Chapter 24 Discussion Questions

Chapter 24 Discussion Questions How sanitary were houses of the British lower orders? The houses of the British lower orders were completely unsanitary and unhealthy. In various sections of Manchester, as many as 200 people shared one outhouse. These outhouses were not cleaned out often and sewage overflowed and seeped into dwellings. Some courtyards became dung hills and sometimes excrement was gathered and sold as fertilizer. How did women’s status change during the 19th Century? Women usually did not work in the factories in 19th century Europe.

It became expected of them to stay home and take care of the children. They formed bonds with their children because of the decrease in infant mortality rates and genuinely loved their husbands because people married out of love, not for economic reasons. Women had legal inferiority to their husbands and worked to change that throughout the 19th century. They campaigned for equal voting rights and access to higher education and professional employment. These groups gained important victories like the 1882 law that gave English women complete property rights. Discuss the philosophy of Auguste Comte.

Auguste Comte was a French philospher who was an exceptionally influential system builder in the 19th century. He believed that intellectual activity goes through predictable stages. Comte believed that his new discipline of sociology would identify the eternal laws of human relations by applying the scientific method, or positivist method as it is also known. These stages of knowledge illustrate the popularity of the idea of evolution in the 19th century. How was transportation transformed in the 19th Century? In the 1870s horse-drawn streetcars operated in many European cities, which were invented in America.

In the 1890s European cities utilized the electric streetcar, which was another American invention. Electric streetcars were cheaper and faster than horse-drawn streetcars. Millions of Europeans made use of the improved public transportation, workers, shoppers, and schoolchildren alike. In 1886 horse-drawn streetcars were transporting 900 million riders in England, Austria-Hungary, Germany, and France. In 1910 electric streetcars were transporting 6. 7 million passengers in those four countries. The improvement in public transportation helped the overpopulation of urban cities.

Urban workers were able to live further away from the cities and still get to and from work using the innovations is public transportation. : Decide on a 19th Century painting that best describes urban living. Be prepared to show the painting and explain how it reflects urban living. This painting shows urban living in the 19th century for a couple of reasons. The horse-drawn streetcars show the increase in public transportation during the 19th century. The spacious boulevards show the change in urban planning in Paris by Georges Haussmann at that time.

How did the rise of industrialization affect urban life and the family? Industrialization caused overcrowding in major cities which sped up the spread of diseases and germs. Most people who lived in major cities lived in buildings that were cramped with as many as ten people in one room. Living conditions were poor and unhealthy. Sewers flowed alongside or down the middle of unpaved streets. Millions of European families lived “in shit. ” How did the scientific-technological thinking influence the social sciences and the arts? Many people attempted to apply the objective methods of science to the study of society.

These new social scientists had access to huge sets of numerical data that various governments had started to accumulate on all things, from prostitution to population, from crime to children. Along with Auguste Comte, another influential philosopher and scientist was Charles Darwin. Darwin presented the idea of natural selection and evolution in the 19th century. Darwin said that variations within a specific species will kill off the weaker members will die off and the stronger members will survive, based on Malthus’ theory that population will always outgrow the amount of supplies.

How different are our attitudes toward gender and class issues from those of the Victorian Age? In the Victorian Age, the man had his place in the family and the women had theirs. Women were expected to stay home and manage the household, take care of the children, and manage the money. Men were expected to be the wage earners in factories and offices, not the women. Women only had jobs outside the house if they were extremely poor. And women who did have jobs like this, were paid significantly less than men who held the same job position.

Nowadays, it is very common practice for women to have jobs outside the household. It is also illegal to pay employees more or less because of gender or racial reasons nowadays. Compare women and child-raising in the 16ththrough 18thCenturies with the 19thCentury? Throughout the 16th century, women were afraid to form bonds with their children because of the extremely high infant mortality rate. In the 18th century, the peasantry still did not become attached to their children until they were at least a year old. If the child survived the first year of life, his odds of surviving were much greater.

Older children helped in cottage industry and the more children there were to help produce textiles and other things, the better. During the 18th century, the upper classes still neglected their children. Infants were usually handed off to wet nurses because breast-feeding was seen as a burden and by breast-feeding your children, there was a chance of becoming close to them. Finally, in the 19th century, women formed bonds with their children, no matter how young and breast-feeding was seen as a privilege, unlike before. Women were not as afraid of forming bonds with their children because infant mortality rates began to decrease.