THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The Succession up to William and Mary and Queen Anne.

Charles II had no legitimate children and so his brother James (James II) succeeded him
(in spite of attempts to exclude him from the succession). Although James was a Catholic, the Whigs
tolerated him because his daughters, Mary and Anne, were
Protestants.
It was in 1673, when James married a Catholic which meant the possibility of a Catholic male heir, that
the Whigs attempted to exclude James from the succession and when Charles died in 1685 his illegitimate
son, the Duke of Monmouth, tried to claim the throne. He was defeated by James at the Battle of
Sedgemoor (1685) and so James II reigned until the Glorious Revolution of 1688. In 1688, James had a
son which meant a Catholic heir to the throne. At the request of some leading MPs, Jamess daughter
Mary and her husband William of Orange invaded England. James fled to France prior to
raising an army. William and Mary were named joint sovereigns, Parliament issued the
Declaration of Rights (later the Bill of Rights), which stipulated the rights and obligations of the monarch.
James landed an army in Ireland and was welcomed by the people; he laid siege to
Londonderry but William of Orange rescued the city and later defeated James at the
Battle of the Boyne (1690). The Catholics gave in and were later banned from owning
land or voting.
William and Marty reigned jointly till 1694 when Mary died of smallpox (viruela). He then ruled
alone. During his reign, rebellions in Ireland and Scotland were put down. In Scotland,
William defeated the Scottish highlanders with the help of Scottish lowlanders who
supported him. The Massacre of Glencoe took place at this time when the Jacobite
MacDonald Clan was massacred by the Campbells who supported William. This
happened in 1692 following an uprising led by John Graham of Claverhouse, 1st
Viscount of Dundee.
Queen Anne 1702-1714.
On the death of William, Queen Anne, the daughter of James II and the last Stuart
monarch came to the throne. She, like Mary, had been brought up and educated as a
Protestant.
During most of her reign, England was at war with Spain (the War of Spanish
Succession) but, during her reign also, the Scottish Parliament voted in favour of Union
with England (that is, the Act of Union, the Union of the Scottish and English
parliaments) in return for commercial concessions (for example, Glasgow was to
become a major port from this time on). Scotland kept its legal system and also the
Presbyterian Church (Church of Scotland). From that time on, Scottish MPs sat at
Westminster.
All Annes children died so that her cousin, Sophia of Hanover was declared her heir.
However, Sophia died in 1714 and so her son George of Hanover, later George I,
became next in line to the throne of Great Britain.
The Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment refers to the period in Western culture and philosophy in
which reason began to be considered as the primary source and legitimacy for authority.
The Enlightenment is usually placed in the 18th century although it could be traced back
as far as Descartes in the 17th century.
Reason was considered to be above any other kind of authority and this change in
intellectual thought led to such things as the separation of powers, the movements
against the aristocracy, the questioning of divine right (in the monarchy), the
fundamental importance and right of liberty and the the need for individual rights,
reason and common sense.
Another feature of this period was the belief in freedom of religion and it coincided with
the propagation of demands for liberty and freedom of speech as well as with the
proliferation of scientific discoveries.
One of the results of this change in mens way of thinking was the French Revolution,
promoted by the Philosophers. One of the most important documents to come out of the
Revolution was the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in France. We
also have the Declaration of Independence.
Some influential thinkers regarding such documents were Thomas Paine (The Rights of
Man; The Age of Reason) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract).

In English History, some believe that the Enlightenment dates back to the 1640s when
the English Civil War took place. This meant an end of Absolutist Monarchies, with the
overthrow of Charles I (Previously in 1628, Parliament had forced Charles to sign the
Petition of Rights).
Following the Civil War, a Republic was established in England.
Some important events at this early stage were the following:
In 1688, the Glorious Revolution takes place.
In 1689, the English Bill of Rights is presented.
In 1690, John Locke published his Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Two
Treatises of Government.
In the 18th century, there were many travellers in Britain. At first sight this may not
seem significant, but these men often travelled with a purpose, not simply to do the
grand tour. Some studied languages, politics, constitutions; others were great
collectors of the arts and artefacts; many observed possibilities for improvements in
agriculture, crafts and manufacturing techniques which were unknown in England; and,
of course, they were constantly discovering new markets for their own businesses.
Hence, the developments in technology, new markets and the discovery of strange
lands, exotic plants and flowers and fruits, were not accidental, but the result of human
curiosity.
In Britain there were many developments in the 18th century, which would be known as
the Age of Enlightenment. Scientific discovery in the 17th century had opened up new
possibilities for scientists in the 18th. These discoveries had deepened mans
understanding of the world and made him question the whole nature of the Biblical
universe which had been accepted unquestioningly by his forefathers. Geographical and
intellectual horizons were both expanding rapidly.
Many great scientific accomplishments had already been achieved in the 17th century
which had changed the nature of our universe. Sir Issac Newton remained President of
the Royal Society until his death in 1727. Those who followed him tended to disregard
Leibniz ideas on calculus which actually held back scientific discovery for a time, but
discoveries would certainly be made in time.
There were basic problems for philosophers and theologians, too. Long before Darwin,
these men had to confront the dilemma of how to reconcile reason with religion. God
had become depersonalised and at this time (the 1720s) Deism began to spread. There
was much theological controversy and a great influence on this was the prevailing spirit
of scepticism which derived from empirical philosophers like David Hume, whose
Treatise on Human Nature was a great influence on contemporary thought.
It is interesting to note that this desire to discover things new was reflected in the great
popularity of travel books at this time; a desire to find out new things about the world as
well as the universe and God.
Some significant events and discoveries were these:
1662: The Royal Society, Britains first scientific society is founded.
1665-66: Isaac Newton establishes laws of light and motion and formulates the law of
gravity.
1675: The first astronomical observatory in Britain is built at Greenwich.
1681: Oil powered street lamps are put up in London for the first time.
1698: Thomas Savery invents the first steam pump.
1714: The Board of Longitude was set up to discover the correct longitude for maps and
charts. The problem was solved by John Harrisons chronometer which was used by
James Cook in his explorations of Australia and New Zealand.
c.1750-1900: The Industrial Revolution.
During this period, the Reverend Stephen Hales invents a method for collecting gases;
Joseph Black, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow invents a method of
accurate measurements in chemistry: together these advances make the discovery of
carbon dioxide a possibility.
1774: Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen. Further research based on his discovery
becomes the basis for the separation of gases and the combination of chemical
compounds.
Henry Cavendish breaks water down into its components.
1785: The first crossing of the English Channel in a hot-air balloon.
1792: William Murdoch is the first person to use coal gas to light a house. Later, this

would be superseded by natural gas for domestic use.

1808: John Daltons atomic theory is published: he was the first to affirm that matter
was made up of tiny particles called atoms.
1827: John McAdam, a surveyor of roads, begins to make roads out of broken granite
instead of stone or dirt.
1830-1850: Advances in medicine.
This was also a time of the pamphleteers. Not only did newspapers become greater in
number but many pamphlets appeared on political and religious topics. The overall
effect was that the general public was much better informed.
There were improvements in primary school education, too. There were societies for
moral education like the SPCK (Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge),
which still exists, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
There was even a Society for the Reformation of Manners.
Charity schools and grammar schools were founded: this meant that artisans, clerks and
shopkeepers were better educated as well as better informed, all of which coincided
with the increase in the production of literature. It is not surprising that this is the age of
the Rise of the Novel, the age of Defoe and Richardson; the age of Swift, Pope and
satire. There was much theatrical production, too, John Gays Beggars Opera, Oliver
Goldsmiths She Stoops to Conquer, and Sheridans School for Scandal; Congreve,
Dryden and many others. It was the Augustan Age of poetry (neo-classical), but the age
of Gray and Burns (Romantic) as well; the age of essayists and great characters like
Boswell and Dr. Johnson.
In art, Sir Joshua Reynolds founded the Royal Academy in 1768; Robert Adam was the
architect of the New Town (neo-classical) in Edinburgh.
It was a time of forward thinking but also of radical thinking: philosophers, theologians
and historians, the new age of reason behind the French Revolution; John Wilkes
supported radicalism and was a supporter of the French Revolution; Richard Price wrote
On Civil Liberty as did Thomas Paine; then, the American colonists revolted.
In economics, Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations which even today influences
the tendency towards free trade which indeed was the policy of William Pitt, the
Younger, following its publication.
Gibbon also published The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and all of this
marked a break with the intellectual attitudes of the past.
Even before Darwins discoveries, James Hutton was making great geological
discoveries about the age of the earth on Salisbury Crags and Arthurs Seat in
Edinburgh; there were Linnaean Geological, Horticultural and Astronomical Societies
and scientific curiosity and scientific advance became increasingly more rapid
throughout the century as we can see from the many examples above.
The Enlightenment in Scotland.
This is the period in the 18th century characterised by an upsurge in scientific and
intellectual accomplishments.
By 1750, the Scots had the highest rate of literacy in Europe (75%). This was partly due
to the Presbyterian system.
The Scots shared the same humanist and rationalist approach to study as the rest of the
European Enlightenment. This was based on the importance of reason and a belief in the
possibility of improving society and nature through reason.
It was a period characterised by empiricism and practicality and the chief virtue was
believed to be improvement and practical benefit for the individual and society as a
whole.
There were great achievements in philosophy, economics, engineering, architecture,
medicine, geology, archaeology, law, agriculture, chemistry and sociology.
Outstanding figures of the Scottish Enlightenment are the following:
Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, Robert Burns, Adam
Ferguson, John Playfair, Joseph Black, James Hutton.
Some Significant Points to Remember about the 18th Century.
Monarchs.
The House of Stuart:
Queen Anne (1702-1714)

The House of Hanover:

George I (1714-1727)
George II (1727-1760): The last English monarch to lead an army into battle in the War
of the Austrian Succession.
George III (1760-182): he was King when America gained its independence, during the
French Revolution, the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. During his reign there
were also agricultural reforms and the Industrial Revolution took place. It was a time of
Imperial expansion).
The Jacobite Rebellions:
The First, 1715: a rebellion mainly in the Highlands and North-east of Scotland in
favour of the succession of James Edward Stuart, son of James II.
The Second, 1745: Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie), the grandson of
James II, raised the standard at Glenfinnan in the North-West of Scotland and with the
help of some Highland clans as well as an Irish brigade he tried unsuccessfully to
restore the Crown to the Stuart dynasty. The rebellion was crushed at the Battle of
Culloden in 1746.
Important Prime Ministers:
Robert Walpole (1722-42): the first to be known as Prime Minister: he headed the
cabinet of George I who spoke no English and fomented trade with the colonies. A
Whig, he and other wealthy men of influence known as the oligarchs were able to
pressure government decisions. There were many who were against Walpole for reasons
of corruption. He was forced to resign in 1742, shortly after William Pitt, the elder
joined Parliament.
William Pitt, the elder, became the most important member of the cabinet in 1756. He
was instrumental in bringing about Britains victory in the Seven Years War. However,
he was also unable to bring about changes that might avoid American independence. He
had a strong imperialist policy.
William Pitt, the Younger became Prime Minister at the age of 24 in 1783 and was
Prime Minister on two occasions.
He followed the doctrines of Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations and encouraged free
trade, abolishing import duties and making peace with France. He also tried
unsuccessfully to bring about electoral reforms in Parliament. After the French
Revolution he imposed laws against treason and sedition, even making trade unions
illegal for a time.
There were many changes in Government during this time, but these three made a
significant mark in British politics.
The Act of Union, 1707.
This Act meant the union of the English and Scottish Parliaments who would from this
time meet at Westminster. The Scots signed the Act in exchange for financial benefits
which meant ports like Glasgow would benefit from colonial trade.
Scotland maintained its Church and its legal system. The result was the formation of
Great Britain.
John Locke (1632-1704)
Two Treatises of Government (1690)
(or Two Treatises of Government: In the Former, the False Principles and
Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer, And His Followers, Are Detected and
Overthrown. The Latter is an Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent, and
End of Civil Government).
This piece of Political Philosophy was first published anonymously and was not
acknowledged as Lockes until after his death.
The first part attacks the patriarchalism of Filmers Patriarcha and the second explains
a theory of government based on natural rights and a social contract.
In the Preface, it explains its purpose is to justify the ascension of William III (the
Glorious Revolution) although it was begun much earlier during the Exclusion Crisis to
stop James II becoming king.
This was a dangerous piece of writing as it went against the notion of the divine right of
kings which had been prevalent at this time (remember even Charles IIs divine right
had been recognised by Parliament).
It was published in America in 1773 and is believed to have influenced the American

Declaration of Independence. It was published in translation in France as early as 1691

and was later reprinted. It is sure to have been an influence during the French
Revolution as Montesquieu, Voltaire and Rousseau were at least aware of its existence.
Locke not only refutes the notion of the divine right of kings, he also argues against
Thomas Hobbes idea as presented in Leviathan that in a natural state man is selfish
and savage and that a single absolute ruler was the best form of government.
Locke insists on mans essentially good nature and explains that representative
government is the ideal form.
It is known as one of the most influential works on government, completely overturning
current beliefs in authoritarian and totalitarian rule. The social origins of government, its
aims and limits are also laid out.
The only legitimate form of government must have the consent of the people and it
must uphold the rights of life, liberty and property. As well as being a justification of
the Glorious Revolution it was an inspiration for the Declaration of Independence which
is formulated using similar terms.
In the Second Treatise, Locke describes the State of Nature. For Hobbes, this was the
state of war of every man against man but for Locke, in the state of nature all men
are created equal by God. The rise of property and civilization brings about the need
for government but the only legitimate government must have the consent of the people.
Any government that rules without this consent can be overthrown.
In the state of nature individuals are under no obligation to obey one another; each
judges what the law of nature requires.
The State of Nature is:
a state of perfect freedom of acting and disposing of their own possessions and
persons as they think fit within the bounds of the law of nature. People in this state do
not have to ask permission to act or depend on the will of others to arrange matters on
their behalf [It is one of] equality all power and jurisdiction is reciprocal no
one has more than another. It is evident that all human beings are equal amongst
themselves .
This exists wherever there is no legitimate government.
While Hobbes view of nature is one of chaos, Locke waits till Chapter IX to mention
that the state of nature however free, is full of continual dangers.
If unjust men do not apply the law of nature (that is, apply to reason), then, if it is not
enforced, man may have to give up part of his freedom and control over himself for the
following reasons:
Why give up this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and control of any other
power?
[In spite of this being his own right in the state of nature] the enjoyment of it is very
uncertain, and constantly exposed to the invasion of others . The enjoyment of
property he has in this state is very unsafe, very insecure. This makes him willing to
quit a condition which, however free, is full of fears and continual dangers [so he]
seeks out and is willing to join in society with others for the mutual preservation of
their lives, liberties and estates property.
It is to avoid the state of war and protect property that men enter into civil or political
society or the state of society. Under dissolution of government, man returns to this
state.
Locke says that all kings require the approbation of the people.
For him, property is life, liberty and estate. Each owns himself as free and equal and
also owns his labour.
Representative government is a contract between the people and the monarch/oligarchy.
Right of revolution exists if the ruler oversteps authority or breaks the contract; then,
people are morally compelled to overthrow the government. This is because man
surrenders freedoms for protection from the state under the rule of law (contract).
In Chapter VIII, Locke explains the nature of the body politic: by the consent of every
individual the community becomes one body and to act as an individual it is able to do
so by the consent of the majority. This is necessary because unanimity would be
basically impossible to achieve and make all action impossible. As Locke says,
Whosoever out of a state of nature unite into a Community, must be understood to give
up all the power, necessary to the ends for which they unite into Society, to the majority
of the community.

Locke establishes from this point on that the basis for government is the rule of the
majority.
As we said its influence is still seen in democratic societies today at every level. It
history it was mentioned in the Stamp Act Congress, it influenced even the phrasing of
the Declaration of Independence and its influence can also be seen in the Declaration of
the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
It underlies all the Universal Declarations of Human Rights that are familiar to us today
Society at the Start of the 18th Century.
At the start of the century, England was a country made up of small towns and cities
without sanitation, without medicine and with little food. Because of these deficiencies
there was a very high mortality rate.
The country was governed by the Crown and the Kings ministers, made up of Whigs
and Tories (formerly the Country Party and the Court Party respectively). These
important men have become known as the Oligarchs as they were the few people with
power and influence who basically ran the country. Influence and corruption were rife
in government, men were placed in positions, there was no universal suffrage (not even
for men) and among the landowners who could vote it was common for candidates to
buy their votes. This meant that Government tended not to represent the common
people, whose living standards were precariously bad.
The start of industrial villages and towns as the century progressed led to growth, but
there was overcrowding in these areas and the poverty and insanitary conditions meant
high death rate and that inevitably many were buried in communal paupers graves.
Travelling from place to place was a problem at the start of the century. Road transport
was slow and unreliable. Stagecoaches and carts travelled slowly along dirt roads which
were full of potholes and became very muddy in wet weather and very dusty in the
summer. Each parish was expected to maintain its own roads and the 1555 Road Act
had established that the parish could appoint people to work on the roads for 6 days a
year without payment. This meant that they did not work very hard at the job and the
results were poor.
The transportation of goods and raw materials was also a problem. Often, packhorses
would be used but this method was very slow. There were also navigable rivers and
coastal shipping could also transport goods, but at the start of the century improvements
were badly needed.
In 1633, Turnpike Trusts were introduced. These were usually set up by businessmen
and they were permitted to charge a toll, in return for which they would maintain the
roads. It seems that these men were often more interested in making a profit than in the
upkeep of the roads, so that there was not always an improvement. By 1830, 110
Turnpike Trusts existed in Britain, but the number of tollgates slowed down
transportation and higher tolls meant that transportation by road was becoming more
expensive, too. It was for these reasons that the canals took over particularly to transport
goods and materials, especially once the industrial revolution got under way.
Even so, improvements in the roads did take place. General George Wade built over 250
miles of metalled roads while he was commander-in-chief in Scotland. Blind Jack
Metcalfe built over 180 miles of Turnpike roads in the North of England in the second
half of the century. But it wasnt until the 19th century that John Loudon Macadam
introduced a new way of making roads which ensured good drainage. He was eventually
made the general surveyor of roads in Britain in 1827. In spite of improvements, the
canals and later the railways would be fundamental in the progress of the industrial
revolution in the transportation of goods and raw materials. The canals, in fact, took
over from the roads for transportation and provided a cheaper and more efficient
method, with much fewer possibilities of breakages and ensuring that fresh produce
would remain so when it reached its destination (see the Industrial Revolution).
A city like London was a very unsanitary place. There was no such thing as urban
planning and houses and tenements were thrown up in a haphazard manner. Houses
were often subdivided in order to cram in as many people as possible. Living so close
together was made more difficult as there was no sanitation: the water closet was not
introduced until the end of the century and then only gradually and among the rich;
people used chamber pots and the contents were simply thrown into the street; open
sewers ran down the middle of the streets and there was no purified water. Hygiene was

something virtually unknown in the cities at this time and the result was that there were
often epidemics of scarlet fever, cholera, typhus or even smallpox.
There was no street lighting at the beginning of the century. An experiment in London
in 1684 had failed and it wasnt until 1734 that a new system of street lighting was
installed in parts of London. These street lamps were fuelled by oil. It was not until
1798 that William Murdoch began to use coal gas for lighting. He first illuminated his
own house, then the Soho Foundry where he worked. Another worker at the Foundry,
Samuel Clegg started the first gas company. In 1807, Pall Mall was the first place to
have public street lighting with gas. After that, the London and Westminster Gas Light
and Coke Company was given a charter to provide gas for the citys street lights.
There was much crime, turmoil and hardship for the majority, but there was also luxury
and elegance for the wealthy. This is the age of the Merchant Princes (those who
became rich through growing trade); they had close links with bankers and lawyers;
they bought vast estates, married their daughters into the aristocracy and even got titles
for themselves. These men had financial ties even with the Government who needed
their support in order to ensure winning elections among other things and they were the
supporters of Robert Walpole and the Whigs. Their lifestyle was very like that of the
nobility.
At another level, other merchants and shopkeepers kept up earlier traditions: some were
puritan in attitude and believed in the values of austerity and thrift. These were critical
of the corrupt government. The craftsmen and artisans, journeymen and apprentices
were a kind of bridge between the rich and poor. Even so, the threat of poverty hung
over them too: they had to work long hours (perhaps as many as 14) and poverty was a
real possibility if trade was bad.
The tradesmens Guilds were in decay at this time; there was a new free labour market,
labour-saving machinery was being introduced and an earlier lifestyle was passing
away. Walpole reacted against their views which were opposed to his, even against
what were combinations or meetings of workers which had been legal since Tudor
times. Parliament at that time was in favour of a minimum wage but opposed the
workers meeting together. In 1720 and 1744 Acts against combination were passed to
make it illegal. Even so, Friendly Societies continued to meet and the Press also was
critical of the Government in papers like The Craftsman and Fogs Weekly (a Jacobite
paper).
Below the artisans and journeyman were the labourers who were usually only offered
casual employment and could be dismissed freely without any compensation. These
men were always on the verge of poverty and such a situation bred great discontent.
Riots often occurred and so laws were passed which were directed against the poor
especially regarding crimes against property. For example, children could be hanged for
as little as stealing a handkerchief.
Rural life was more stable although changes in the countryside were also gradually
introduced: Jethro Tull invented seed drilling and horse hoeing; Lord Townshend
introduced crop rotation and, while it still remained, the old fashioned, open-field strip
system would soon be replaced with the enclosure system.
Wool and corn were the major products at the start of the century. Regarding cattle,
there was still no selective breeding. Some landowners had large estates and their great
well led to attempts to subdue nature to art there were poems and books and essays
written about gardens and they way mans artifice could subdue or bring order to
nature). New trees, plants and fruits were introduced through trade with a growing
empire.
When the allotments and common land that was worked by poorer farmers gave way to
the enclosure system, rural poverty increased although the result was an increase in the
amount of farmed land. Small proprietors suffered too and small tenant farmers were
often thrown out by their landlords as they could afford the expense of the enclosure.
The result of this that many began moving to the fast growing towns.
Some who were able to remain (the stout English yeoman) did prosper. Those who had
no alternative turned to poaching.
The Poor Law had existed since Elizabethan times and had been modified by the
Stuarts. Under the Poor Laws, the parish was responsible for relief and in 1723
Parliament agreed allowed parishes to combine to afford a more effective relief for the
poor. These were sometimes called unions. However, the unions were sometimes run by

