Although the philosophers criticized certain institutions of the Old Regime, they did not oppose the regime as such and did not consider themselves to be revolutionaries.
• On the economic plane, labor was considered to be the only source of wealth and economic progress. Some thinkers considered agricultural labor to be the true source of wealth, and that landowners should have a privileged place in society. Others argued that society could prosper through the development of industry and commerce.
• Industrialization changed the ways in which Americans experienced work. Before industrialization, most Americans worked at home as their own bosses. They were in charge of deciding how and when they worked. After industrialization, most Americans worked outside the home for someone else. This meant that they were no longer their own masters.
  
• ndustrialization and urbanization began long before the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but it accelerated greatly during this period because of technological innovations, social changes, and a political system increasingly apt to favor economic growth beyond any other concern.
• Before 1880, industrialization depended upon a prescribed division of labor—breaking most jobs up into smaller tasks, and assigning the same people to repeat one task indefinitely. After 1880, industrialization depended much more on mechanization—the replacement of people with machines—to increase production and maximize profits.
• The advent of industrialization in the early nineteenth-century had wide reaching impacts on economics, politics, society and demographics. The transition from an agrarian and feudal system of production to an industrial and capitalistic system brought about many changes to the lives of Europeans.
• Some of these changes include gender issues, immigration, medicine, the rise of liberal and socialist politics, and the rise of some famous political movements.
• With the development and implementation of the factory, a new demand was created for labor. Instead of working as a farm laborer or other unskilled job, many individuals found a new source of employment as a factory worker.
• The surge of population into the urban centers of Europe created its own set of social problems. Among these problems was the creation of new social castes in European society.
• During this time period we see the emergence of new social classes, the working class and the middle class. The working class was comprised of the less skilled factory and day laborers, while the middle class included lawyers, doctors, merchants and business owners.
• The Industrial Revolution helped create the government we have today. It helped us come up with a way to dispose of waste, because before that they didn't have a way to throw things away which made the city filthy.
• Industrialization also helped make our century as advanced as it is today with its many ideas such as creating banks, using natural resources as energy, and making machines and technology a use of our everyday lives which helped us build off their ideas and create better ones today.
• Also through industrialization a new political system was thought of and later created, communism, which shaped many countries giving them a new way of governing their people.