At the beginning of this reading we see how the socialist and labor parties gain momentum in politics and how democracies begin to shape the world. This was due in part because the rich bourgeoisie capitalists were apparently gaining wealth at the expense of the working class.
Unfortunately anti-Semitism becomes more organized during this time period. The churches back the conservative political parties. The ruling classes tried to cope with this new paradigm shift by trying limiting the socialist / labor impact. The industrial revolution is in full swing which displaces the workers who were able to create goods by their own skills with workers who need almost no skills at all. This leads to workers to form very powerful unions. Throughout history, areas were mainly made up of small kingdoms whereas now we see the rise of nationalism. Nationalism leads to all kinds of bad things such as anti immigrant sentiment, the ease of getting population motivated to go to war, i.e. the conversion from nationalism to patriotism. Although there are some benefits such as the effect of making the lower class people feel proud to be a part of the country that they’re in. There is some difficulty in defining who is in what social class, the lines become somewhat blurred. Although they try to define it by who owns what. The flaunting of wealth was looked down upon. Although there were a few exceptional women who were very well respected the general population of women finally make some inroads to employment and education although usually only in remedial jobs. Women had to go to work to provide some support for their families and worked mainly in textiles and clothing. We also see at this time the beginnings of sexual liberation among some women.
It was interesting to read that even though the workers were gravitating towards socialism they were actually quite comfortable. Some other interesting things: Many references to Pittsburgh, Andrew Carnegie and the formation of United States Steel. How miners formed their own communities.
I was surprised to see that way back in the past women had to work to bring additional support to the family household. We were always told that having 2 working parents is a relatively new phenomenon; in reality it is not new.
Lou Coban
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Whoops, that should have been Chapter 5 - 8.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Lou how surprising that is about the women bringing in income for the family.I thought it was interesting that the chapter explains that it was almost necessary for women to be working because mostly no lower-middle class and not all middle-class families could provide a comfortable living to their daughters unless they married or worked.
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