manufacturers who offered relief in exchange for cheap labour. This meant that even
small children were sent to the Workhouse where they were often exploited. It is
believed that of 100 infants sent to the workhouse as few as three would survive.
Unfortunately, it was possible to see poor children manacled a mistreated as they were
forced to work.
When times were bad the poor rioted for food: looting and mob violence were common.
The militia was in charge of suppressing this and hangings and transportations followed
such disturbances. As this was the case, with poverty and hunger in the country too,
many found the city an attractive prospect in comparison and many migrated there to
find more discontent, poverty, hunger and insanitary conditions.
Even by the end of the century, social distress and poverty continued to exist in both
town and countryside. As time passed social and economic developments many had
managed to get on, but not much had really changed. In 1800 as in 1700, working hours
were long, wages were low, houses insanitary and hunger commonplace, but one great
improvement was in medicine and with developments in social organisation, the poor
lived longer, providing a labour force for the factories which continually increased their
demand, so that they were fundamental in the creation of the wealth of the nation.
Trade.
By 1700 England was the most successful trading nation in Europe with Holland as its
closest rival. This occurred as trade expanded due to the increase in exploration abroad
(the first plantations in America had been founded in the late 16th and early 17th
centuries. England had trade with America, India, China, Africa and the Baltic
countries. Since the 17th century overseas trading companies had been set up. The first
of these was the East India Company which was founded in 1600. By 1700 it controlled
all British trade in India and China. During the 17th and 18th centuries, other companies
were set up to handle trade in different parts of the world like the Hudson Bay Company
in Canada, the South Sea Company in the Pacific and the Royal Africa Company in
West Africa.
Britain exported textiles and iron goods to America and imported raw cotton, sugar and
tobacco. Timber and iron came to Britain from the Baltic in return for coal and
manufactured goods. Britain exported lead, silver, woollens and manufactured goods to
the Far East in return for silk, tea, raw cotton, spices, etc.
These trading companies increased Britains economic and political power abroad and
were part of the foundations of the British Empire. Britain became responsible for the
transportation of cargo to many other nations and sold half its goods to other European
nations.
In 1651, 1660 and 1663, Navigation Acts ordered that cargoes entering or leaving
English territory should be carried exclusively by English Ships or in ships of the
country of origin which deprived Holland of much of its trade. This made it possible for
Britain to expand its trade overseas. At the same time, Britain imposed heavy import
duties on foreign products to discourage imports, but this led to a great deal of
smuggling which meant the loss of revenue for the Government.
Because of all this, Britains ports also expanded. London was the largest but with the
increase in trade, Liverpool and Bristol dealt with much of the trade from across the
Atlantic. Kings Lynn, Newcastle, Yarmouth and Hull handled the trade with the Baltic
and the East. After the Act of Union of 1707, Glasgow also became an important port.
All this trade created wealth and the wealthy merchants who benefited from it often
invested their money in industry, transport and building.
Note that the slave trade had been conducted by England, Spain and Portugal
since the 16th century, where African slaves were captured and sold to plantation owners
in South America and the West Indies as labour. By the middle of the 18th century,
Britain was at the forefront of the slave trade.
The British Empire expanded during this period. Britain had been trading in India since
the 16th century and its influence increased in the 18th. The decline of the Mogul empire
made it possible for the British to make trading and military treaties with local leaders.
The East India Trading Company had been in charge of representing Britain in India
and by 1763 had overcome its French rivals in the area and virtually controlled the
Western areas. In 1773, because of its great influence in the country the Government
chose a Governor-General, Warren Hastings, to control its work. In 1784, Parliament

passed the India Act which allowed the Company to continue its control of trade while
government was carried out under the auspices of the Governor-General appointed by
London.
Canada became a British colony in 1763 which led to conflicts with existing French
settlers. The Canada Act of 1791 split the country into two provinces to try to solve this
as each had its own governor and council. However, the problems persisted.
Australia and New Zealand had first been discovered by the Dutch in the 17th century
but between 1768 and 1779 James Cook explored their coasts and eventually annexed
these countries for Britain. Australia began as a convict colony with the first convicts
arriving in 1788. However, by 1830 there were more free settlers than convicts.
The first English settlements in America arrived there in the late 16th century and many
other settlements or plantations were founded particularly during the reigns of the Stuart
Kings. Trade flourished and the number of settlers increased but the discontent of the
colonists grew as they were being taxed without representation and this led eventually
to the American War of Independence and the founding of the United States of
America.

Government in the 18th century.

In 1714, George, Elector of Hanover, became George I of England. He spoke no
English and left many decisions to his ministers who became known as the Cabinet.
These men were usually members of the House of Lords and chosen from the Whig
Party, who had supported his claim to the throne. There was a curious relation between
King and Parliament at this time as these ministers had a great influence over the King
as they were often important noblemen with vast property and wealth and who had a
great influence over the King and Government policy. Their influence was such that
they have become known as the Oligarchs, meaning that economic and financial issues
which concerned these men were often reflected in the Governments policy (this goes
on even in the present day).
The power and influence of Parliament increased during the 18th century as the power of
the monarch diminished. The House of Commons had the power to suggest or veto laws
and taxes as well as to dismiss unpopular ministers, so it was important that the King
and his Cabinet should gain its support. Cabinet Ministers often ensured this by bribing
or making other promises with MPs. In 1716, the Whigs also passed the Septennial Act
which increased the maximum length of office from three years to seven.
The MPs who attended Parliament came from shires and boroughs the distribution of
which dated back to the Middle Ages. Two MPs were chosen from each of these. There
were more boroughs in the south so the south had more MPs and the right to vote varied
from one place to another: this was usually based on the amount of property a man
owned. Although industrial towns were growing in the north, the large towns and areas
with growing populations did not have more MPs to represent them. Meanwhile areas in
the south with a small population (rotten boroughs) were considered to be the same in
terms of being an electoral district.
Most MPs came from the upper classes and had rich friends to help them get the vote.
In some areas called pocket boroughs, elections were run by the local landowners who
influenced voters in favour of a particular candidate. More than half the MPs in
Parliament were probably elected in this way.
After George I came to the throne he left the decision-making to his chief mister, Robert
Walpole. He was the first to be called Prime Minister in Britain although this did not
become an official title till the 20th century.
During his term as a minister, Walpole had to go to war with Spain in 1739. This was
mainly due to trading and naval rivalries. This became mixed up with the causes of the
War of the Austrian Succession which began in 1740. Much of the rest of the 18th
century found Britain involved in a series of Wars in Europe and America.
Walpole abolished export duties to encourage trade and prohibited the Ireland and the
American colonies from producing goods that would compete with British ones. Import
duties were also lowered on essential raw materials and it was made illegal to export
some materials like wool which were needed by British manufacturers. William Pitt
entered Parliament in 1742 and accused Walpole of corruption (there were many

government posts which held no responsibilities but the person who held the post was
paid anyway: this was a kind of reward for favours, etc.), and incompetence over what
was happening in the War of the Austrian Succession. Walpole resigned in 1742.
Under William Pitt, the Younger, who became Prime Minister in 1783, many
government sinecures had already been abolished. As we said, these were paid jobs but
the people who were appointed to these posts held no responsibility. He continued this
tendency towards reform and put forward a bill which aimed to abolish 36 rotten
boroughs and hence distribute MPs more fairly throughout the country. However, the
Commons rejected it.
Brief summaries of involvement in wars in the 18th century.
The Anglo-Spanish War: 1654-1660.
Spain and England were commercial rivals.
Several battles took place in the West Indies. England blockaded Cadiz, captured
Spanish ships and took their treasures.
The main land actions took place in the Spanish Netherlands.
A famous event was the Siege of Dunkirk, 1658. The British were victorious.
England allied with France during the war.
English Royalists helped the Spanish.
Following English success, Dunkirk was sold to France when Charles II came to the
throne.
The War of the Spanish Succession: 1702-13.
This war involved the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch Republic, Britain, Portugal and
the Duchy of Savoy against France, Spain and the Electorate of Bavaria.
It was fought to decide who would succeed Charles II of Spain. He died childless in
1701, having named Philip, the grandson of Louis XIV of France, as heir.
Austria and England both feared that Philip might rule France and Spain and supported
Charles cousin Charles, the brother of the Emperor Joseph of Austria.
The point was to prevent the unification of France and Spain under one Bourbon
monarch.
War began in 1702 and there was fighting in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany
and Spain. There was also fighting in the Americas. The English, led by John Churchill,
1st Duke of Marlborough, won important battles at Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706)
and Malplaquet (1709).
In 1709, the childless Emperor Joseph died and was succeeded by his brother
Charles. The English then withdrew their support from Charles to prevent him from
ruling both Spain and Austria. They supported Philip on condition that he renounced all
claims to the French throne. Peace was made in 1713. Philip became Philip V of Spain
and also acquired its colonies abroad. England gained Minorca, Gibraltar, territories in
America, and a share in the slave trade. Austria gained the Spanish Netherlands.
The war was effectively for the sake of the balance of power.
The War of the Austrian Succession: 1740-48.
The Emperor Charles VI of Austria died in 1740 without sons and was succeeded by his
daughter Maria Theresa. Her claim to the throne was challenged by her closest male
relative, Charles Albert of Bavaria. He argued that a woman should not rule the
Austrian Empire, and was supported by Frederick the Great of Prussia and Louis XV of
France.
The War of the Austrian Succession began in 1740 when Prussia invaded Silesia, one of
Austrias richest provinces. Austria was also at war with Spain over the control of
Northern Italy.
Englands relations with France and Spain were not good and had been difficult
since the 16th century when they became both colonial and trading rivals. War broke out
between Spain and Britain in 1739, but Britain joined the War of the Austrian
Succession by allying with Austria against France to protect the balance of power.
In 1742, an army which included British soldiers was formed to support the claim of
Maria Theresa and fought with success against both France and Spain in Italy. This
army then went on to win an important victory over the French at Dettingen in Bavaria
led by George II of England, the last British monarch to go into battle.
The war was ended by the Treaty of Aix-la Chapelle in 1748. All conquered territory,
except Silesia, was returned to its original owners. The result was that Britain was

involved in avoiding the growth of French power in Europe.

The Seven Years War: 1756-63.
The Seven Years War was really two wars: it involved the continuation of the struggle
between France and Britain for the control of India and North America and another war
between Austria and Prussia for control in Europe. The two wars became one when
Britain allied with Prussia and France allied with Austria.
War began in Europe when Frederick of Prussia invaded Saxony in 1756. He then
invaded Bohemia but was forced to retreat in 1757. Britain and Prussia suffered many
defeats at the beginning. However, in 1759 they had greater success including a series
of victories: the British defeated the French at Minden in Germany; they also defeated
the French at the Battle of Quebec after which they controlled Canada. There was a
further British victory at Quiberon Bay in West Africa and Britain also controlled the
French West Indies. The coming to power of William Pitt the elder had made a
significant difference to the British war effort
Spain joined the war in support of France in 1762 but the British and Prussian forces
won the conflict later in the same year. By the Treaty of Paris (1763), Britain gained
French Canada, most territory west of the Mississippi river and nearly all the French
West Indies. Britain also became the dominant European power in India, although
France held on to its own trading posts.
In 1763, Prussia, Austria and Saxony signed the Treaty of Hubertusburg and all
European territories were restored to their pre-war owners.
Augustan Literature and Pope.
Popes satire is critical of moral and political corruption in England during Robert
Walpoles government.
He was a Roman Catholic in a Protestant country suspected of being a Jacobite (there
were two Jacobite Rebellions in the 18th century: the 1st Rising took place in 1715 in
favour of James Francis Edward Stuart, the son of James II; the 2nd Rising (1745) was in
favour of the claim of Charles Edward Stuart (James IIs grandson). The 45 Rebellion
was crushed at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.
Relatively few people could become Members of Parliament (there was a property
regulation) and only property owners could vote.
There tended to be conflict between Members of Parliament and those trying to get in.
Popes friends were mostly Tories. He opposes everything Walpole stands for.
Clash of Principles: Tories were country gentlemen. Though not as rich as some of the
really wealthy, Pope thought them the backbone of society as they cared for the land
which served the country.
The landed gentry were alarmed by the creation of the National Debt and the Bank of
England. This meant a small number of men in the City of London could manipulate the
Government by their wealth.
Pope saw money as corrupting politics.
Clash of World Views: Pope believed in the Great Chain of Being, the belief that God
had created order in the universe: a natural hierarchy which was the source of stability
in society. Men should therefore accept their situation; to rebel against it would bring
chaos.
The Whigs did not agree with this but believed that through competing interests there
would be progress and change.
Pope was more influential during Queen Annes reign: she was the last Stuart monarch
and is praised in Windsor Forest, which is also a celebration of the Treaty of Utrecht
(this marked the end of the War of the Spanish Succession).
Later, during the reign of George I, England virtually became a one party state run by
the Whigs.
Pope tended to praise or criticise the qualities of individuals. In this way he expressed
his own sense of what was moral. Some of his values, which are representative of
Augustan poetry, can be summed up as follows:
Above he valued Good Sense;
He was a believer in moderation, The Golden Mean
The fundamental source of Order is Nature; Man should follow Nature, but the art of
the poet is to improve on it, what he calls in his Essay on Criticism nature
methodized.

The purpose of poetry is to Teach and Delight (docere et delectare)

The poet should follow decorum: he valued balance, elegance, harmony, good taste and
wit.
Pope wrote several Moral Essays but often was satirical against his contemporaries.
The poetry of this period was called Augustan literature after the Augustan period in
Rome (27BC-14AD). Pope was an admirer of classical poetry and this type of poetry is
often called Neo-Classical.
Pope wrote several imitations of Horace.
Other writers who belong to this period were Jonathan Swift, Joseph Addison and
Richard Steele.
Windsor Forest depicts Nature improved by Man under the auspices of George
Granville, the First Lord Landsdowne, who was Popes protector. The poem is
dedicated to him but also celebrates the reign of Queen Anne and the Treaty of Utrecht
that ended the War of Spanish Succession.
There are references to the Norman Kings who abandoned the forests to wild beasts for
the sport of Kings instead of caring for Nature so that it would return benefits for the
people.
He creates his own mythology about Windsor and the Thames as well as celebrating the
great men who had passed through the castle.
The poem is very patriotic in that it tells how Windsor should not envy even the riches
of India or the gods of Olympus.
The English oak tree is considered not only as a tree but as the source of materials for
the grerat British navy which dominates the world and brings its riches to the Thames.
The poem is written in heroic couplets.
The Novel and Daniel Defoe.
The Rise of the Novel coincides with the Enlightenment.
Changes in forms of thinking and scientific discovery had their influences on literature
as well.
If the Enlightenment placed the emphasis on the importance of reason and the
individual, so too does the novel.
The novel is a realistic prose narrative which depicts character. This emphasis on
character is significant as motives become central to the action of most novels.
The English novel in its beginnings was a reaction against the Romance. It tends not to
depict great heroes, princes and kings, but focuses on ordinary people.
It is said that the novel is a middle class form, written by and for the middle classes.
The novel can take many forms, often that of non-literary forms of representation:
biography, autobiography, epistolary narratives, histories, travel books, journals, and so
on.
Ian Watt has said the novel, in its beginnings, tends towards the pattern of the
autobiographical memoir.
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe is often considered the first modern novel.
Defoe was a Presbyterian dissenter who was imprisoned for his outspoken beliefs. He
was also a pamphleteer, journalist, merchant and intelligence agent, as well as writing
his novels.
The emphasis in this novel is on the individual. The individuals conflict with society is
part of this: Defoe depicts a competitive society in which commence and wealth are
uppermost. He lives in a world where empire and colonisation are celebrated.
Robinson has to reconcile religious and moral principles with his desire to get on in the
world and become wealthy.
There is a conflict here between accepting ones place in society (the Great Chain of
Being) and seeking to change ones situation. For someone like Pope this would be a
conflict between Tory and Whig attitudes.
The novel is full of realistic detail.
The autobiographical form of the novel, which also includes the journal of Robinson
written on the island, presents the inner struggle of the protagonist (the focus is on
reason and the individual).
This novel has been considered an allegory of British and European colonialism:
European nations hoped to replicate their society, its customs, religion and social
structures in conquered lands.

Robinson does this on the island: the novel also reproduces different stages of economic
and political development: Robinson is reaper, hunter, shepherd, farmer, craftsman and
trader.
He also imposes his own government on his island.
One possible theme of the novel is responsible government.
Another is how to reconcile the desire to accumulate wealth and improve ones
circumstances with the Natural state of things, morality and religion
The Agricultural Revolution.
Despite industrialisation, the British economy relied mainly on agriculture until well
into the 19th Century.
Between 1700 and 1800, the population in England and Wales increased from 5.75
million to 9.25 million. There were several factors involved in this: there were many
immigrants from Ireland and Scotland, but there was also a decline in the infant
mortality rate. This was largely due to improvements in medicine.
However, the fast growing population brought about an agricultural crisis because
farmers could not produce enough food for the population.
In order to increase the production on farms, farmers began to experiment with new
methods. There were new systems of crop rotation as well as of animal breeding, and
improved farming machinery was introduced.
Farmers gave up the old system of farming land in strips, which had survived since the
times of the feudal manor, and began to hedge off the land into larger areas called
enclosures which could be farmed more effectively.
The wheeled seed-drill and the horse-drawn hoe were invented by Jethro Tull. When
used together, the earth could be thoroughly hoed and seeds planted in straight lines.
This made sowing much more efficient.
Enclosures meant the reorganisation and hedging off of land. It began in the 17th century
but did not become common until the middle of the 18th. Between 1750 and 1780, over
3 million acres were enclosed.
Then the owners of 80% of a manors strips, who were usually only two or three rich
men, decided to enclose their land, they applied to Parliament to pass an act to make the
enclosure legal. Once this was done, all the land in the village, including common and
waste land, was divided up. Each landowner was given a unit of land equivalent to the
area in strips which he had held in the open field system. These units then had to be
enclosed, which was an expensive business. The result of this was that farmers who did
not own much land often had to sell their property to larger landowners. The loss of
common land meant that they could not graze their animals there either. The end result
was that many villagers left the countryside and moved to work in the new industrial
towns and cities.
Farmers also began to plant their fields with different crops each year (crop rotation).
In the 1730s, Lord Townsend developed a four-field crop rotation system. This made
better use of the land that the previous three-field. Instead of leaving a field fallow, he
planted turnips and clover which enriched the soil and could also be used in winter to
feed the animals. As a result of this, and the growing number of enclosures, fewer
animals grazed on common land. This meant that diseases did not spread as fast and
animal breeding could be controlled to produce stronger, healthier animals. Two of the
best-known sheep and cattle breeders were Thomas Coke of Holkham in Norfolk and
Robert Bakewell in Leicestershire.
In 1710, the average weight of an ox was 370LB. By 1795, the average weight of the
animal had risen to 800lb.
The industrial Revolution
In the 18th century, Britain was fast becoming a wealthy nation. At the beginning of the
century its wealth was mainly derived from farming and the woollen cloth trade
although from around 1750 onwards the introduction of new inventions and the
discovery of steam power led to the swift development of industry.
Steam power revolutionised transport and changed the ways in which cloth and coal
were produced. It also made it possible for other industries to develop, particularly the
steel industry.

The new power-driven machines meant that cloth was no longer produced in workers
(weavers) homes but in the new factories that were built for the purpose. Towns grew
up around the factories and people moved from the country to live and work there. One
of the unfortunate effects of this was that by the middle of the 19th century industrial
towns and cities were overcrowded and unhealthy places. This rapid process of
industrialisation is known as the industrial revolution and Britain was the first country
in which it occurred.
Wool and Cotton.
Cotton cloth was first imported into Britain towards the end of the 17th century. It was
imported from the Far East and became very popular. Cottage workers had begun to
spin their own cotton thread from imported raw cotton, but it was very weak. Later in
1769, Richard Arkwrights Water Frame and then in 1779, Samuel Cromptons Mule
improved cotton manufacture so that strong, fine cotton thread could be produced. The
Water Frame was powered by large amounts of water and could not be used in a
domestic environment. In 1771, Arkwright set up the worlds first cotton factory in
Derbyshire. From the 1780s, cotton textile machinery was increasingly powered by
steam. After 1800, cotton was Britains leading industry.
Wool production also improved with new inventions like John Kays Flying Shuttle
(1733) and James Hargreaves Spinning Jenny (1767). The new Spinning Jenny could
spin 16 woollen threads at once instead of only one.
Coal.
Coal had been an important domestic fuel for some time but as industries grew the
demand for coal grew with them. Miners had to dig deeper in order to find more to
satisfy the needs of industry which was a very dangerous business and many miners
(including women and children) died. The causes of death were several: flooding,
exploding gases, lack of oxygen, or cave-ins. In 1705, Thomas Newcomen invented the
first practical working steam engine for the mining industry. It pumped water from
below 300 feet and prevented serious floods. A similar but more efficient engine was
designed in 1769 by James Watt. During the 18th century, Britains annual coal
production quadrupled and inventions like Humphrey Davys safety lamp helped to
improve working conditions.
Iron and Steel.
Until the 18th century very little iron was produced. Charcoal (carbonised wood) was
used as furl but was scarce. Coal which was the alternative made the iron brittle. In
1709, Adam Darby found a way to produce a better quality iron called cast iron using
coke which was carbonised coal. Coke-fuelled furnaces spread and the iron industry
moved from forested areas to mining areas. In 1784, Henry Cort developed a technique
called puddling to produce wrought iron which was more malleable than cast iron.
Steel is iron with carbon added. This was first produced in the 1740s by Benjamin
Huntsman and turned out to be stronger than wrought iron. Production of steel was
improved with the use of Henry Bessemers Converter (1856). Between 1850 and 1880
the production of steel in Britain tripled and it became a fundamental part of structural
engineering.
Ships began to be made of iron and steel instead of wood and were driven by steam
engines. The first steam-driven Atlantic crossing was made in 1838 by the Great
Western which was designed by Isambard Brunel.
Transport.
With the growth of industrial production there was a need for new, efficient and
economical methods to transport heavy loads. One means of transport that was
introduced was the canal. Canals were dug to link most industrial areas and sea ports;
roads were also improved; and the improvement of transport meant that goods could
become less expensive. In the 19th century, steam trains were introduced. Their engines
were adapted from James Watts design and at first they were used to transport coal. By
the 1840s had its own passenger railway network and the railways eventually
superseded the canals as a cheap and efficient means of transport and helped the iron
and coal industries. Railways increased revenue by carrying both passengers and
freight.
Here are some important dates in the British Industrial Revolution:
1705: Thomas Newcomens piston steam engines.
1733: John Kays Flying Shuttle.

1759-61: The Bridgewater Canal (Britains first) was built.

1776-72: The Great Trunk Canal was built, linking the Mersey and the Trent rivers.
1767: James Hargreaves Spinning Jenny.
1769: Richard Arkwrights Water Frame.
1779: Samuel Cromptons Mule.
1779: The worlds first iron bridge was built in Shropshire.
1782: James Watts rotary steam engine.
1788: William Symington builds Britains first steam-powered ship.
1804: Richard Trevithick builds the first steam train to run on a track.
1825: The Stockton to Darlington line is opened.
1829: Stephensons Rocket reaches a top speed of 30mph.
1856: Henry Bessemers Steel Converter.
1863: The opening of the London Underground.
1890: The first electric underground train.
1897: Charles Petersons steam turbine engine increases speed and fuel efficiency

America in the Eighteenth Century

Some Early English Incursions in the New World.
During his reign, Henry VII issued a patent to John Cabot, an Italian born trader and
merchant but by then an English subject, licensing him and his heirs to search for
islands, provinces and regions in the eastern, western, and northern seas as the
Kings
vassals, to occupy these territories with an exclusive right to commerce and trade
on
paying one fifth of his profits to the King. In 1497 he sighted what turned out to be
the
coast of Labrador.
However, there was no concerted attempt to begin a settlement until the reign of
Queen
Elizabeth. She issued a Charter to Sir Humphrey Gilbert to discover new territories
and
colonise them, but it was Sir Walter Raleigh who inspired what was known as the
Roanoke Project, although it was Sir Richard Grenville of the famous ship Revenge
who
brought the settlers there in 1585.
Previously, Gilbert had landed at St. Johns, Newfoundland and claimed it for
England.
Unfortunately, he drowned on the return voyage having taken one of the smaller
boats.
Sir Walter Raleigh then received the Charter which had been given to his halfbrother.
In 1584 Captains Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe set sail to explore the New
World
on Raleighs behalf.
They landed on the North Carolina coast on July 13 to the north of Roanoke Island.
They took possession of the Island in the name of the Queen for its exploitation by
Raleigh according to the Queens Charter.
Grenville engaged in trade with the Spaniards sailing from St. Johns which helped to
supply Raleighs new colony, founded in 1585-86. Ralph Lane was made the
Governor
of the colony and built a fort.
Initially there were friendly relations with the Indians and building and planting went
on
(there were tradesmen) as well as there being those who explored and wrote down
their
discoveries.
At some point Grenville set fire to an Indian village which eventually led to open war

with the Indians.

They would have starved to death if Sir Francis Drake had not arrived to rescue
them.
The Island was abandoned but Grenville left 15 men behind.
The settlement was desolate.
In 1587, Raleigh organised another expedition of 150 people including women and
children. At this time they were called Planters, and some of the new colonies would
be
called plantations. These were the first real colonists in Virginia.
When Governor White reaches Roanoke, of the 15 men only the bones of one man
remain. It seems the hostile Indians had gone and so the second settlement at
Roanoke
begins.
Governor White had to return to England, but 1588 was the year of the Spanish
Armada
and this made his return impossible until 1590, much later than expected. The
colony
had disappeared.
Later, Raleigh fell into disgrace with the Queen (a marriage the Queen disapproved
of
as well as his failures in the New World) and he was sent to the Tower. Of course, he
lost the patent to exploit the discoveries in the New World.
In 1606, James I chartered the Virginia Company.
Jamestown was founded in 1607.
Bermuda and other English colonies were also founded in quick succession.
In 1624, the Virginia Company was named the Virginia Colony.
The Plymouth Company founded the Popham Colony in 1607. It was abandoned in
1609.
Throughout the reigns of the Stuart Kings, the number of colonies prospered.
Among the new settlers were the Pilgrim Fathers: they were a group of Puritans who
abandoned England because they were not free to worship. They went to Holland
which
was a more radically Protestant country. They prepared their voyage at Leiden. They
would later return briefly to England and, sailing from Southampton, they landed at
New England at the Plymouth Colony in 1620.
Catholics who suffered similar problems founded a colony at Maryland in 1637/4.
Early American Colonialism.
Since the 15th Century relatively small European countries had begun to extend their
influence throughout the world.
They aimed to impose their influence and values on other cultures, to transform them
into their own image.
European conflicts, however, were also transferred to their colonies (religious conflicts,
for example).
The first British plantations in America were unsuccessful.
In New England, John Winthrop, a Puritan, was the leader of the colony.
The organisation of the land was based on townships.
Usually, a Covenant was signed to uphold Christian principles which were the
foundation of the Colony.
There was geographical expansion due to religious differences: John Cotton and
Thomas Hooker founded a new colony in Connecticut.
Migrations led the Puritan settlers into the lands of Native Americans: they felt
themselves justified because the natives had not subjugated the wilderness: land had to
be organised on European models.
There was open warfare with Native Americans (the Pequot tribe) in 1637. The
survivors were enslaved.
This kind of conquest led to further migrations. The communal ethos of the first
Puritans was undermined.
The first black slaves came from the West Indies in exchange for Pequot captives.
Blacks were considered uncivilised and unchristian (a justification) although black

slavery never became deeply entrenched in New England.

Some colonies were proprietary colonies: these were sometimes founded by jointstock
companies that provided finance. Such chartered companies were given a
Charter from the King to colonise land.
This was the case of Virginia (1606), Massachusetts Bay (by John Winthrop) in 1629 or
the Hudson Bay Company (1670).
Some proprietary colonies were land donations to individuals (usually aristocrats):
George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, founded Maryland; the Carolinas were
founded by several courtiers including Lord Shaftesbury; Pennsylvania was founded by
William Penn; New York (formerly New Amsterdam before being taken from Holland)
and New Jersey went to the Duke of York. Such lands were usually a donation from the
Crown in return for credit or as a reward to loyal subjects.
European models were used to subdivide the lands.
The climate and plentiful food supplies meant the growth of families.
Second and third generation colonists found that larger families needed more land for
their offspring. As available acreage decreased, their children were forced to migrate to
undeveloped lands or seek non-agricultural employment.
This meant that many no longer remained in the community and went beyond the
control of their parents.
Land ownership was a fundamental part of early colonial life: it was a way of
perpetuating the family and its name and created a sense of continuity.
The family in America was based on the same hierarchies as in Europe: husbands were
superior to wives; children were inferior to their parents and so on.
Religious Colonies: in 1691, Plymouth was absorbed by Massachusetts Bay colony to
form New England. The religion of New England was the Congregational Church
(Puritan).
Outside of New England the majority were Anglicans.
In New England they hoped to establish a Commonwealth that would serve as model
for those to come. The welfare of the Commonwealth saw society as organic.
Puritans were driven by a strong sense of sainthood and spiritual purity and rejected
any practices they considered to be human inventions (they did not accept the Anglican
Church).
A shortage of Anglican ministers in America meant there was a more generalised
movement towards Puritan tendencies in religion.
Particularly in the South, Anglicanism prevailed.
Puritans decided to eliminate religious innovation as it was believed to be a corrupting
influence.
While any baptised Christian could join an Anglican church, only true saints could
join the Puritan Church. Prospective members had to testify to the presence of Christ
before friends and neighbours at the meeting house (which was also the political centre
of the township).
These practices were accepted by the majority.
In New England there was religious intolerance.
One Christian minister at Salem named Roger Williams questioned whether other men
could determine the spiritual purity of others. He proposed the separation of Church and
State but was banished from Massachusetts. He founded a colony on Rhode Island in
1635. Others followed him.
A woman, Anne Hutchinson of the Boston congregation, challenged the emphasis on
moral behaviour over spiritual purity. The Massachusetts establishment tried to suppress
her beliefs. Her position, like Williams, was known as antinomianism. She was tried
and banished from the colony in 1638.
Women were not allowed to speak in Church but had to ask any questions to their
husbands at home.
Intellectual activity was believed to unbalance womens minds and John Winthrop
explained one womans insanity on the grounds of her writing poetry. Hutchinsons
behaviour was explained in the same way and her death (and her childrens) was seen as
divine vengeance.
The intensity of such religious belief was difficult to maintain. One generation later
there was a decline in religiosity.
The Half-Way Covenant changed the standards for entry into the church as

attendance declined.
Society was becoming more secular; there was a loss of charity, an increase in
worldliness, a movement towards secular, materialistic relations and, in 1692, the
famous Salem witchcraft trials took place, perhaps as a consequence of the changes
and a reaction against them. These came after sporadic accusations of witchcraft usually
involving neighbours who had quarrelled. Around 200 were charged; 20 were executed
for collaborating with the devil to end the social order.
The continued secularisation of society meant no further such trials would take place.
The Society of Friends or Quakers founded the colony of Pennsylvania. This was
another proprietary colony with religious tendencies.
They rejected hierarchies and believed in the doctrine of inner light: the individual
possessed an inner light of Grace. They set about a Holy Experiment to put their
ideas into practice.
They practiced religious tolerance and unlike other English Protestants tried to coexist
with the Delaware tribe, marking boundaries and property rights.
By the mid-18th century, the pursuit of material wealth, land speculation and the fur
trade had undermined Quaker commitment to the Natives. Treaties were broken, natives
were killed, and lands taken.
The immigration of non-Quakers (Scotch-Irish and German) meant many wanted the
land claimed by the Delawares and changed the state of things.
Quaker ideals regarding Africans also changed when Pennsylvania merchants profited
by the slave trade
Some members of the community were alarmed by the loss of values and formed the
anti-slavery vanguard and advocated the emancipation of human chattel.
By that time, however, William Penns vision of a wilderness utopia had disappeared.
The spread of Enlightenment ideas, the growth of materialism meant a more secular
outlook and the betrayal of the values of the founding fathers.
There was War with France and Spain (which affected the Americas), a diphtheria
epidemic and slave insurrections. All this meant a great sense of uneasiness in the
colonies.
The reaction to the secularisation of society took the form of what was called The
Great Awakening.
In 1740, a massive religious revival began: the Reverend George Whitfield, an
itinerant English preacher travelled from New England to Georgia preaching the gospel
to win converts.
Like the Puritans the Awakening stressed Gods promise of redemption to true
believers.
New Light preachers said salvation could only be attained bu undergoing a
conversion experience. Once reborn (born again Christians) these saints would join the
elect of God, destined for life in everlasting heaven.
Jonathan Edwards famous sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was
delivered at Enfield, Massachusetts in 1741. His preaching of hellfire and brimstone and
the promise of salvation, peace, tranquillity and love, sent the public into raptures of
psalm-singing and shouting Hallelujah.
These Evangelist preachers were successful throughout the colonies.
But not everyone responded favourable: conservative Old Lights were against the
disruption these preachers brought and saw chaos coming to the land. There were
serious debates.
This eventually led to a more plural attitude to religion.
The secularisation of society led to 18th century colonials tolerating dissenters. After
1776, there was a formal separation of Church and State. This meant a more
individualistic vision of society which was an inevitable process.
Following the English Civil Wars in 1640, the hopes for the Puritan religion in England
meant that there were fewer immigrants.
Puritan leaders encouraged the expansion of trade, the marketing of food, furs, and fish
in the West Indies, England and Europe. The colony prospered.
However, the Puritan belief in charity and a just price was in conflict with their
commercial success. The colony regulated wages and prices and imposed fines for
excess profits.
The dilemma which derived from commercial success was to reconcile commerce with

Christian beliefs.
In Chesapeake Bay, settlers concentrated on tobacco planting for export to England.
Virginia planters with wealth or influence got the best land along navigable rivers and
expanded the planting of tobacco in spite of suggestions to diversify their crops.
Virginians expanded westward in search of new acreage. Land was no longer just a
place to stay but became a commodity for speculation.
This led to conflict with the Native Americans. Treaties were broken and planters
moved into the natives land.
There was an armed revolt in 1675 by the Doegs and Susquehannocks. Frontier settlers
attacked the natives in spite of Royal disapproval.
The same kind of conflicts with the natives also took place in New England.
Survivors from confrontations were enslaved.
This was also the case in the Carolinas. Many settlers there had previously owned slaves
in the West Indies: their treatment of slaves was brutal.
Prisoners were sold as slaves.
In 1708 there were 1.400 Native American slaves in Soth Carolina.
The depopulation of local tribes opened up new territories for settlers.
Colonial Trade and Slavery.
While trade thrived in New England, Chesapeake Bay settlers concentrated on tobacco.
They settled on the best land along the navigable rivers and expanded their crops.
They came into conflict with the Indians and allowed their livestock to trample the
natives crops. This expansion also took place in New England and in spite of attempts
to Christianise the Indians there was no tolerance towards those who did not convert.
Following native attacks in 1675, the Puritans continued to kill natives and enslave the
survivors. The rhetoric of Christianity attempted to cover up their racism.
Carolina slave owners were more brutal, many having been slave owners in Barbados.
Carolina traders often eliminated uncooperative tribes and sold survivors as slaves too.
There were 1.400 Native American slaves in South Carolina in 1708.
The depopulation of tribes meant more land for expansion and speculation.
The new belief was that slaves and land were there to be exploited.
The pattern was repeated in the middle colonies.
New settlers encouraged expansion and land speculation (Irish and Scots and Germans
in Pennsylvania).
Quakers also broke treaties with the Delaware tribe as the increasing number of
Europeans forced local tribes westward.
(The Delawares allied with the French against the British (and American colonists)
during the Seven Years War).
The accumulation of wealth by the Quakers was not believed to go against their
religious beliefs: it was looked upon as a blessing, even though they also made profits
from the slave trade.
In the City of Brotherly Love (Philadelphia) the large slave population worked as
labourers, artisans or domestic servants.
Individualism and secularisation became part of their mind set, too.
The relations between the colonies and the mother country were governed by
mercantilism.
The principle behind economic policy was the belief that the nations prosperity
depended on the creation of a self-sufficient economy, free from foreign competition.
The mother country benefited most from the arrangement: the colonies were seen as a
source for raw materials but also as a market to sell finished products.
The belief in an organic social order supposed that there was a natural harmony in
their common interests.
The colonies had a regulated economy: that is, the British Government supervised
economic affairs.
Town and county officials tried to regulate wages and prices in the common interest.
These tendencies in imperial affairs in Britain led to the Navigation Acts which
regulated the flow of commerce.
The first was passed in the 17th century to protect English vessels from foreign
competition. Only English ships could be used in colonial trade.
Further laws determined what products could be sold only in England: first, tobacco,

sugar, cotton and indigo; then, rice, furs, lumber, iron and naval stores.
This led to a monopoly of trade: England had a cheap and continued supply of natural
resources protected from foreign competition.
This was also called Protectionism.
This led to many other manufactory laws (for example, the Hat Act (1732) protected
English manufacturers from colonial competition; the Iron Act allowed only pig and bar
iron to be produced in America).
The Navigation Acts encouraged shipbuilding in New England. By 1776, one third of
English commerce relied on American-built ships.
Certain products were subsidised to support colonial industry.
There were sometimes conflicts of interests between different British territories: the
Molasses Act (1733) enforced a prohibitive duty on sugar that threatened the
manufacture of rum in New England. This favoured the West Indies.
Many colonials ignored the law.
The Navigation Acts also had prejudicial effects in America. At the end of the 17th
century there was an economic depression.
However, America was becoming more secular, more commercially minded, in fact,
more individualistic and capitalist.
This led to further breaks with the beliefs of the founders of America.
A new social structure began to appear based on wealth.
European notions of status were replaced with provincial images of success.
Bacons Rebellion (1676 )indicated changes (the Royal Governor refused to send
troops to help settlers on the frontier against the Indians in Virginia. There was an
insurrection against the authorities that failed).
Even in New England, the Puritan social structure was gradually eroded away.
Social change led to a redefinition of leadership based on individual worth.
There were also changes regarding slavery.
In Virginia and Maryland, during the first decade of settlement tobacco planters
relied on the labour of indentured servants: this recognised the rights of both parties.
However, servants were often ill-treated by their masters.
African servants suffered similar cruelty.
By 1640, Colonial authorities treated some blacks as slaves: this meant lifetime
hereditary servitude. In North America which differed greatly from the tradition in
England: there were mutual obligations of masters and servants.
The American version also differed from African practices which assimilated conquered
peoples into their society.
The ill-treatment of slaves was related to antipathy and racist attitudes.
The situation was legalised by 1660.
In Virginia, a court ruled conversion to Christianity did not alter a slaves status: hence,
the heathen argument was only an excuse.
The slave society was created self-consciously.
John Lockes Fundamental Constitution of Carolina protected the institution of
slavery.
Chesapeake Bay colonies removed Africans basic defences (the right to testify in
court, to own property or to be married legally). They were now viewed as chattel.
The tightening of the slave system coincided with social developments: after 1690 the
expansion of the tobacco economy required more slave labour; there was a massive
importation of Africans; increased numbers and fear of revolt tightened restrictions on
slaves activities; the Virginia Slave Code of 1705 regulated the slave system.
The institutionalisation of slavery in the southern colonies was necessary for the
plantation economy. There were fewer blacks in New England and there they had
certain rights not allowed elsewhere.
Even so, at the end of the 17th century, Puritan legislation also inhibited the activities
of blacks (curfews, prohibition of alcohol, limited emancipation, prohibition of
interracial marriage, and social relations between races).
Slavery varied from region to region: in the northern colonies, Africans were a small
minority living close to the whites and often separated from other slaves. They were
farm hands, artisans, domestic servants.
In the south there were fewer urban centres and commerce depended on agriculture.
The blacks worked on plantations in larger numbers and often lived and congregated

together. This allowed African culture to endure.

The number of slaves increased greatly in the 18th century.
The increase in American-born blacks reduced the need for the importation of slaves
from Africa.
The relations between blacks and whites varied from one region to another.
Africans with no English did menial jobs.
Africans who spoke English sometimes became trained craftsmen: they often had
greater personal freedom while remaining slaves, but could travel to a neighbouring
town to work, etc.
Some tried to escape.
The organisation of labour was vital for a slave economy: this meant discipline, which
often took the form of physical brutality.
There was sometimes violent opposition to slavery.
In 1712 slaves in New York City assaulted white men: an uprising was quelled by
English soldiers: many were tortured and executed.
A violent uprising took place in South Carolina in 1739.Between 1700 and 1776 the
population of America 10-fold from 250.000 to almost 2.500.000: one fifth of the
population was black.
Demographic growth speeded up social differences.
Colonial Politics.
Colonial interests were often in conflict with those of England. What was thought
proper in England was not always desired in America and Americans rights were not
always protected by English laws. This realisation eventually led to the Declaration of
Independence.
The Structure of Colonial Government.
The King of Great Britain was the Owner of the Colony.
He or his Privy Council appointed a Royal Governor to govern each colony.
The Privy Council appointed the Governors Council, usually made up of 12 men who
were very influential. They often used favours and so on to influence their appointment.
An Assembly or Lower House represented and was elected by the people.
There was also County Government and in New England, town meetings were the
primary unit of local government.
So, in Provincial politics, in New England, town meetings resolved disputed between
neighbours, supervised economic activities, parcelled land and elected delegates to the
colony legislature.
County governments were modelled on government institutions in England.
They registered land, probated wills, levied taxes, supervised roads, attended to justice
and were the basic unit of political organisation.
Local representation was considered fundamental in America.
In New England, all male residents voted for town officials. They were usually men of
standing.
Town meetings were open affairs.
County officials were usually appointed by the central authority (usually by the Royal
Governor).
In practice, the Governor appointed those submitted by local officials. This was not very
democratic and could bring about a self-perpetuating elite who would decide political
candidates in their own interests.
Units of local government were the basis for representation.
In county legislatures, elections were supervised by county sheriffs.
Governors instructed sheriff to set date and place of elections.
Property was of vital importance and a requirement for voting. To hold an office the
property requirement was greater. This limited suffrage, but as in America most
inhabitants owned land 75% of males in New England qualified to vote. In Southern
colonies it was around 50%. Dependents women, children, servants and slaves- were
excluded.
Other minorities were also excluded: Catholics, Jews, free Blacks, Native Americans
and non-English speaking Europeans could not vote.
American culture was basically ethnocentric (for English descendants). This sense of
superiority led to the WASP system (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant).

Political participation was therefore for white male property owners only.
Generally, wealthy landowners were those who occupied official posts. The led the rule
of the oligarchy. It meant stability in local politics.
The dependant status of colonial government gradually became more apparent.
This was always clearest when a new Royal Governor arrived: there was much
ceremony.
The Privy Council gave the Governor precise instructions which often prejudiced the
colonials.
This often led to opposition against the Governor.
The Governor was the personal representative of the Crown.
He was responsible for enforcing parliamentary and colonial legislation, including the
Navigation Acts.
He was the Commander-in-Chief of the Militia.
He supervised defence and contracted military supplies among local merchants.
The Colonial Council (the most stable branch of colonial government) approved grants
of land which was a vital aspect of the economy of what was still largely an agricultural
society.
The Governor had important legislative functions:
To summon and dissolve the colonial legislature;
To order new elections;
To recommend appointments to the colonial council (essentially this was the upper
house of the legislature);
To control expenditure and appropriations;
The right to veto legislation.
The Governor and his Council constituted the highest judicial court in the colony.
The Council was made up of 12 men appointed by the Crown at the recommendation of
the Governor.
The Council was usually conservative and could influence the Royal authorities; they
received no salaries and depended on the favour of the Governor.
Those who lacked the favour of the councillors entered politics and sought influence
through the Assemblies (lower house of the legislature).
They were elected to office through the provincial electoral system.
These often disagreed with the Governor and challenged his authority.
Political Stability began to be undermined owing to problems related to taxation and
political representation.
Leaders of the Assemblies attempted to wear down the power of prerogative and
challenge some of the Governors privileges and even claim them for themselves.
During a crisis (at times of war), the support of the colonies against Britains enemies
was fundamental: the assemblies could take advantage of the situation to decide and
award contracts and appropriate funds for defence.
In peacetime, Governors often denied the validity of these powers and even sometimes
dissolved the assemblies.
However, gradually the tendency was for Governors to give into the Assemblies
demands.
The American War of Independence: 1775-83.
During the 17th century, England founded 13 colonies along the eastern coast of North
America. However, the colonists began to resent British control, which led to the
American War of Independence.
British colonists in America traded only with Britain in return for military protection,
but after the Seven Years War, the British government wanted to impose more taxes on
the colonists in order to pay for the army in North America. The colonists believed that
Britain had to right to tax them as they had no representation in Parliament. The
reaction against this was so high that the colonists boycotted British trade. In 1775 war
began and the colonists, led by George Washington finally defeated the British in 1781.
Britain recognised Americas independence in 1783.
Some important facts and dates to remember are:
The Navigation Acts passed by Britain meant that America could trade only with
Britain and that British ships had the right to search American ones;
The British Government imposed its own Governor from England and placed

restrictions on the American frontier;

Britains involvement in wars in Europe meant that taxation was increased in America
too: this was resented;
Grenville introduced a Customs Act for America, which meant further taxation;
A Stamp Duty was imposed on legal documents, which was later repealed;
It was felt that Britain was exploiting the resources of America at the expense of the
Americans;
1770: in the Boston Massacre a British patrol opened fire on a crowd protesting against
taxes;
American duties were repealed except for the tax on tea;
1773: The Boston Tea Party is the name given to the events that took placer in Boston
when a group of colonists threw a cargo of British tea into the harbour as a protest
against taxation;
1775: In the early battles of the war, the colonists win an important battle at Concord;
the British achieve victories at Lexington and Bunker Hill;
1776: Representatives from each of the colonies sign the Declaration of Independence.
1777: The British are defeated at the Battle of Saratoga;
1778: France and Spain support the colonists;
1780: the British capture Charleston;
1781: the siege of Yorktown ended with a British defeat;
1783: In the Treaty of Paris, Britain recognises the independence of the thirteen colonies
which are renamed the United States of America.
The American War of Independence (1775-1783).
It was after the Declaration of Independence that the American War of Independence
really started.
August 1776: General William Howe lands with his army of 20,000 soldiers on Long
Island.
George Washington waited with the Continental Army on Brooklyn Heights.
Redcoats advanced; the colonial militia broke ranks and retreated, first to Manhattan,
later to New Jersey. Having almost captured the Continental Army, Howe returned to
New York City and set up his headquarters.
Christmas Day: Americans defeated a Hessian force at Trenton, the only success of the
first campaign.
The tactic of constant retreat was to be continued.
Britain centred its efforts on New England.
Spring 1777: 3 generals (Burgoyne, Howe and St. Leger start a 3 way attack.
At the Battle of Saratoga (1777) following tactical errors, Burgoyne surrendered to
Horatio Gates.
After this Louis XVI recognised the Republic.
Foreign minister Vergennes meets Ambassador Benjamin Franklin to negotiate an
alliance.
In 1778, France and the United States sign an alliance to fight Britain until
independence is recognised.
The war campaign continued until the Battle at Chesapeake Bay in 1781.
Washing advanced on General Cornwallis while the French Admiral De Grasse sailed
into the Bay. Cornwallis was surrounded and surrendered on October 19. 7,000 British
troops game up their arms.
Two years passed before Independence was recognised.
On September 3, 1783, the British accepted the Treaty of Paris.
George III recognised independence; territorial boundaries were established; English
fishing rights were protected in Canada; the navigation of the Mississippi was
guaranteed; the pre-war debt would be restored; loyalists lands which had been
confiscated would be restored.
November 25, 1783, the last British troops, left New York: Evacuation Day.
Consequences of the American Revolution.
Even before the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Congress, in May 1776 had recommended
that each State replace the British political system with governments based on
Republican principles. Each State responded to this according to its own political

tradition:
For example, in Pennsylvania, radicals had quickly taken power and proposed a
unicameral legislature (a single chamber parliament). The position of governor was
eliminated.
Massachusetts opted for a more conservative bicameral system (two houses) plus an
executive office with limited power. In Massachusetts, the draft of the constitution was
submitted to the people for approval.
Due to a desire to ensure the separation of powers (because of the abuse of executive
power by the British Government) every state in America, except Pennsylvania opted
for a bicameral system.
The lower house represented the interests of the people; the upper house (senate)
represented the interests of property. The idea was to achieve a balance of power.
This meant greater powers for the legislature which took on the powers of the judiciary
and the executive previously held by the governor.
There were also doubts about the representation of the people in the legislature which
made some fear mob rule. Hence, voting was still limited to property holders.
Moreover, in spite of the Revolution, power remained in the hands of moderate leaders
with as much interest in property as in liberty.
There was no redistribution of property which had been confiscated from the loyalists.
This was sold in auction to investors to pay for the war.
In spite of Jeffersons rhetoric of equality, slavery continued and slaves remained the
property of their owners. Even so, many Americans questioned the peculiar
institution that was slavery. Several northern states prepared for the gradual
emancipation of slaves. Abolitionists formed societies inspired by Quaker ideals
which also appeared throughout the north. But black slavery persisted into the 19th
century.
The ideology behind the Revolution led some to simply free their slaves and there were
also reforms (at least in the North).
After Colonialism there was no desire for a centralised government which was why
each state adopted its own. The question of inter-colonial union still remained.
Congress (the First Continental Congress) adopted the Articles of Confederation in
1777, which was ratified by each state in 1781. This first attempt at a constituted was
later considered a failure. The power of the national government was limited:
Congress could: Declare war;
Negotiate treaties;
Establish a post office;
Impose weights and measures standards;
Congress could not: Tax citizens or regulate commerce.
In Congress each State had one vote; nine states were required to agree on legislation;
amendments required unanimous votes.
Eventually, Congress established executive committees to handle administration..
One problem after the war was to pay for it: Congress proposed an impost tariff.
Rhode Island rejected this; another proposal was rejected by New York. The result was
to resort to requisitions from each state which were not always paid.
Prior to the Treaty of Paris, as negotiations went on, the Northwest Territory was
acquired in 1783. There was great wealth there and land was sold to investors in spite of
the native tribes who lived there. But the fact was that there were already settlers and
land speculators occupying the territory.
In 1784, Thomas Jefferson drafted the Northwest Ordinance: any States formed in the
western territories would have equal status with the original 13.
The 1785 Land Ordinance was approved by Congress: land was divided into townships
and square-mile sections for sale at public auction. Some parcels of land were too large
for everyone to by: again the wealthy acquired much of it.
1787: The Second Ordinance presented a systematic system of admission of states
formed in the territory.
Popular representation and a Bill of Rights were guaranteed. Slavery was prohibited in
the new regions.
Europe still had interests in America:
Britain insisted on its trading posts in the Great Lakes.
Spain closed the Mississippi River to American trade. John Jay negotiated an exchange

of rights in the Mississippi for rights in the West Indies: there was a division in
sectional lines; the South even questioned the existence of the confederation.
There were those for and against a strong national government, but state government
began to be questioned, too, after inflation and uprisings or failures in public finance in
different states.
1787: the Philadelphia Conference (the Constitutional Convention, also known as the
Federal Convention).
This sought a balance of power; there was a great compromise to achieve this:
Larger states wanted representation based on population; smaller states wanted equal
status regardless of the population
After much argument legislative power was divided into two houses:
The House of Representatives (based on population);
The Senate (representing each state).
A related question was slavery with regard to their status within the political system.
While the 1777 Congress debated over a slave being counted as a full human being, for
the purposes of taxation, northern delegates were in favour of a head tax; southern
representatives because of the high investment in slaves proposed that slaves were
merely chattel and that 5 slaves should count as 3 whites for taxation purposes.
In the Philadelphia Conference on 1787, when the issue was representation, not
taxation, the situation was reversed and the southern states wanted each black slave to
count as an individual.
A compromise was reached: the Three-Fifths Compromised established that for both
taxation and representation purposes, five slaves would equal three whites.
Other Provisions of the Constitution:
Congress could not interfere in slave trade before 1808 (this allowed foreign slave trade
to continue);
Native Americans were excluded from the body politic;
Electoral processes were still under the supervision of the state legislature;
Suffrage limitations were preserved (it was limited to male property owners).
The Constitution, therefore, institutionalised power for the white male establishment.
Many were suspicious of the central republican government: these were known as AntiFederalists; the supporters of the Constitution were called Federalists.
Throughout the country interests varied (regarding the slave trade, export duties,
commerce), particularly between north and south.
The protection of liberty also required a Bill of Rights. The Constitution hence
stipulated the following:
The Establishment of an independent judiciary;
Civil officers could be impeached for treason, bribery and other crimes;
There would be no titles of nobility in America to ensure the egalitarian nature of the
Declaration of Independence;
Freedom of expression and worship; No unjust punishments, etc.
After 1789, the Founding Fathers became national heroes and the Constitution became
an object of veneration.
The American Revolution.
The English government often intruded in colonial affairs.
Interference was frequent and complicated: it involved many different political
bodies:
There was a Board of Trade and Plantations to review colonial legislation, propose
bills to Parliament, and judge colonial disputes; the Secretary of State for the
Southern Department gave instructions to royal officials in the colonies; the Treasury
Board supervised the collection of customs duties and; the Admiralty Courts enforced
the Navigation Acts.
The Parliament in England passed laws that affected the whole empire, not just
America.
The colonists believed the complicated political processes that took place 3,000 miles
away prevented political effectiveness. A governors veto or bureaucratic delays came
into this.
British supervision meant American economic interests were kept at a secondary level.
The scarcity of gold and silver meant some colonies introduced paper money. This

alarmed English merchants, who feared that this currency might possibly lose value.
Parliament later prohibited its circulation. Even so, some colonies continued to use
it.
America was virtually powerless to do anything about such decisions except to perhaps
ignore them.
Even so, colonials considered to consider themselves, at this time 1750s-60s) loyal
Englishmen.
The involvement of England in costly wars with European enemies, particularly
France had serious repercussions in America as it meant a parallel conflict in American
territory.
England often failed to appreciate American help and sacrifice and negotiated away
captured territory in peace treaties.
Of particular importance was the Great War for Empire, known as the Seven Years
War in Britain. It had to do with the control of India and America against France. In
America, conflicts began in 1754 on the western frontier with confrontations between
French and American fur traders. In Europe, the Seven Years War began in 1756.
When William Pitt in 1758 came to power after several American defeats, it was
believed to be divine Providence: men and supplies were rushed to the colonies. There
were many British victories until the French, led by Montcalm, were defeated by
General Wolf which resulted in the conquest of Quebec in 1759.
Peace would not come officially to the area till the Treaty of Paris in 1763.
However, the peace treaty was greeted as a success following what was in every other
respect a British victory. Prosperity and expansion was predicted.
Provincial politics in America was unstable in America: there were many
disagreements between governors and the legislatures; there was interference from
English politicians; the colonies were vulnerable during wartime.
However, the old notion of a political system based on natural harmony persisted: the
metaphor of the family was frequent in the writings of Benjamin Franklin and
reflected this; even up to 1776, many colonials were still loyalists (i.e. loyal to the
crown).
During the revolutionary crisis, the Fifth Commandment was often quoted as a
justification for obedience to the Crown (honour thy father and mother).
The illusion of political harmony became apparent with the discovery that individual
politicians who held power in England were often corrupt.
The Independent Whigs in America protested against the abuse of power and political
subterfuge to remain in power.
The writings of these Independent Whigs became popular.
Americans became suspicious of Royal Governors and the power of the Privy Council
in England.
There was a belief that there was a conspiracy against America and as corrupted
politicians threatened the system; there was also a belief that they had a right to rebel.
While there was still a popular idea that the King can do no wrong, the opposition
against Britain focussed on the government ministers who dictated policy.
Patrick Henry, a Virginia planter, gives a well-known speech where he says, liberty
or death.
The More Immediate Causes of the American Revolution.
The colonials were dissatisfied with British policy after 1763.
The problems of Imperial administration were not solved after the Seven Years War.
The cost of the war meant raising taxes.
The acquisition of Canada in the treaty meant another financial burden.
Additional troops were sent to America which meant additional cost.
English officials decided the American colonies should share this financial burden.
The attitudes of some colonists were clear when it was known that they had traded with
the enemy during the war.
After the Treaty of Paris it was decided further reform in the colonies was necessary.
The First Royal Order was to coordinate relations with Native Americans:
The Proclamation of 1763 prohibited English settlement beyond the Appalachian
Mountains; British troops were sent to enforce the prohibition and oversee the fur
trade.
Native Americans had sided with the French during the war. After French defeat,

Britain introduced further restrictions on native trade (furs to be taken to forts, no

alcohol).
There was a native revolt:
In 1763 the Ottawa chief Pontiac attacked British troops and settlements without
munitions or supplies from the French after their withdrawal.
They were defeated but the uprising suggested the British defence was insufficient.
England could not enforce the frontier: Land speculators and colonial officials
continued to occupy the Ohio Valley: Native resistance was scarce and they even sold
their lands to settlers.
Representation, Taxation and Military Necessity.
Revenue: the war debt led England to tax Englishmen in America.
The colonies were believed to have benefited from Englands mercantilist policy and
were taxed accordingly:
The Sugar Act, 1764 prohibited illicit trade with other nations; duties on sugar were
enforced;
The Stamp Act, 1765 made taxed stamps a requirement of official documents, legal
papers, newspapers and other printed matter;
Provincial legislatures were not consulted.
The Currency Act, 1764, prohibited the circulation of paper money (less money was
available to pay the new taxes).
A post-war Depression ensued owing to a decline in trade, overstocking of war supplies
and drops in sales; merchants, dock workers, sailors, day-labourers were all affected.
Southern plantation owners were in debt to British merchants after beginning to
consume British goods after 1750.
The beliefs in a conspiracy against American liberty grew.
There were protests against the laws; petitions to repeal the taxation and the currency
act, merchants boycotted British goods.
Urban workers who were against impressment and the disruption of business formed
secret groups. These were called the Sons of Liberty: they acted to prevent the
enforcement of the laws; there was often mob violence.
The Stamp Act Congress: delegates from 9 colonies met at the Stamp Act Congress at
New York City to discuss the legality of the Act. There was a philosophical basis to the
conference regarding the British Constitution and the locus of Sovereignty. American
colonists the right of the British legislature to levy taxes in the colonies which had
previously been the right of the provincial legislature where they had representation.
Remember that Lockes Second Treatise of Government was mentioned during the
Congress. The Congress issued a Declaration of Rights and Grievances, 1765: the cry
from now on was taxation without representation!: The people of their colonies are
not, and from their local circumstances, cannot be represented in the House of
Commons in Great Britain.
William Pitt advocate dthe repeal of the Stamp Act in Parliament.
1766, the Stamp Act was repealed.
The Declaratory Act 1766, insisted on the power of Britain to legislate for the empire.
1767: The Townshend Acts: new customs duties, a new board to enforce the Navigation
Acts.
The Quartering Act meant British troops were again stationed in the colonies in time of
peace.
The New York Assembly was suspended for not complying with the Act.
Protests against the Townshend Acts came from all over the country.
1768: the ship, Liberty, was confiscated for smuggling in Boston, Massachusetts.
The Bostonians reacted and a mob attacked commissioners and destroyed property.
British officials sent in troops.
On March 5, 1770, troops fired on an agitated crowd of protestors. 5 civilians were
killed. It became known as the Boston Massacre.
Parliament decided they would repeal the Townshend Acts. This brought relative calm,
but
1773: the Tea Act was passed to protect the East India Company from bankruptcy.
Crowds in many ports tried to prevent tea from being unloaded.
In Boston, a group of Bostonians dressed as Mohawk Indians dropped the tea into the
harbour. This was known as the Boston Tea Party.

In 1774 Parliament reacted by passing the Coercive Acts, known in America as the
Intolerable Acts.
Parliament closed the port in Boston.
In Massachusetts, town meetings were restricted and other limitations on government
were imposed; legal cases were passed on to other colonies.
The Quartering Act was restored.
In September 1774, the First Continental Congress was attended by all colonies except
Georgia. Moderates sought to protect American Interests without destroying the
constitution.
A plan of Union was proposed by Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania: this suggested
shared government between Parliament and inter-colonial councils.
Radicals defeated the proposal by one vote.
Congress declared the Coercive Acts null and void.
A Declaration of Rights and Grievances was addressed to the King: they promised
loyalty to the Crown but rejected the supremacy of Parliament over America.
Congress adopted the Colonial Association to enforce their demands; the importation of
British goods was prohibited.
Committees of Safety were recommended to enforce the boycott.
The Sons of Liberty harassed uncooperative citizens, exerted political pressure and
caused violence. Pitt and Edmund Burke were friendly to the American cause;
Parliament took different steps.
More troops were sent to Boston; trade was restricted in New England.
The people of Massachusetts prepared for war; British soldiers marched on Concord to
seize their weapons: they were met by colonial minutemen at Lexington Green where
a confrontation took place.
The decisions that followed led to open conflict.
The Second Continental Congress took place in May 1775: this was more radical than
the first, though they still sought reconciliation.
The Olive Branch Petition addressed to George III reaffirmed loyalty to the King, but
the situation was now extreme.
George Washington was appointed head of the Continental Army in besieged Boston.
June 1775: Battles at Breads Hill and Bunker Hill: there were many casualties.
Open conflict had begun.
George III ordered Hessian soldiers into America: foreign troops on American soil
enraged the people.
Thomas Paine published his pamphlet Common Sense. It criticised parliament and the
King and monarchy. George II was called the Royal Bryute who sought to destroy
American liberty. It sold 150,000 copies in 6 months.
Spring 1776: Congress recommended that each colony overthrow the royal authority
and set up a new State Government based on Republican principles.
June 1776: Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, presented a motion declaring
America independent from the Empire.
Congress appointed a committee led by Thomas Jefferson to draft a coherent document
to explain that momentous decision.
4 July 1776: Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.
Jefferson presented a harsh criticism of the Kings parental authority. It was an
indictment not of Parliament and his corrupt advisers but of the King himself.
The declaration not only reworked traditional political views (Magna Carta, the Petition
of Right, etc) but the justification for the separation from Britain was based on selfevident
truths and the unalienable rights of all men: these were revolutionary
principles which legitimated their acts and they defended the rights of all people to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
However, as Abigail Adams, the wife of John Adams (one of the signatories of the
Declaration) wrote in a letter to her husband, the rights of women were not
contemplated.
Jeffersons Declaration was an assertion of the fundamental principles that justified
political revolution (Barnes and Noble 115); when the rights of people were
threatened, it is the right of the people to abolish it (115). These notions are
reminiscent of Lockes Treatise.
In spite of the Declaration, some 20%of the population remained loyal to the Crown.

Revolutionary leaders called them Tories. Many supporters of the Revolution treated
them harshly; many sought refuge behind British lines and after the conflict around
100,000 colonial inhabitants went into exile either to Canada or England.
The Woman Question
The Changing Role of Women in Society.
Throughout history, the role of women in society has gradually changed. In the 18th
century, in the countryside women would work at home but also tend the cattle and the
fields. Elsewhere, they would work as needlewomen or seamstresses; they would work
in the houses of the wealthy as servants; the better educated might become governesses;
others would work in shops, etc. but in the cities many, once the industrial revolution
began, could no longer help to make a living at home and began to work in the factories.
It was only towards the end of the 19th century when women like Florence Nightingale
were able to provide a new role for women in nursing.
One of the unfortunate sides to the life in the city was the increase in female
prostitution.
Before the 20th century women had very few legal rights. Already in the 18th century,
Mary Wollstonecraft had written A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Until 1882, a
womans property automatically became her husbands on marriage. We could also
mention divorce law in England where a man could seek divorce for adultery whereas a
woman had to prove cruelty as well as adultery to sue for divorce.
The campaign to gain women the vote began in the second half of the 19th century. The
first debate in Parliament on the subject was promoted by John Stuart Mill in 1867. At
that time he also wrote On the Subjugation of Women.
As a result in 1869, women ratepayers were allowed to vote in municipal elections. The
campaigners gradually became more militant and in 1903 the Womens Social and
Political Union was set up by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst. They campaigned
for womens rights, especially the right to vote in parliamentary elections. Women who
campaigned for the vote were called Suffragettes. It was a long struggle. Some women
went to prison for their political activities. A kind of truce was called during the First
World War when they ceased their political activity. After the war, the electoral reform
conference recommended a limited enfranchisement for women.
The role of women in the war effort (doing the work of men who had enlisted in the
armed forces) made their demands less easy to refuse. In 1918, women of thirty, then in
1928 women over twenty one could vote (that is as regards voting rights, in 1928 they
were the same as men).
In 1918, women over 21 became eligible to become MPs. In the election that year there
were only 17 female candidates. Christabel Pankhurst was the most voted but didnt get
a seat in Parliament.
Constance Mankievicz was elected for Parliament but could not take her seat because
she was a member of Sinn Fein.
The first woman MP was Nancy, Lady Astor who was elected for the Sutton division of
Plymouth in the 1919 by-election. Her maiden speech in Parliament was in February
1920.
The first Bill sponsored by a woman to become law was in 1923
The first woman minister was Margaret Bonfield in 1924.
In 1928, the voting age was reduced to 21.
In the 1946-47 session of Parliament a woman was nominated for the first time to the
Chairmans Panel which could preside over a debate of the whole House (this actually
happened in May 1948).
The first woman Speaker in the House of Commons was Betty Harvie Anderson
(Conservative) who was Deputy Speaker in 1970.
The first woman Speaker outright was Betty Boothroyd (Labour) in 1992.
The first woman Prime Minister was Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990), the longest
serving Prime Minister in the 20th century.
From what we can see, role of women has changed: in the 20th century, particularly after
the Second World War, women began to work outside the home: they had jobs in
factories and offices; they worked on telephone exchanges and, particularly those who
came from better off families were able to go to University and many became teachers.

However, women have gradually found there way into all the professions and nowadays
it is difficult to imagine the world without women doctors, lawyers, university lecturers,
scientists, and so much more, although there seem to remain certain prejudices towards
women, in some countries more than others.
Significant Dates and events in the struggle for equality:
1847: The Factory Act improved the working conditions of the female workers reducing
their working day to 10 hours.
1877: The reformist Annie Desant published an article in favour of birth control. She
was accused of being dirty and declared inept in her role as mother.
1882: Married women obtained the right to have their own property.
1886: The Guardianship of Infants Act allowed abandoned wives to take their husbands
to court in order to get money from them, and allowed certain rights for their children.
1888: Women won the strike they had held to improve their working conditions in the
Matches Factory of Bryant & May. Some of them had had cancer.
1903: The famous Suffragettes Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, mother and
daughter, created the Womens Social and Political Union at their own home.
1908: The Suffragettes formed a chain round the gates of 10 Downing Street.
1910: In a march outside the Houses of Parliament 119 Suffragettes were arrested.
Many were hurt and two died.
1914: The Outbreak of the First World War: activities towards getting the vote stopped.
Women joined the war effort with their valuable help and knowledge of many different
specialised areas.
1918: Women stopped performing mens jobs when the soldiers came back from the
battlefields. Women over 30 obtained the right to vote.
1928: Women were considered equal to men regarding voting rights: the voting age for
women was lowered to 21, the same as men.
1939: The outbreak of the Second World War: Women were required to work in
factories and on the land.
1945: The end of the Second World War: Many women returned to their role as
housewives.
1946: The United Nations established a Commission on the Status of Women, which is
now part of the Economic and Social Council.
Since then, there have been several World Conferences on Women.
There is now a Committee on Womens Rights and Gender Equality.
1948: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares the equal rights of men and
women.
1956-61: The introduction of equal pay for teachers and civil servants.
In the 1960s Feminism and the Womens Lib (Womens Liberation Movement) begin
in Britain.
Marie Stopes propagates the idea of freedom through birth control.
1967: The Abortion Act legalised abortions conducted by a doctor after at least two
physicians had agreed that the life or the mental health of a woman was endangered by
the continuation of her pregnancy.
1968: A strike by female workers stopped the production of engines at the Ford car
factory.
1970: The first national lecture of the Womens Liberation Movement. The Equal Pay
Act becomes law.
1971: The Divorce Reform Act made divorce easier; the first march of the Womens
Liberation Movement, striving for equal pay, education and job opportunities; the free
circulation of contraceptives and abortion if required.
After Willie Hamiltons Select Committee gave its report on Equal Pay for Equal Work,
the Government drew up a Green Paper in 1973 (recommendations) which were
followed by Lady Sears Bill.
1974: British women married to foreigners got the same rights as men: their husbands
could live in Great Britain. The National Health Service started giving free information
about contraceptives and provided them free.
Following the creation of the Sex Discrimination Board, Lady Sear drafts a Bill.
1975: The Sex Discrimination Act and the Equal Pay Act become law.
The EEC (European Economic Community) follows suit.
1976: The Domestic Violence Act provided women with more effective legal protection

1985: The Equal Opportunities Commission is set up in the U.K.

Several Rulings of the European Court of Justice guarantee equal opportunities.
1986: The Sex Discrimination Act provides further legislation to avoid discrimination
on the grounds of gender.
1989: The Employment Act provides legislation to guarantee equal job opportunities.
2004: The Gender Recognition Act ensures the same rights for transgender people.
2006: The Equality Act brings about the creation of the Equality and Human Rights
Commission. This supersedes the previous Equal Opportunities, Racial Equality and
Disability Rights Commissions.
As we can see there has been a great deal of legislation to guarantee womens rights and
their equal opportunities in every sphere in the United Kingdom. Women now occupy
important posts in all the professions as well as in the world of politics. Even so, there
are still many cases of domestic violence which are the result of what is often called
male chauvinism, which is undoubtedly a question of education and perhaps related to
how women are depicted in the media. Moreover, while great advances have taken
place in most European countries, there are many places in the world where women
continue to be discriminated against.
See also the notes on Britain 1900-1960.
Observations about women in the eighteenth century.
Up to the beginning of the nineteenth century the distinguished woman had almost
invariably been an aristocrat.From the huge middle class few women rose to
eminence. (Virginia Woolf)
.
Probably only women who have labored under [the negative education] can understand
the weight of discouragement produced by being perpetually told that, as women,
nothing much is ever expected of them . .Women who have lived in the atmosphere
produced by such teaching know how it stifles and chills, how hard it is to work
courageously through it. (Emily Davies)
I have never in all my various travels seen but two sorts of people, and those very like
one another; I mean, men and women. (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu).
The Marriage Act (1753) regularized marriages in Britain, to stop the common instant
marriages, irregular marriages, in favour of the publishing of banns and the celebration
of marriages in churches.
The common belief is:
It is believed by men that women are incapable of acting Prudently.
The incapacity (where it exists) is acquired, not natural.
The cause of the defects that we labour under is, if not wholly, yet at least in the first
place, to be ascribed to the mistakes of our education.
[There is pride and vanity among women because]
When a poor Young Lady is thought to value herself on nothing but her Cloaths and to
think shes very fine when well-accoutered; when she hears say, that tis wisdom
enough for her to know how to dress herself, that she may be amiable in his eyes to
whom it appertains to be knowing and learned; who can blame her if she lay out her
industry and money on such Accomplishments, and sometimes extends it farther than
her misinformer desires she should? (Mary Astell, from A Serious Proposal to the
Ladies, for the Advancement of their True and Greatest Interest in which she proposes a
monastery, or religious retirement, an institution with discipline for education, etc. of
women). Astell also wrote, If all Men are born Free, why are all Women born Slaves?
Every Woman is at heart a Rake (Alexander Pope, Epistle to a Lady)
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu brought out a newspaper against the popular Opposition
paper (a parliamentary document presented as information or to influence opinion),
Common Sense in order to help her husbands party. It ran for at least nine numbers.
In this paper she expressed egalitarian views in spite of her privileges of rank (ironically
she draws attention to these privileges, too). She says that birth and money are accidents
of fortune, and although she does not deny the class distinctions she expresses her belief
that the only real distinction between man and man is his integrity (she points at corrupt
aristocrats, for example).
She goes on to indicate that she would address womens situation with even
more esteem and draws attention to the prejudice towards women deriving from

patriarchal interpretation of the Bible.

However, the emphasis is placed on the fact the virtues of women are not limited
to their appearance and charm but also to their intelligence (Note that Lady Mary is
an example of those women who, because of their noble birth are able to influence their
(politician) husbands and write letters, etc. to people of note).
Lady Mary corresponded with Alexander Pope. After falling out, he satirized her
in some of his poems. Lady Mary responded to his satire in the same way.
It is probable that Lady Montagu was influenced by her friend, Mary Astell, a
feminist writer and speaker who has been called the first English feminist. Both
believed that the denial of a decent education and the emphasis on physical beauty and
charm were prejudicial and prevented women from aspiring towards greater things.
Later there would be other women who would take up the womans cause. One
such person was Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) who wrote A Vindication of the
Rights of Woman in 1797 to defend women from this situation of underprivilege.
Earlier writers in France and England (including Astell and Montagu) had
alleged that women given the same education could match the achievements of men.
Wollstonecraft, specifically, acknowledges a debt to Catherine Macaulays Letters on
Education (1790) which draws attention to what are called the disabilities and
indignities suffered by women.
In the 18th century, women had no political rights; they (unless they were well
born) could only work in lowly occupations (servants, nurses, governesses,
shopkeepers) and were legally non-persons as they lost their property (to their
husband) on marriage and were not allowed to instigate actions in court.
Following this denunciation of the lack of privileges, both political and domestic
(the lack of education, too) and the insistence on the fact that women inherit a role to
use cunning and coquetry to achieve their ends, there would be many more (men, too)
who would speak out in favour of womens rights.
The Industrial Revolution from the 18th to the 19th century
The Industrial Revolution II
Geographical distribution of industry in Britain:
England: The North and Midlands were most industry was located. The south was
much less so, which meant that there much new wealth in the North, a new wealthy
middle class. Note the reference to wealthy Mr. Bingley being from the North in Pride
and Prejudice.
Scotland: the Central Lowlands became the industrial belt in Scotland and it remains
so today. The Highlands and the Border regions were mostly agricultural. Ports like
Glasgow became very important as did the shipbuilding that took place there.
Wales: the South was more industrial and the North and Centre of the country were
rural.
Ireland: Ulster in the North with closer ties to Britain was Industrial. The South
depended on Agriculture.
Why the Industrial Revolution took place in Britain first:
Britain was rich in natural resources; the geography of the country, the fact it was an
island with several ports and navigable rivers fomented the transportation of goods
and trade; the population increased due to improvements in medicine and agriculture;
the colonies provided raw materials and markets for manufactured goods; there was an
increase in trade due to the policy of laissez faire; the construction of canals, bridges
and later the railways all improved transportation as did improvements in roads.
William Pitt, the Younger argued in favour of free trade and adopted a laissez-faire
policy which encouraged trade with Britain and helped promote the industrial
revolution. He was a follower of the principles of Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations.
Protest and Social Reform:
The growth of a new wealthy middle class was due to the success of manufacturing.
Now many of the lower classes were the urban poor and their living conditions were
often insanitary and overcrowded.
There were long working hours and women and children were also employed. There
were no restrictions on child labour.
These conditions led to many protests and also reforms.

Slavery was abolished in Britain in 1833 by the Emancipation Act. All children of six
and under and those born after the Act came into force were to be free. On August 1,
1834 slavery was to end in Britain and the British Empire, but for seven years the slaves
were to serve their former masters for three-quarters of their working day and to be free
for the other quarter.
The British Treasury gave _20,000 to compensate slave owners for their losses.
Significant events:
1815: the Luddites: a group of weavers led by Ned Ludd destroyed machinery which
they believed threatened their jobs.
1819: The Peterloo Massacre: Henry Hunt, a radical politician, organised a peaceful
meeting at St. Peters Field in Manchester asking for parliamentary reform. The army
attacked and 11 people were killed.
1829: Robert Peel, the Home Secretary established the first police force.
1828-29. The Test and Corporation Acts were repealed: This allowed Catholics and
dissenters to hold office. In Ireland, Catholics could become MPs.
1830: the House of Lords rejected the Whigs plans to pass a Rform Bill.
1832: The Reform Bill was passed giving the middle classes the vote and including the
Midlands and the North in the body politic.
1833: the Factory Act imposed limits on the hours to be worked by children; no child
under 18 was to work between half past eight in the evening and half-past five in the
morning, work more than twelve hours a day or more than sixty-nine hours a week; they
were allowed half an hour for meals; no one under eleven was to work more than nine
hours a day and so on.
1833: Reform in Education: Parliament granted _20,000 for schools.
1834: The Poor Law Amendment Act was passed: Parishes were grouped into Unions
and a system of authorities was created; there was to be uniformity in dealings with the
poor; the same system of Poor Relief was to be extended throughout England and
Wales. Workhouses were to be made unpleasant places to make it preferable to find
work. The point was to prevent people who were unwilling to work from living off the
State. It did not consider those who were unable to work, who had no relief and had to
go to the workhouse.
1838: Chartism: The Chartists: owing to the effects of the Poor Law Amendment Act,
the high unemployment in the country following the industrial revolution, and the fact
that the Reform Bill of 1832 only gave the vote to the middle classes, the working
classes were dissatisfied. In 1836, the Working Mens Association was formed under
William Lovett, its Secretary (this was an early form of trade union). He introduced a
Bill called the Peoples Charter which had six main points:
Universal male suffrage (everyone over 21 except women, aliens, criminals, mentally
ill);
The Ballot system of voting (a secret vote to avoid intimidation);
The abolition of property qualifications for MPS;
The payment of MPs;
Equal constituencies (voting districts should be of the same size);
Annual elections.
These aims were only achieved much later.
1838:
the Anti-Corn Law League campaigned to have the law repealed. This would favour
free trade and improve conditions by abolishing taxes on bread and food.
1840s: there were potato famines in Ireland.
1842: A Mines Act prohibited the employment of women and boys under ten
underground.
1846: the Corn Laws were repealed. Industrial and middle class interests were
successful over those of landowners and agriculture.
Romanticism.
Lyrical Ballads (first edition 1798) included poems mainly by William Wordsworth as
well as four contributions by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and is thought to have marked
the beginning of Romantic poetry. Wordsworths Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800/01,
Revised 1803) has the intention of justifying the kind of poem he contributes to the
collection but can be considered as laying down what were to become some of the ideas

behind Romantic poetry.

The poems in the collection are radically different from those of Pope and the Augustan
Age. He includes poems that tell stories of simple country folk and rustic ballads.
One of the main features of Lyrical Ballads is the desire to return to the original state of
nature, in which people enjoyed a less corrupt and more innocent existence.
Wordsworth shared Rousseaus idea that mankind was essentially good but was
corrupted by the influence of society.
He writes: The principle object proposed in these poems was to choose incidents
and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as
was possible in a selection of language really used by men, and, at the same time, to
throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be
presented to the mind in an unusual aspect; and further, and above all, to make these
incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously,
the primary laws of our nature. . . . Humble and rustic life was generally chosen,
because, in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which
they can attain their maturity. . . . The language, too, of these men has been adopted
(purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, from all lasting and rational
causes of dislike or disgust) because such men hourly communicate with the best
objects from which the best part of language is originally devised.
Wordsworth also defines poetry as an expressive art in the following way: poetry is the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected
in tranquility: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquility
disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which before was the subject of
contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind. In this
mood, successful composition generally begins . . . .
So what Wordsworth basically advocates for poetry are: the real language of men; to see
poetry as depicting a state of vivid sensation; to impart pleasure; to depict the essential
passions of the heart, the great and simple affections, and the permanent forms of
nature, all as they interact with the beautiful.
His thoughts can be considered as revolutionary and, indeed, he was initially
sympathetic towards the French Revolution. As an author writing during the industrial
revolution, he believed that poetry would be a source of consolation for those who had
been separated from nature in industrial cities. Basically, then, poetry would reproduce
this contact with Nature as nature is considered as a healing agent.
In a poem like Lines Written in Early Spring, Wordsworth reflects on how Man has
been corrupted by society and looks to Nature as a source of consolation.
In the poem, he is seen to reflect the ideas that he expresses in his later Preface to
Lyrical Ballads.
Romanticism reacts against a materialistic view of the world dominated by science as
well as reacting against the skepticism of empirical philosophy (Locke).
It is in nature that the Romantics find the essential things for Mans fulfillment.
Other significant works which depict the Romantic imagination are Colegidges
Biographia Literaria, where he speaks of the importance of the Fancy (memory
emancipated from the mode of time and space) and the imagination (the eternal creation
of I am and how in the act of creation the imagination dissolves, dissipates, idealises
and unifies); and Shelleys, Defense of Poetry, in which he reacts against the Utilitarian
beliefs that poetry is an anachronism in a time of mechanisation and technology by
describing poets as the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
The Novel of Manners and Austen
The Novel of Manners began to appear towards the end of the 18th century and reached
its maturity with the novels of Jane Austen.
Such novels depict the forces of social conventions, manners and customs, often as they
are confronted by the individual. How the values and conventions of the time control
characters is often a feature and such novels also tend towards realism; they depend
highly on dialogue and accuracy of description.
However, often there is an element of satire and social criticism.
While, it is not often affirmed, Jane Austen might be considered a feminist. While she
portrays women who are brought up to be docile like some kind of adornment and there
are many silly and ignorant girls who remain like children and rely solely on their

beauty and certain domestic talents, Austen also presents strong female characters who
resist being dependent on a man and who resist arranged marriages.
In a novel like Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennett is this latter kind of character
who has to be on an equal footing with a man.
In this novel, we do find the prejudices of early 19th century middle-class society, where
property and wealth are the highest virtues in the Industrial Age. There are allusions
to the wealth North of England and the aspirations of middle-class families to have their
daughters married off to wealthy property owners as women were not of independent
means.
The novel comes after Mary Wollstonecrafts Vindication of the Rights of Woman and
while it does not allude directly to it it does show the situation and role of women in
society at this time.
Utilitarianism and Carlyle
In Introduction to Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), Jeremy Bentham
proposes a series of principles for social improvement. Later, these sociological ideas
would be taken up and developed by, among others, James Mill, who educated his son,
John Stuart Mill in accordance with these principles. It is interesting to note that John
Stuart Mill tells in his Autobiography how he suffered from a nervous breakdown as a
result of the teaching methods employed in his education.
Essentially, the fundamental principle is to pursue the greatest happiness for the greatest
number: this is the measure of right and wrong.
They also believed that pain and pleasure are the masters of mans conduct.
Usefulness or utility is the most important above all other things.
For Bentham, Happiness is the equivalent of Pleasure.
The Utilitarians also advocated Philistinism: later, critics like Matthew Arnold would
attack these beliefs (Culture and Anarchy).
Culture and aesthetic refinement were thought of as having no utility. Bentham said:
Quality of pleasure being equal, push pin is as good as poetry.
This refers to a childs game.
These beliefs were highly criticised by Thomas Carlyle: in Signs of the Times (1929),
he refers to the early nineteenth century as the mechanical age. He also speaks of
machines for religion (he may refer to Methodism here, though not necessarily) and for
education. Carlyles father was a Scottish Calvinist but after reading Hume, Voltaire
and other sceptics his own faith began to be undermined. However, through his reading
of the German Romantics (he called them Mystics) he arrived at his own faith in life
itself to replace his lost faith in Christianity.
Utilitarians like James Mill regarded society and even the universe as machines which,
while complex, held no mystery; they are subject to Mans, understanding and control
through observation and reason. For Carlyle, a world without a sense of the divine was a
meaningless nightmare and his struggle to overcome the possible meaninglessness of
life is described in the partly autobiographical, quasi-novel Sartor Resartus. In it, his
philosopher protagonist invents a philosophy of clothes to describe how the naked
truth is always covered over by different sets of beliefs. Carlyle himself could not go
back to religion as the traditional clothes of Christianity were worn out. The
Everlasting No depicts the deep depression that he went through before his Fire
Baptism and The Everlasting Yea which is when he has been able to tailor a new set
of beliefs which derive from German philosophy.
What Carlyle describes is a moment of insight when he is able to see the realities that
are behind appearances. This thought would greatly influence Emerson and the
Transcendendalists. Basically, he favours the instinct over science to explain things and
believes an intuitive response allows us to be aware of the presence of energy in the
world. This is called Vitalism and is also a way of becoming aware of the existence of
the divine in the world.
Clearly, Carlyles beliefs are contrary to the utilitarians and he was an influence on
contemporaries like Dickens and later writers like D.H. Lawrence who held similar
beliefs. For example, the utilitarian practices in education are highly criticised by
Charles Dickens in Hard Times. There we see how the school and its director are
described in terms of repetitive geometrical regularity and the children are taught in a
mechanical fashion to memorise facts. As Carlyle points out in Signs of the Times,

the individual and individual needs are of no interest to the Utilitarians who think only
in terms of usefulness without consideration for human affections.
In Sketches by Boz, by Dickens we find similar indications of a critical attitude towards
utilitarian ideas.
In The Beadle, the Parish Engine, the Schoolmaster, Dickens, as he does in Hard
Times, paints a caricature of these members of the Parish authorities. He also sees the
Parish itself as responsible fort the misfortunes of those who are unable to pay their
rates as it is then the job of the Beadle to throw them out of their homes and on to the
mercy of the Parish itself, which runs, the Parish workhouse, school, church, infirmary
and asylum, etc.
The Poor Law had existed since Elizabethan times and this maintained that the Parishes
were responsible for giving Relief to those who were unemployed, infirm or in need.
Gradually, workhouses were introduced, but these were often run by wealthy men who
used the poor as cheap labour, basically exploiting their unfortunate situation.
Following the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, shortly before the publication of
Dickens Sketches, the Parishes were permitted to join into what were known as Unions
to make their work more effective. Workhouses were to be made more unpleasant to
avoid men shirking work and looking for an easier life in the workhouse. Many children
who were taken into the workhouse died.
The Parish collected rates for the houses provided for the poorer people. If unable to
keep up their payments, perhaps due to sickness or unemployment, they would be
thrown out of their homes. Then, ironically, they would be thrown upon the charity of
the Parish.
Dickens describes this situation in many of his works.
THE FRONTIER IN AMERICA
Transcendentalism.
Transcendentalism is a form of idealism which believes in the importance of relying on
intuition and conscience. It is a form of philosophical Romanticism which arrives from
Europe in America, where it takes on special significance, through Ralph Waldo
Emerson who had been influenced by Thomas Carlyle, Coleridge and Goethe, among
others. It would dominate the New England authors and become a literary movement as
well as a philosophical conception.
Appearing in the 1830s, it was a reaction against the empiricism of Locke. In The
Transcendentalist, Emerson refers to idealism taken from Immanuel Kant in response to
Lockes scepticism and the notion of Mans mind like a tabula rasa. Emerson states that
Kant shows there was a very important kind of ideas, or imperative forms, which did
not come through experience, but through which experience was acquired: that these
were intuitions of the mind itself; and he denominated them transcendental forms.
The Transcendentalists believed in the importance of intuition and the senses and
Emerson states that every portion/particle of Nature (microcosm) makes up the
macrocosm (Nature as a spiritual fact as opposed to a material fact that can be
apprehended by children and by the superior poet).
Emerson thinks of the individual as worthless and sees himself as a transparent eyeball.
He goes on: I am part or particle of God everything forms an equal portion of
the spirit.
Nature is fundamental in Transcendentalist thought: it offers an escape from corrupt
society.
During the industrial revolution in America, there was a desire to escape from class
conflicts, social disorder and violence in the streets.
The Transcendentalists cultivated the inward sense as opposed to the outward sense.
Basically, in the nature of Man there is something that transcends human experience, an
intuitive and personal revelation (Wordsworth speaks of spots of time, Carlyle speaks
of it in The Everlasting Yea in Sartor Resartus; perhaps it can be considered as a
form of epiphany (revelation)).
The Transcendentalist Club existed between 1836 and 1860. Their publication was The
Dial (between 1840 and 1846), where works by Emerson and Thoreau appeared.
Thoreau believed in living close to Nature, isolated from society and corruption, as well
as in the dignity of manual labour.

George and Sophia Ripley founded Brook Farm where they believed in the importance
of intellectual companionships and interests.
Emerson took the notion of Unitarianism from Coleridge: the belief in the spiritual life,
that Mans relation to God is a personal matter; a belief in the divinity of Man (part of
the macrocosm); and that to trust oneself is to trust God within us.
The Transcendentalists resisted the vulgar propensity of the barbarian.
They were also individualists.
Their fundamental belief is that Man can intuitively transcend the limits of the senses
and of logic and receive directly higher truths and greater knowledge.
Both Emerson and Thoreau believed that social change begins with the self, that the
spiritual development of the individual is the basis of social change.
Their view of teaching (partly taken from Carlyle and a readtio against Utilitarian
practices) was a belief in the interplay between each students mind and not just the
memorising and recitation of textbooks.
De Crvecoeurs view of an agricultural nation where manual labour and individual
endeavour leads to progress is related to this.
The Hudson River School
The Hudson River School was a group of American landscape painters influenced by
English landscape painters like Constable and Turner. In more general terms they were
influenced by Romanticism but more particularly by the writings of Transcendentalists
like Emerson and Thoreau.
The tended to depict an idealised landscape in which man and nature live together in
peace and tranquillity.
Clearly, this kind of painting, just as the transcendentalists themselves, emphasises the
importance of nature at a time when cities are growing and industrialisation is on the
increase.
The founder of the group was Thomas Cole who had sailed up the Hudson in 1825. He
had been born in England and was greatly moved by the landscape he saw there.
His friend Asher Durand became an important member.
After Coles early death in 1848, a second generation of artists appeared including
Frederic Edwin Church, John Frederick Kensett and Sandford Robinson Gifford.
The Industrial Revolution in America.
The United States was gradually becoming a more secular society in spite of the
Second Great Awakening which took place in the West in 1800. Frontiersmen who
had no access to religion were receptive to Methodists and Evangelists who went round
new settlements. But there was a new more egalitarian vision of Christianity with the
Unitarian Church which did not preach the excusive heaven of Puritan saints. This
second revival also affected the east coast later.
By 1800 the average American family was composed of 7 children. This testifies to
good health and favourable economic circumstances.
There were new attitudes towards wealth: there was a belief in self determinism as
well as greater selfishness in this more secular society.
There was a new attitude towards time with the onset of the industrial revolution and
it became necessary to measure time with greater precision.
There was rapid growth in the clock industry and by the time of the Civil War most
families had one.
In colonial America there were self-employed artisans; these would sometimes take on
apprentices.
The introduction of factories brought changes, although they employed unskilled
workers. Quantity and not quality provided the profits for investors who saw better
opportunities in investing in manufacturing as opposed to trade.
American trade flourished because of the growth of markets:
In 1790, the American population was around 4 million;
By 1830, it was almost 13 million;
By 1860, it was over 31 million.
Urban areas grew:
In 1790, New York had 30 thousand inhabitants;
By 1820, it had almost 120 thousand;

By the Civil War, it was over 1 million.

Before 1840: the composition of immigrant groups was made up of people from
Germany, Ireland and England; they tended to be artisans or farmers.
Those with some economic wealth had greater opportunities; those without property
settled in the port towns. Immigrants with capital travelled inland to purchase farms in
the mid-west or open shops in new urban centres like Louisville, Cincinnati and
Pittsburgh.
After 1840: the composition of immigrant groups changes: the famines in Ireland
and the crop failures in Germany meant the arrival of poorer immigrants who
lacked money to move to the interior.
The population of port cities increased. They were to become an urban proletariat
that worked in the factories or on the docks: they had a low income, little opportunities
and they could only buy cheap manufactured products.
Not only the increased population provided an increased market: there was also a
new group of peddlers who went all over the country selling pots, pans, farm tools,
book subscriptions, and even wooden clocks.
In this way, Yankee industrial values reached the interior.
Other routes for the distribution of goods also existed:
In the early 19th century: roads were very basic cleared during the times of the colonies;
they also used flat boats on navigable rivers and streams. The costs of this kind of
transport made it worthwhile to seek improvements: new roads and turnpikes paid for
by private investors and state governments appeared. Steamboats were introduced east
of the Mississippi and this increased the amount of trade and reduced costs. There was
industrial expansion but the excavation of artificial canals became even more vital for
this, in particular, the Eerie Canal in New York.
The cost of inland transport was reduced and this, in turn, increased the wealth of the
eastern producers. The links between eastern ports and the Midwest stimulated trade
with Europe.
Clippers transported farm produce to the Old World: this meant greater profits for
merchants and for the farmers who provided the goods.
Improved transport also meant farmers settled more quickly in the interior.
Mechanised agriculture began: many bought McCormicks Reaper, threshers and the
steel plough.
Agricultural production boomed; prosperity for farmers meant they also consumed
more manufactured goods from the East.
In the middle of the 19th century the railway was introduced. The railway was financed
from Europe but many Americans bought stock. It was in the economic interest of
farmers, etc. to do so.
State loans and subsidies also were necessary as private investment was not enough for
railroads, canals and turnpikes.
The government granted public lands for the railroad.
By the Civil War 30,000 miles of track had been laid.
There was no longer any need to rely on peddlers for distribution of goods.
The emphasis was placed on mass production; the introduction of new machinery
reduced labour costs and increased manufacturers profits.
Developments in one sector usually meant positive repercussions in others.
The development of the railroad meant increased demand for lumber, iron and coal,
so that the timber, smelting and mining industries benefited.
The increased population meant increased demand and consumption which, along with
increased production, strengthened the new system of industrial values.
There was a new emphasis on clock time: timekeeping became important and
traditional work habits disappeared. This was traumatic for rural people. The factory
system intensified organisation and discipline.
There was no longer any opportunity for spontaneous leisure as in the past.
Organised athletic activities began to appear and baseball was even introduced before
the Civil War.
The nature of social relations begins to change and the sense of community of the past
begins to disappear. However, social mobility was not very great: there were few new
self-made men and marriages among those of established wealth continued.
The elite remained WASP.

There was a prosperous middle class: skilled craftsmen did not have to compete with
mass production in the factories.
Trade Unions began to appear: they lobbied for reduced hours, free education, the end
of child labour, etc.
In industrial urban centres, masses lived amid poverty; there were often
unemployment and limited opportunities. There was also racial and religious prejudice.
The differences between the rich and poor increased in the 19th century.
In the South, those who suffered most were the black slaves.
There were huge profits in cotton production but the slave system was tightened as a
result.
The first Americans had anticipated the end of Slavery but it soon became deeply
established. Apologists for slavery even claimed the black slaves in the South lived
better than factory workers in the North.
The growth of the textile industry in England and North-Eastern states increased
demand for raw cotton.
1793: Eli Whitney perfected the cotton gin: improved means for transforming cotton
into thread. This increased profits as it meant mass production for sale abroad. Cotton
exports increased.
Northern merchants usually acted as intermediaries in the cotton trade: cotton therefore
became the basis of the American economy and affected finance throughout the world.
There was little industrialisation in the South. They relied on the North for
manufactured goods. There was no investment in industry, only in land and slaves.
There was expansion on the western frontiers in the South to Louisiana, Mississippi,
Arkansas and Texas.
King Cotton and Sugar Cane brought great wealth to plantation owners.
In the Old South, soil erosion led to many farmers planting wheat and corn.
This was also very profitable.
The economy in the South flourished even up to the Civil war.
The expansion westward due to the demand for cotton and politicians asked for
expansion even into Mexico, Cuba and Central America.
The expansion of the cotton industry also prevented the emancipation of slaves. Prior to
Congress implementing constitutional prohibitions in 1808, over 100,000 blacks were
brought into the United States.
There were slave revolts and many abolitionists campaigned for their emancipation.
American Identity. and de Crvecoeur.
After 1789, the Founding Fathers became heroes and the American Constitution an
object of veneration: we should emphasise that this is patriotic veneration.
The search for a national identity involved different interpretations of American history.
The tendency was to emphasise the common American heritage. In the Federalist, John
Jay says the following:
Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people, a
people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the
same religion, attached to the same government, very similar in their manners and
customs.
This, more than anything else, is an expression of the WASP ethic and beliefs.
However, there is an alternative view, expressed by Frederick Jackson Turner, which
sees the frontier as the place where the new American was forged from a mingling of
races, ethnic backgrounds and so on.
This is anticipated by Hector St. John de Crvecoeur in What is an American? from
Letters from an American Farmer.
De Crvecoeur was a French immigrant and also had a different attitude to the
aggressive English idea of an American. This involved a notion of homogeneity that
did not exist at the expense of the suppression of minority groups in the expression of
nationality.
De Crvecoeur writes:
Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men. He is the first to
introduce the idea of America as a melting pot where we find the blurring of national
and ethnic differences.
De Crvecoeur emphasises the fact that life on the frontier allows man to be selfsufficient

and he contrasts this with life in Europe where individual effort is not
rewarded, but only serves to bring greater wealth to property owners and employers.
For this reason he also promotes the notion of ubi panis ibi patria, which means that a
mans native land is the one that gives him sustenance. This is yet another reason for
abandoning the old country in favour of adopting a new nationality in a country that
allows the individual to prosper.
While de Crvecoeur draws attention to the harmony that exists among those different
nationalities and religions on the frontier, this was not the case throughout America.
We should note that ever since the Declaration of Independence, many other minorities
were excluded from the American identity: this included the mothers and daughters of
Americans but also Africans, Native Americans and those who did not speak English.
De Crvecoeurs epistolary novel is set during the period leading up to the American
War of Independence.
Women in American Society and the Seneca Falls Convention
Throughout history the role of women in society has gradually changed and this has
been due
to an ongoing struggle for womens rights. In the 18th century in England, following
the French
Revolution, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. But
even before,
in America, women had been very conscious of inequality in society. Following the
Declaration
of Independence which declares that all men are created equal, the wife of John
Adams,
one of the signatories, wrote to her husband that they seemed to have forgotten all
about
womens rights.
In the late 18th and early 19th century in America, women were held to be the
source of values
in the family in a time of increasing corruption. Hence women tended to be placed
on a
pedestal and it was popularly believed that women lacked sexual feeling except
with regard to
childbirth. These attitudes of WASP men led to the suppression of female sexuality
with the
unfortunate consequence that non-white women were the ones who tended to be
sexually
exploited. For WASP male dominated culture, sexuality as virtually treated like some
kind of
disease and physical passion was seen as belonging to inferior peoples.
A related problem for women was that the sense of a womans adulthood was also
undermined (that is, men treated women like children). One popular female writer
has been
quoted as saying: True feminine genius is ever timid, doubtful and clingingly
dependent; a
perpetual childhood (in Barnes and Noble 161).
The image of women at this time was that of the passive female and society
ensured the
subordination of women in every aspect of life.
At this time in history, women gave up their independence on marriage and even
the right to
own property. The all-male establishment in the United States denied full political
citizenship
to women (they had never been allowed to vote and in the past had been refused
the right
even to speak in Church or the meeting house; if they had any doubts or any
questions, they
were obliged to ask their husbands). Women could not enter colleges until 1837
when Oberlin

became the first co-educational college; they were also denied access to the
professions. All of
these measures were supposed to ensure that women would remain innocent and
childlike,
that is, free of corruption.
Around this time (1840s) feminists began to see a parallel between the
subordination of
women and the subordination of black people. Feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton
wrote:
The prejudice against color is no stronger than that against sex . . . The Negros skin
and the womans sex are both prima facie evidence that they were intended to be
in
subjection to the white Saxon man..
Ask our colored brethren if there is nothing in a name. Why are the slaves nameless
unless they take that of their master? Simply because they have no independent
existence. . . . Even so with women. The custom of calling women Mrs. John This and
Mrs Tom That, and colored men called Sambo and Zip Coon, is founded on the
principle that white men are the lords of all (in Barnes and Noble 161-2)
It is understandable why Elizabeth Cady Stanton was against giving up her maiden
name.
This type of discrimination led to a strong movement for womens rights which
reached a
moment of climax in the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. The Convention adopted
the
language of Jeffersons Declaration in the womens own and criticized men
(supremacists) for
denying womens rights:
He has endeavored in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own
powers, to lessen her self-respect and to make her willing to lead a dependent and
abject life.
In spite of this Declaration, in the 19th century America was still a mans world. A
protestant
minister is quoted as writing this: When our land is filled with pious and patriotic
mothers
then will it be filled with virtuous and patriotic men (Barnes and Noble 162).
Ironically, these dependent women were seen as the guardians of the family and of
moral
values.
The Seneca Falls Convention took place in Seneca Falls, New York over two days:
July 19-20,
1848.
It was organized by Lucretia Mott and was one more step in the struggle for
womens rights.
It has been described by some as a revolutionary beginning in the struggle for
equality.
After the Convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton presented the Declaration of
Sentiments, which
became the foundational document of the American womans suffrage movement.
This was the first time that women and men met together to seek womens right to
vote.
Later Stanton published History of Woman Suffrage which sees the convention as
marking the
moment when the movement gained prominence.
In 1851 there was another National Womans Rights Convention in Worcester,
Massachusetts
where the vote for women was seen as the central issue of the movement.
Before Seneca Falls, women had argued for their rights for some time, and some
men gave
them their support. Reverend Charles Grandison Finney allowed women to pray
aloud in

meetings of men and women in 1831 and some think this was the start of the
movement.
Duringthe Second Great Awakening (1790s-1840s), prison reform, abolitionism and
temperance were part of their sermons but so too was a different view regarding
womens
rights. William Llloyd Garrisons abolitionism allowed the full part5icipation of
women.
Women writers also had their influence: Lydia Maria Child and Frances Wright wrote
in favor
of womens wills and womens rights respectively; the Grimk Sisters published
abolitionist
writings. In 184o, urged by Garrison, Lucretia Mott and Stanton went with their
husbands to
the first World Anti-Slavery Convention. A motion to allow women to participate was
rejected
but Mott and Stanton became friends and decided to have their own Convention.
In 1839, Margaret Fuller (editor of the Dial, the Transcendentalist publication)
started hosting
conversations among women (Sophia Ripley attended and in 1841 she and her
husband
founded Brook Farm ). In 1845, Fuller published The Great Lawsuit asking women to
claim
independence.
In the 1840s, then, women wanted a greater say in their lives: they couldnt inherit
property,
sign contracts, serve on juries or vote.
This movement and the Convention brought gradual political gains for women
The American Frontier.
During the nineteenth Century there was increasing expansion west.
Large numbers migrated into the Mississippi Valley and beyond into territories claimed
by Great Britain and Mexico.
By the middle of the century, the Pacific Coast was colonised.
The West was characterised by Jeffersons grid systems (remember the Northwest
Ordinance and later Land Ordinances): the trend was that the country was divided into
an endless repetition of rectangles according to Horace Cleveland (architect). This made
the description and transfer of parcels of land much easier.
The demographic character of the frontier society was that it was made up of all
classes from all regions and of all ethnic groups. What they had in common was that
they were all young.
The move west often came because male members of families were unlikely to get an
adequate inheritance of fertile land: hence the majority of migrants were male.
Northern farmers: they moved first to Vermont and western areas of New York, then
into the Upper Northwest Territory to the edge of the Great Plains.
Southern planters migrated to Kentucky and Tennessee which for them was the new
land of milk and honey. Later some went northwest or southwest into the black belt
of the Gulf Plains where cotton and slavery thrived (Barnes and Noble, 166).
By the time of the Civil War, most of the Midwest and Deep South had been settled and
there were outposts of American culture as far as California and the trading villages
of the Willamette Valley in Oregon (166).
The migration has been described as a bit-by-bit process and not some great wave.
Usually, migrants would move first into adjacent territories. The case of Abraham
Lincolns father, Thomas, is a good description of the typical frontiersman: he was born
in Virginia in 1778; he moved to Kentucky aged 6; he married Nancy Hanks and moved
in 1816 to Spencer County, Indiana. He married a second time and in 1830 moved to
Southern Illinois; a year later he moved to Coles County, 100 miles to the south, till his
death in 1851.
Usually frontiersmen would settle near kin who had preceded them on lands similar to
those they had left. They would sell to the best buyer and move on to stake a claim to
their next homestead, then sell again.

The result was that land was no longer considered as something to be held on to and
handed on as a legacy, but it began to be looked on as a commodity for buying and
selling. This led to a great deal of land speculation.
The idea of Congress was to sell land cheaply, but the division of public lands through
auctions favoured speculators and brokers who would buy large sections of land in
order to resell it to the settlers.
There were also independent farms throughout the Mississippi Valley but the first
settlers would usually get the best lands, consolidate their holdings and then sell at top
prices. This kind of speculation in real estate would become very intense at different
times. Investment of this kind meant that money was not invested in commerce and
industry. This was particularly the case in the Southern States.
Materialism was beginning to prevail in America but in spite of this the notion of the
frontier as a place of anti-materialism persisted. The anti-materialistic purpose of the
American West continued to be emphasised. The unsettled wilderness was a symbol of
boundless possibilities of national regeneration. Free from corrupting institutions,
open to all settlers, the vast spaces represented the land of innocence, a veritable Garden
of Eden (Barnes and Noble, 167). There in a timeless place of purity, the American
nation would fulfil its destiny (167).
This is the agricultural utopia that de Crvecoeur describes in Letters from an American
Farmer. Individual endeavour would lead to unlimited progress in fertile lands.
There was a clear link between geography and nationalism in America. For this reason,
the American people were believed to hold a great responsibility. John L. Sullivan, the
expansionist editor of the Democratic Review wrote that the United States had a
Manifest Destiny to stretch its influence until the whole boundless continent is ours.
Central to the idea of Manifest Destiny is the belief in American superiority. Like the
Founding Fathers, the 19th century expansionists believed in the uniqueness of
republican governments and political liberty. The responsibility of taking these
institutions across the continent would broaden the foundations of liberty, extend the
area of freedom, and elevate the benighted peoples who still lived under inferior forms
of government (Barnes and Noble, 167).
A kind of missionary impulse led to renewed support of the Protestant religion. To
take the gospel to the unmapped regions of the West was to protect those lands from the
Wily Jesuits among others.
The Republican Government and the Protestant religion would keep the continent pure.
There were also links of the notion of the frontier to the prevailing spirit of technology.
In 1816, John C. Calhoun wrote: Let us bind the Republic together with a perfect
system of roads and canals. . . . Let us conquer space. This reflects the Americans
commitment to taking technology to the interior.
Part of Americas Manifest Destiny was related to a fear of disorder and irrationality.
The idea was to subjugate the wilderness which meant:
The levelling of forests,
The organisation of land,
The building of towns and villages,
The imposition of secular limitations over the natural boundlessness of the land.
The argument was as follows:
We take from no man; rather we give to man . . . with the valley of the Rocky
Mountains converted into pastures and sheepfolds we may with propriety turn to the
world and ask, whom have we injured? (from the New York Expansionist).
Of course, there were those who would not agree, in particular, the Native Americans.
In fact, the Native Americans were those who were most affected by American
expansionism
Washaki, a Shoshone leader speaks of being forced from their lands by the white
invasion:
The white man kills our game, captures our furs, and sometimes feeds his herds upon
our meadows. . . . . Every foot of what you proudly call America not very long ago
belonged to the red man. The Great Spirit gave it to us . . . . But the white man had, in
ways we know not of, learned some things we had not learned; among them, how to
make superior tools and terrible weapons.
The mythical values of the Native Americans were opposed by the orderly imagination
of the white men.

This led to what is called geographical exclusion.

Any groups who were considered unorthodox might be subject to this kind of
geographical exclusion. Even religious groups that were considered a threat to
protestant rationalism (the WASP ethic) were subject to this policy.
For example, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) alarmed
many Protestants. The WASP response was to isolate these groups from the rest of the
country. There should be geographical boundaries around non-conformists, imposed
territorial boundaries.
However, the first victims of this geographical exclusion were the Native American
tribes living to the west.
After the War of Independence, the whites began to move into the natives lands
bringing tension to the area.
In the Northwest Territories, British agents held illegal trading posts. When American
settlers moved in, the natives attacked them and overcame them. Expeditions were sent
into the Northwest Territories to pacify the Indians.
The Secretary of War, Henry Knox, recognised the legitimacy of native land claim, but
after some natives broke an earlier treaty force was used against them.
In 1794, General Mad Anthony Wayne destroyed a native coalition at the Battle of
Fallen Timbers. In 1795, the Treaty of Greenville ended some native land claims and
established a boundary between the two peoples (the beginning of exclusionism).
Attempts to isolate the two races from each other failed, however. Americans broke the
treaty and seized tribal lands, moving into the hunting grounds and debauched the
natives with alcohol.
In 1800, William Henry Harrison was the territorial governor. He made the
conflicts worse by manipulating native chiefs into giving up thousands of acres of land.
As well as acquiring extra lands he also encouraged white aggression against the
Natives, who suffered greatly from these aggressions.
In fear of the destruction of their way of life, the natives reacted. Under the leadership
of Tecumseh and his brother, the Prophet, the tribes formed an alliance and promised to
sell no more land to the whites.
This was often undermined by white traders who would offer gifts and alcohol to the
Natives.
Tecumseh remained true to his belief that a Confederation could be established among
the Native tribes of all North America.
On the verge of the War of 1812 (between Great Britain and America), Tecumseh
travelled among the tribes to call for a Confederation with the hope of support of British
arms. The hope was to overcome traditional tribal conflicts.
The War of 1812 between Britain and America was the result of the renewed war
between France and Britain in the Napoleonic Wars. The United States were neutral in
this war but the blockades of shipping by both France and Britain affected American
rights as well as American commerce. Not only was this highly criticised, but also the
policy of the British Navy to impress sailors on American merchant shipping.
British attacks in America led inevitably to a declaration of war on Britain.
During the war, Washington was attacked and the White House burned. The
American army stopped the British finally at the Battle of New Orleans led by
Andrew Jackson.
Before the War of 1812, and while Native American leaders debated, a skirmish at
Tippercanoe in 1811 showed the weakness of the Northwest Confederation. When the
War of 1812 actually began, British support became more limited but, even so,
Tecumseh began a war against the United States. He died while helping the British
in Canada at the Battle of the Thames in 1813. This ended all Shawnee resistance.
After the end of the war, remaining lands were given up and the Northwestern tribes (in
accordance with the exclusionist policy) were moved to reservations to the west of the
Mississippi.
Further actions continued against the Native Americans throughout the 19th century.
In 1890, Frederick Jackson Turner summed up this, perhaps the most significant, part
of American history.
In Statement of the Frontier Thesis from The Significance of the Frontier in
American History (published in 1894), he clarifies the following:
By 1890, there was no longer any frontier line worth speaking of. This marked the end

of a great historic movement.

American history, truly speaking, is the history of the colonisation of the American
West.
The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of
American settlement westward, explain American development.
The growth of America required American institutions to adapt to the changes of an
expanding people.
The development of America led continually from the conditions of frontier life to the
complexity of city life.
This involved a continual return to primitive conditions along the frontier line and a
new development in that area.
Hence, social development was continually beginning over again.
The continued touch with primitive society, according to Turner, is what distinguished
the American character.
The frontier is defined as the meeting point between savagery and civilisation.
The growth of America involves the gradual transformation of the wilderness.
The process can be summed up as follows:
First, Indians come into contact with the hunter;
There is the disintegration of savagery with the introduction of the trader;
The trader is the pathfinder of civilisation;
Then begins the pastoral stage in ranch life;
This involves the exploitation of the soil by raising unrotated crops of corn and wheat;
To begin with there are sparsely settled farming communities;
Later there is the intensive culture of denser farm settlements;
Finally, there is manufacturing organisation with city and factory systems.
The frontier promoted a composite nationality for the American people.
To be Americanized is to be fused into a mixed race on the frontier (Scotch-Irish,
German, etc).
The existence of the frontier, and expansion westward, decreased dependence on
England.
The frontier created demand for merchants. This meant the beginnings of a truly
national trade and wealth.
Legislation in America was also conditioned by the frontier and its advance.
The disposition of public lands also depended on the frontier.
National (central) power grew with the growth of frontier states.
This was related to the sale and disposal of public lands.
In the West, there was a great sense of nation.
The frontier bred the notion of individualism and individual liberties as well as
promoting the idea of democracy through these ideas.
The expansion west also freed individuals from the influence of the New England
religion (Puritanism).
Turner marks the end of the American Frontier as 1890.
The Monroe Doctrine.
President James Monroe in 1823 warned European powers that while respecting the
status quo, the United States would not tolerate further intrusion into the affairs of the
Americas.
Any attempt to extend European powers would be considered a threat to American
peace and safety.
This was above all a strategy for national security.
Causes of The War of 1812
After the Treaty of Paris of 1783, the British ad remained along the Great Lakes. They
supported Native Americans and did not help American trade.
During the Wars between Britain and France, their blockades of each other caused
financial crises in the United States.
The United States believed they had rights which, as a neutral nation, were being
violated by both blockades (basically this meant that the French and British would not
allow anyone else to transport goods at sea. The British also impressed English and
American sailors from American merchant ships.
The continued economic problems in America led the War Hawks, like Clay and

Calhoun to seek war. President Madison declared war although first France and later
(but still unknown to America) had revoked their embargoes. Henry Clay and John C.
Calhoun favoured expansion into Canada and were fundamental in bringing about the
declaration of war on Britain on June 18, 1812.
Tecumseh.
He was the Native American leader of the Shawnee tribe and led a tribal confederavy
against the United States during Tecumsehs War and the War of 1812.
He was brought up in Ohio Country during the Revolutionary War and the Northwest
Indian War.
His brother, Tenshwatawa, also known as the Prophet wanted the Native Americans to
return to their ancestral customs.
Tecumseh hoped to extend the confederacy of tribes to the tribes to the South. He was
unsuccessful but while absent, the confederacy suffered defeats from the Americans
(Battle of Tippercanoe).
Tecumseh confronted the Governor of the Northwest Territory, William Henry Harrison
to put an end to land purchase treaties.
Harrison had negotiated the Treaty of Fort Wayne in which Indians ceded 3 million
acres of land to the U.S. Alcohol and gifts had been used to bribe the Indians.
Tecumseh opposed this as he believed that Indian land was common to all and not to be
bought or sold.
He allied with the British during the War of 1812 and helped in the capture of Fort
Detroit.
Harrison led an attack into Canada and Tecumseh was killed at the Battle of the Thamed
(1813).
Tecumseh expressed a very different view of the land to the Americans. He believed
land could not be bought or sold as part of the old ancestral beliefs of his people. He
also believed in the Great Spirit and criticises the Americans for laughing at the
Shakers, born again Christians who believed they had received God.
The great difference between the whites and the Native Americans was that the land had
become an object of speculation for the Americans and the expansionist policies of the
United States, the desire to create barriers to bring about geographical exclusion and so
on meant that this confrontation was inevitable. Inevitable, too, was the defeat of the
Native Americans who gradually had to leave their ancestral lands
Further Expansion
Not only the Northwestern but also Southern tribes were affected by the War of 1812.
Creeks and Cherokees had been unwilling to join Tecumsehs confederacy and the
Cherokees had supported the American army against the British in the War. They even
helped an army led by General Andrew Jackson to slaughter the Creeks.
After a treaty, the Creeks surrendered most of their lands.
After this, America could expand into the Gulf Plains. Creeks survivors settled with the
Seminoles on the Spanish frontier. Runaway slaves also fled there. Natives and blacks
resisted attempts by slave hunters to retrieve the runaways and there were many
conflicts.
Andrew Jackson led a punitive expedition into the area without respecting the Spanish
flag. Many natives were killed and blacks were captured.
Not long after, owing to the inability of Spain to govern efficiently in the area, the
United States negotiated the acquisition of Florida (1819).
The Transcontinental Treaty cleared the way for expansion to the Pacific Northwest.
The defeat of the Creeks and Seminoles was followed by that of the Cherokees of
Georgia.
There had been hopes to assimilate Native Americans into society by the propagation of
Christianity, but these were disappointed. The citizens of Georgia saw new possibilities
to acquire land and had no thought for justice. They sold alcohol to the Indians, bribed
their leaders, disrupted their customs and took their lands.
Even in spite of improvements in education and agriculture among the Native
Americans, Georgia denied the validity of the Cherokee titles to the land and demanded
their removal. The Native response was for the Cherokees to declare themselves a free
nation and to ignore the treaties with the Americans. However, President Jackson
enforced the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and Georgia officials sold off Cherokee land

in a State lottery.
The Cherokees were led on a forced march to reservations to the west of the
Mississippi. There was great suffering and hardship for the Native Americans.
In spite of the new lands that had been made available, some American farmers moved
into Mexico. The Mexican government tried to halt this illegal immigration; this led to a
vioent rebellion which ended with the declaration of the independent Republic of Texas
in 1836.
Texas entered the Union in 1846 but diplomatic relations broke down with Mexico. In
1846, war was declared with Mexico.
After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States gained California, New
Mexico and the Rio Grande area for $15 million.
There were those, particularly in the South, who were in favour of annexing all Mexiso
At this time, the Wilmot Proviso was introduced by David Wilmot. This was a measure
that prohibited slavery in the lands acquired from Mexico. The measure was not passed
but it started a debate about the status of slavery in the territories.
Abolitionism had the effect of many opposing the expansion of slavery. Many
expansionists opposed the presence of non-whites in America (their pure garden).
Several northern states prohibited the entry of free blacks in the 1850s.
Transportation back to Africa was a measure considered as controlling the black
population.
The American Colonization Society was formed in 1817 by American exclusionists:
they intended to give compensation to slave owners for the transportation of blacks back
to Africa.
In 1822, the Republic of Liberia was founded, but only 12 thousand blacks returned to
Africa.
After 1830, interest in the Colonization programme diminished.
In the 1850, abolitionism became more powerful and colonization was again seen as an
alternative to race warfare.
However, when Blacks began to fight during the Civil War, integration again seemed a
possibility. Even so, there was hope that the West would remain pure anyway.
There was also fear of contamination from undesirable religious groups.
The Mormons were persecuted and forced to migrate. Joseph Smith was obliged to
migrate first to Ohio, then to Jackson County, Missouri, then Illinois in 1839. There was
a thriving town with 15 thousand people by 1845, but this material success brought
protests and Smith was imprisoned. While in prison he was murdered.
Brigham Young then led the Mormons to Utah in 1846 and founded the State of Deseret
which was then beyond the territorial limits of the U.S.
After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the Mormons found themselves back within US
jurisdiction. Polygamy had then to be eliminated for Utah to be accepted within the
Union.
In Utah also, the grid-planning for towns was observed.
After the famines in Ireland and Germany, immigration from these countries soared.
By 1860, 10& of the population (3 million) was Roman Catholic.
Unskilled Irishmen were often the poorest class in industrial society.
In New England, by accepting lower wages, they even replaced farm girls, worked in
textile mills, or did jobs considered too dangerous for slaves in the South.
Poverty led to crime and alcoholism; they crowded into the cities and lived in squalkid
areas that became known as slums.
The upper classes moved into the less congested areas.
Fashionable neighbourhoods began to appear and the social structure became more
polarised.
This was not unlike the exclusionism involved in the westward movement in America.
As immigration threatened jobs, many lower-class WASPs took out their anger on the
new immigrants.
There was mob violence and ethnic antagonism as well as a great deal of anti-Catholic
feeling.
Nativism appeared: this was a movement to limit immigration and tighten standards for
Naturalisation.
He Nativist movement reached its peak in the 1850s with the growth of the American or
Know-nothing Party. It became very popular even as America moved towards Civil

War.
In spite of the large vote in 1856, there was still no advance in the slave question and
the divisions in American society over this question increased..
By 1860, Nativism had lost much support and many exclusioinists joined the
Republican Party.
The violent reactions against Catholics were similar to the reaction against free blacks
which would lead to racial segregation: blacks would later be denied access to public
places, excluded from white institutions, segregated and discriminated against, etc.
California Gold Rush
The United States were at war with Mexico in 1846 (American farmers had moved into
Mexico and Mexico had tried to halt migration in the 1830s; violent rebellion had
followed and led to the Republic of Texas in 1836; Texas entered the Union in 1845 but
diplomatic relations with Mexico had broken down).
After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo the United States obtained California, New
Mexico, and the Rio Grande Area for $15 million.
The California Gold Rush lasted between 1846 and 1855.
Gold was first discovered in 1846 at Sutters Mill, Coloma, California by James W.
Marshall.
Mexican law was no longer in effect and the United States controlled the territory.
There was little law regarding property rights and things were decided on a first come,
first served basis. There was also the right to claim jump: this was the right to claim
abandoned mining sites.
There are often references to forty-niners, particularly in popular songs like My
Darling Clementine: this referred to the first miners to search for gold after the
discovery.
The population of California grew from around 30,000 to 300,000 inhabitants during
this period.
United States law took control and adapted to the developing situation very quickly:
there was a Constitutional Convention and the approval of a State Constitution in 1849.
California was given statehood in 1850. It entered the Union as a Free State.
The population of San Francisco alone grew from 500 to 150,000.
There were also improved communications because of the Panama Railroad.
However, Native Americans were slaughtered in the process in spite of the Act for the
Government and Protection of Indians in 1850: this meant that Indians that had been
captured could be made bonded workers (little more than slaves). Many were also sold.
The population of Native Americans dropped from over 150,000 to around 30,000 by
1870.
There was great economic activity and people migrated to California from all over the
world, even from Australia. After the boom, anti-foreigner laws were introduced.
The increase in land speculation, the view of land as something to be speculated with
rather than to be settled and handed on, the secularisation of society and capitalism all
seemed to flourish with greater intensity in the California of the Gold Rush.
Writers like Thoreau saw the deterioration and corruption of the Dream of the American
Frontier: more than this, he saw Mankinds corruption as it overthrew and imposed an
artificial order on Nature for the sake of personal gain: taking from the land but giving
nothing back.
The prejudices against minorities, particularly the Indians also continued.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
The Causes of the French Revolution.
Social and Economic Causes
1) Long Term:
The Discontent of the Peasants: These made up the majority of the French population
during the 18th century (there were about 24 million peasants out of a total population of
roughly 25 million), but they only held about two thirds of the land and not usually the
most fertile parts. Hence the distribution of wealth was unfair. After Colberts death in
1683, most of his attempts to improve the economy had been neglected and better
farming methods were not introduced during the next century. So the land was not

producing as much as it could have done and the standards of living for the peasants
were low.
The peasants were burdened with heavy taxation and services due to the local
landowner. In taxation they had to pay the government a twentieth of their income (the
Vingtieme); a poll-tax or personal tax (the Capitation); a heavy land tax known as the
taille; and hundreds of indirect taxes on various articles, the best known of these being
the salt tax (the gabelle). They had to pay a tax known as the tithes, originally
mounting to a tenth of their income, to the Church. They were forced to do military
service for the State and also 40 days unpaid labour on the roads or on public buildings.
This was known as corvee and was the equivalent of giving up 40 days income. The
Government was not getting the full benefit of this money because a) the system was so
complicated that it needed hundreds of officials to carry it out and to collect the taxes:
these all had to be paid salaries; b) there was corruption and some of the money was
kept by the tax-collectors instead of being given to the Government.
The peasants were also burdened by services and dues owed to the nobles dating back to
the Middle Ages and sometimes, therefore, called feudal dues. These took the form of
compulsory customs duties paid to the local noble when goods passed through his
village, compulsory use of, and charge for, the provision of his mill, winepress, oven,
slaughter-house, etc., all of which were necessary for people who earned their living by
farming. There were also the Game Laws by which the peasants were not allowed to
drive the lords pigeons off their crops or prevent him from riding over their crops in
pursuit of game. If any dispute arose, it would be tried at the landowners law court with
he himself or an agent acting as judge and with power to fine, beat, imprison or execute
any peasant he found guilty.
In contrast to this, the clergy and the nobles, although they owned most of the best land,
Were exempt from most of the taxation (they only had to pay the poll tax, the twentieth
and some of the indirect taxes); they were exempt from the corvee and military service
in the ranks (if they chose to enter the army or navy, it would be as officers); and
received the feudal dues and privileges without having to do anything in return. Their
powers and their duties to the State had been abolished during Louis XIVs reign and
the greatest nobles spent their lives at the Court at Versailles with nothing to do but
amuse themselves. Even those who held government posts usually drew the money and
received the privileges for this while leaving the hard work to a lesser official. The
Church had the additional privileges of controlling education and censoring the Press.
The Clergy and the Nobility were closely linked and most of the nobles were Roman
Catholics; many of the most important clergymen belonged to noble families and the
two groups had a common interest in maintaining their privileges.
The Discontent of the Town Workers:
This was a much smaller group within the population, being made up of the small
shopkeepers, craftsmen, workers in industry (which was on a small scale prior to the
introduction of the factory system), labourers of different kinds, unemployed people,
beggars, etc. Their grievances were not concerned with feudal privileges or some of the
taxes such as the taille (which did not apply to them because they did not work on the
land), but with their standards of living, which were very low. Wages were low,
unemployment or the unemployment of people for only part of the year, was high,;
living conditions in the poorer parts of badly built, insanitary and overcrowded towns
were probably more unpleasant and unhealthy than those of the peasants in the country.
Moreover, prices of food and other necessities were high, partly due to the indirect
taxation. The grievances of the peasants were important because they made up most of
the population and because they were the food-producers, whose support or neutrality
was necessary for any government. The town workers discontent, however, only
applied to a fairly small number of people, but is important because the unemployed
group in particular had more time to think about their grievances, very little to lose, and
so might easily turn to violence. In the towns, they also lived nearer to the centre of
local governments and so could more easily attack them.
The Social Discontent of the Educated Middle Classes:
This group was also comparatively small, consisting of merchants and shop-keepers of
medium wealth, lesser government officials, army and navy officers of the lower
grades, professionals such as lawyers, doctors, surgeons, engineers, writers, journalists,
university professors, etc. These people were usually quite well off and so unlikely to be

greatly bothered about taxation (all of it connected with the land would not apply to
them and the rest they could usually afford to pay), but they objected to the class
distinction which gave the nobles and the Church social privileges over everyone else.
They disliked the religious discrimination against Protestants (which affected quite a
large number of the group), whereby execution or service as a galley-slave was the
punishment for worshipping in the way they wanted. Also they would have liked to
have certain privileges themselves, instead of being included with the peasants and the
working-classes under the general heading of the Third Estate, and having to act as
inferiors in everyday life to people whom they knew to be sometimes less intelligent
and well-educated than themselves.
2) Short Term.
The Bankruptcy of the French Government:
This grew steadily worse during the second half of the 18th century till by 1789 the King
was so desperate for money that he was forced to send for the States General (the
French Parliament) to raise it for him. There were several reasons for the weakness of
the French economy and finances:
The tax collection system: as already mentioned, the wealthiest people were exempt
from most taxation and the system was inefficient and complicated, corrupt and
expensive to run.
The countrys natural wealth: because of old-fashioned methods and a lack of interest
in improvements, French agriculture, industry and trade were not as prosperous as they
should have been considering the size of the country, its large population and its wealth
of natural resources. Hence, the national income was less able to finance the needs of
the nation (even through the taxation of these products).
The Incompetence of the Government: None of the men in charge of Frances finance
and economy at this time had the ability of Colbert and, even if such a person had been
appointed, neither Louis XV nor Louis XVI would have had the strength of character to
support him in solving the problem by abolishing the privileges of the First and Second
Estates and making them pay more tax. Some of the Controllers-General, like Turgot,
tried to introduce very small reforms which failed because of the opposition of the
nobles, and another, Necker, made the situation worse by borrowing vast syums of
money which would have to be repaid with interest.
The extravagance of the French Court: The upkeep of the Court at Versailles,
including the Royal Family, the chief nobles, and all their servants and hangers-on, was
very expensive because they lived in unnecessarily great luxury and this accounted for
one twelfth of the annual revenue. Admittedly, this was not the Governments largest
item of expenditure but it was one which everyone could see, and which was bound to
be particularly annoying to people almost at starvation level.
Expenditure on Wars: During the 18th century, France had taken part in and spent vast
sums of money on a series of wars: the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the
Austrian Succession, and the Seven Years War. She had lost all of these and so gained
nothing to compensate for the expense. With each war the situation became worse. The
last straw was taking part in the American War of Independence (1776-83) from which
she gained nothing but the satisfaction of defeating Britain and which brought the
Government to bankruptcy.
The Immediate Cause: the Famine of 1788-89:
The harvest of 1788 had been exceptionally bad because of bad weather and so food
prices were very high and many people were faced with starvation. During autumn and
winter, peasants in desperation made their way to the towns and especially to Paris,
where they hoped jobs and food might be available. Instead, they found unemployment,
equally high prices, and even worse living conditions. Their sufferings were increased
by the unusually severe winter of 1788-89, so that by the Spring of 1789, when most of
the food stocks had been used up and the harvest of 1789 was not yet ready, they were
prepared to do anything to get food. Unfortunately, the Kings need for money forced
him to call the Estates General just at this time, when no one was willing to deal with
the situation with any moderation. The Estates General, as we said, had not been called
since 1614.
Political Causes:
Long-Term Causes:
The Political Discontent of the Educated Middle-Classes:

From the time of Louis XIV onwards the King had supreme power: he was an absolute
monarch. The French Parliament, known as the Estates General, had not met since 1614
and had to be summoned by the King. There was no First Minister to take the place of
the King at the head of the government and therefore be a possible rival to him. The
heads of government departments were chosen by the King, dismissed by him, and
received their orders from him separately, so that they could not unite against him. Most
of the nobles, deprived of their powers and separated from their family estates, were
unwilling or unable to do useful work and were prepared to accept this situation in
return for a comfortable life and many privileges. If they wished to serve the State, they
would occupy the highest ranks in the army and navy and the highest positions in
government posts. If they disobeyed the King, by the system of lettre de cachet, they
could be arrested, and imprisoned indefinitely without a trial, on the Kings orders.
This situation was particularly annoying to the Middle Classes, many of whom knew
they were better educated than their superiors, while they were kept out of the higher
positions in the forces and the government service, and who had no part in, or even
representation in, the making of laws which they had to obey.
They also objected to the inefficiency of laws and government. This partly dated back to
the Middle Ages (as well as the Royal laws and law courts; the Church laws and their
courts) and there were still about 360 different feudal law systems in different parts of
the country, which were also out of date. This led to injustice and confusion. Louis XIV,
in cutting down the nobles power, had insisted that most decisions, some of them very
trivial, affecting the 40.000 towns and villages in France be decided by the Central
Government. He himself had made this succeed, because he was exceptionally hardworking,
but his successors were not, and gradually the government got more and more
behind with its work.
The Influence of the Political Philosophers:
During the 18th century, the system of government was criticised by several
philosophers. Voltaire attacked specific cases of government injustice and the
intolerance and injustice of the French Church. However, his solution was a benevolent
despot, a king with supreme power, but who would use this for the good of his people
(unlike Louis XV and XVI). Diderot and the Encyclopaedists produced an
encyclopaedia which was originally meant to be a summary of all existing knowledge,
but which became a summary of the mistakes, injustices and faults of the French system
of government. The also believed that the only solution was the rule of a benevolent
despot. Montesquieu in a book called The Spirit of the Laws compared the French
system of government unfavourably with the British one, which he suggested should be
copied by France: he proposed having a constitutional monarchy, where the kings
power would be limited by a Parliament representing some of the better-off people in
the country. Rousseau, in a book called The Social Contract, wanted the introduction of
democracy, with people ruling themselves in small states linked together in federations,
and that if a king did not rule his country properly, the people should have a revolution
and overthrow him.
Short-term Causes:
The incompetence of the Government in the second half of the 18th century: This
was due to the inefficient system which it would have been very difficult to change
because so many privileged people had an interest in keeping it going, and, to the large
amount of work that had piled up over the years. Most of the government minsters were
incompetent, not because there were no capable people in France, but because they were
chosen more for noble birth or friendship with the king than for ability.
The best example of this incompetence was in finance, where the government reached
bankruptcy.
The characters of the King and Queen:
Louis XVI was not a cruel or unjust man by nature and if he had been an ordinary
landowner would probably have caused no trouble. Unfortunately, he did not have the
intelligence, knowledge or liking for hard work which would have been needed to run
the country properly and deal with its problems. He preferred to spend most of his time
eating, hunting, and working as an amateur locksmith. He was very much under the
influence of his wife, Marie Antoinette, an Austrian princess. She believed that the
position, powers and privileges of the royal family and the nobles must be preserved at
all costs and influenced the King to oppose all reforms, however moderate or

reasonable. Although she was a strong character, she was lacking in common sense:
several times she rejected good advice because she disliked the person who was giving
it.
The influence of the American War of Independence:
During the war of American Independence, large numbers of French soldiers from
upper, middle and working classes were sent to fight alongside the American colonists,
and when they came back to France they brought back new ideas: that all people might
be considered equal, that democracy was the best form of government, and that people
were justified in starting a revolution if they were badly governed (and the people of
France were far worse governed by Louis XVI than the American colonists had been by
the British. When they had returned, they spread these ideas widely throughout the
country, and probably had more influence than the political philosophers, whose books
were difficult to read and probably only influenced a small number of the educated
middle class.
The French Revolution (summary)
The French Revolution was prepared by the Philosophes and the Economists of the 18th
Century. In 1789 there was great inequality as regards the distribution of public offices
and so on. The Government took no action regarding these matters. Louis XVIs
ministers, Turgot in particular, tried to bring about reforms which the people demanded
but he came up against the opposition of the privileged classes (the nobility and clergy)
and this meant that inevitably revolution was necessary to bring about the end of a
society based on privilege and to replace it with one based on equality.
The States General became the National Assembly in 1789. On the 14th of July, the
people stormed the prison of the Bastille. On 4th August, the Assembly proclaimed the
Declaration of the Rights of Man. Later they voted the Constitution of 1791. This
declared all citizens to be equal before the law.
The National Assembly was dissolved on 30th September 1791 and was replaced by the
Legislative Assembly. This obliged Louis XVI to declare war on Austria on 22nd
September 1792. The National Convention proclaimed the Republic and ordered the
execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Under the Directorate, there were
campaigns in Germany, Italy, and Egypt. Napoleon Bonaparte staged a coup dtat on
9th November 1799 and was later named First Consul. Later his was given the title for
life and was eventually named Emperor in 1804 (18th May).
During the Revolution, there was a period known as the Terror, or Reign of Terror. This
took place from the fall of the Girondins (5 September 1793) till the 9 of Thermidor (28
July 1794) There were innumerable death sentences which ended with execution of
Robespierre.
The French Revolutionary War. 1793-1801.
Reasons for Britains Entry into the War.
In 1792, the French Revolutionary armies invaded and conquered the Austrian
Netherlands (present-day Belgium). This meant that a strong enemy country had an
ideal base for invading Britain, while Britain had always tried to make sure that this
area was held by a friendly, neutral or weak country.
The French Government in 1792 had issued the Edict of Fraternity, a document in
which they promised to help the people of any European country to overthrow their
government. The British Government was terrified because they knew that the British
working classes were suffering under bad working and living conditions that the
Government was doing nothing to improve, and so revolution might be welcomed in
Britain.
The French took over the port of Antwerp on the river Sheldt and used it as a base, not
only for warships, but also for trade which threatened to cut down British profits. By
doing this, the French were breaking the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713.
The British people were shocked by the execution of the French King, Louis XVI in
January 1793 and there was a widespread demand for war against France. Realizing
this, the French Revolutionary Government decided not to give the British Government
time to prepare and declared war on Britain in February 1793.
The Course of the War.
Since Britain was not strong enough to fight against France alone, Pitt formed an

alliance with countries which were already at war with France or had reason to be afraid
of France. This alliance known as the First Coalition was formed in 1793 and was made
up of Britain, Austria, Prussia, Holland, Spain and Sardinia. Because of its geographical
position Britain would concentrate on fighting at sea whilst the other allies concentrated
on land fighting on the continent.
Napoleon Bonaparte and the Revolutionary Wars.
Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power during the French Revolutionary Wars. He was
fortunate to enter the army during the Revolution which meant that promotion did not
depend upon being of noble descent but on merit.
He came to the attention of everyone during the Siege of Toulon in 1793. Toulon had
fallen into the hands of the British and Bonaparte was one of the officers in charge of
attacking one of the walls of the fortress. During the attack, his superior officer was
killed and he took command. His attack was successful, his troops forced an entry and
the French managed to recapture the city. The British fleet had to evacuate and France
gained their first really important victory of the wars. This received great acclaim and so
too did Napoleon: he was promoted again and, in spite of the fall and execution of
Robespierre of whom he had been a supporter, his time in prison was short.
In 1795, there was a Royalist Rising. In spite of the Revolution the conditions of the
people were still those of poverty and misery. A new government had been formed
called the Directory and while it was still being properly established, some Royalist
supporters took advantage of the moment and started a Royalist uprising in Paris.
Because of the discontent of the people, they received much popular support but, once
again, it was Napoleon who came to the rescue and even with the help of artillery
dispersed the rioters. The Directors were grateful to Bonaparte for this and especially
their leader, Barras, who arranged Bonapartes marriage with Josephine Beauharmais,
who brought him wealth and influence. Following this he was put in charge of the
Italian campaign of 1796.
The Italian campaign of 1796 came about because of the Directorys desire to conquer
Austria who was Frances main enemy. They planned a triple attack:
One army was to attack the Austrian Netherlands, and then attempt to reachCentral
Europe;
Another army was to move east to Alsace-Lorraine and then continue along the Danube
until it reached Austria itself;
A third army was to cross the Alps heading south-eastwards into Northern Italy which
at that time belonged to Austria.
Napoleon Bonaparte was at the head of this third army, the samallest and least well
equipped of the three. In spite of this, this could clearly be seen as a promotion for him.
While the other two armies were defeated, Napoleon and his army were successful.
After a long campaign in which his rhetoric and his own strength of character were vital
factors, he took a weakened and hungry army into the North of Italy from which he
drove the Austrian army. He continued his pursuit of the Austrians to only 100 miles of
Vienna and his complete defeat of the Austrians was only prevented by a Treaty: the
Treaty of Campo-Formio of 1797 meant that France received the lands that had
previously belonged to Austria. Other agreements led to Napoleon himself gaining
power over some of the Papal States.
It was in 1797 that Britains allies of the First Coalition ceased to be so under the terms
of the Treaty. Austria, defeated in Italy made peace and so did Spain and Sardinia.
At this point, France hoped to combine its fleet with those of Spain and Holland, both
having been forced to ally with them. In this way the British fleet would be
outnumbered, they could cross the Channel and invade England.
However, there were a number of events which took place in this year which were both
positive and negative for the British.
The British Navy and sea power were important on the one hand for the direct defence
of the country itself:
Since Britain is an island, the first line of defence is the sea. Therefore a strong navy has
been essential either to discourage any attempted invasion force or to deal with it in
battle. This was all the more important as in the 18th and 19th centuries Britain only had
a small regular army and so in the event of a successful landing the only land defences
in the south of England were a number of small forts and the local militia volunteers
who, although enthusiastic, had only primitive training and weapons. They were no

match for the large, experienced, well-trained and equipped French forces.
Some successful interventions of the navy were these:
The prevention of the union of French and Spanish fleets in 1797 at the Battle of Cape
St. Vincent.
The prevention of the union of the Dutch and French fleets in 1797 at the Battle of
Camperdown. These victories prevented the invasion of England in 1797.
After the failure of Hoche to land forces at Bantry Bay in Ireland (there had been a
rebellion in Ireland and the British feared that Ireland could be used as a base for a
French invasion) in 1796, all attempts to send invasion fleets to Ireland in 1797 and
1798 were hindered by the presence of the British navy in the English Channel.
The British navy may have been successful, but their conditions were poor. This led to
mutinies at Spithead and the Nore in 1797. These mutinies were put down, the latter
with great severity and the continued presence of the Navy in the wars was assured.
The Navy also played its part in economic warfare: The British fleet was essential in
ensuring that necessary supplies could reach Britain and British troops while carrying
out a blockade of its enemies. There were many important naval victories, for example
were Admiral Howe defeated the French navy in June 1794 (although he didnt succeed
in preventing supplies of corn to reach France), or when Nelson defeated the French
during Napoleons Egyptian Campaign at the Nile and cut off his supplies. This
basically prevented Napoleons success in this campaign.
The navy was also important for the transport of troops and supplies in order to take
part in battles on the Continent
We mentioned Bonapartes Egyptian Expedition of 1798. The aim of this was to take
Egypt from the Turks and damage British trade in the eastern Mediterranean.
Bonaparte even hoped to march into India and had easily defeated the Turkish army at
the Battle of the Pyramids. Britain was late in sending its fleet and the French had
already landed before Nelson could intercept them.
When Nelson eventually found the French fleet they were anchored in Aboukir Bay. He
sank and scattered their ships leaving the French troops trapped in Egypt without a
supply route. Any possible continuation into India was unthinkable. Napoleon tried to
get his forces out of this situation by conquering Syria and return to France through
Asia Minor, Constantinople and the Balkans. However, Sir Sidney Smith landed there
and helped the local people fight against the French. He then returned to Egypt to help
stop a revolt.
While the French forces were trapped in Egypt, the British Prime Minister, William Pitt
(the Younger), decided to form a Second Coalition with Austria, Russia and Turkey. It
proved to be successful to begin with as Russia and Austria drove the French out of
Italy, however, Napoleon returned to France, overthrew the Directory and set up his
own government which he called the Consulate, naming himself First Consul.
With Napoleon in command, France regained the upper hand and another campaign in
the Netherlands ended in defeat for the British. After a number of disputes both Russia
and Austria withdrew from the Coalition and Britain was left alone to fight against
France.
This coincided with the League of Armed Neutrality: Russia, Prussia, Sweden and
Denmark decided to stop the British Navy from searching neutral ships for
contraband. This meant that the ships of the League could convoy French merchant
ships and the Russian fleet even came under the command of the French. Imports to
Britain from these countries (hemp, tar, pitch, timber, all of which were vital for the
Navy) were stopped. Because of this, Britain decided to send its fleet against the
strongest of the league (Denmark) and under the leadership of Nelson achieved a
victory. The result was the Peace of Amiens (1802) which put an end to the hostilities
(there was a kind of stalemate between France and Britain: Britain more powerful at
sea, France on land). Britain was to evacuate its conquests overseas except Trinidad and
Ceylon and France was to leave Egypt and the Papal States. It seems France held on to
many possessions that had been part of the causes of the war and although their was a
brief respite for the people of these countries, after only a year the Napoleonic Wars
began.
The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars: 1793-1815.
1789: The French Revolution.

1793: France occupied the Netherlands and declared war on Britain.

1794: Spain and France were allies: the British fleet defeated the Spanish navy, but
Napoleon had control on land.
1797: Belgium and Northern Italy were occupied by France.
1798: Napoleon went to Egypt in the hope of creating an Empire in the Near East. The
British fleet defeated Napoleon at the Battle of the Nile and controlled the
Mediterranean.
1802: The Peace of Amiens brought an end to hostilities between Britain and France,
but Napoleon now controlled mainland Europe.
1803: the Napoleonic Wars begin.
1805: Horatio Nelsons fleet defeats the French at the Battle of Trafalgar, but France
remained powerful in Europe.
1807: Napoleon and Tsar Alexander of Russia signed an alliance to divide Europe
between them. Napoleon tried to blockade Britain and closed continental ports to British
ships.
1807: France and Spain invade Portugal
1808: France turns against Spain
1808-1814: Britain helps Spain and Portugal against the French in the Peninsular War
eventually succeeding in driving out the French (known in Spain as la Guerra de la
Independencia)
1812: Russia turned against Napoleon; Napoleon invades Russia and is forced to retreat.
April 1814: Napoleon abdicates as Emperor.
February 1815: Napoleon escapes from the Island of Elba and returns to France.
June 1815: Napoleons army is defeated at the Battle of Waterloo by the Duke of
Wellingtons army. He is exiled to the island of St. Helena.
Freedom of Speech in Britain and the effects of the French Revolution there.
In 1763, John Wilkes criticised the treaty to end the Seven Years War. He began to
publish a political pamphlet called the North Briton. Because of his criticism he was
arrested, but the courts set him free and his case drew attention to the question of
freedom of speech. Wilkes spent some time in France and on his return he became a
Member of Parliament.
After the French Revolution in 1789, there were fears that revolutionary fervour would
spread to Britain. In 1792, the French Government called for a worldwide revolution
after which William Pitt, the Prime Minister, imposed restrictive measures. There was
the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, which meant that people could be held
without a trial. The Aliens Act of 1794 monitored foreigners who arrived in Britain. The
Seditious Practices Act of 1798 declared that incitement to violence against the King or
Parliament was a treasonable offence. In 1795, meetings of groups of more than 50
people were prohibited.
IRELAND
Ireland
During the Republic and Under Charles II, Test and Corporation Acts were passed
which prevented native Irish from voting or holding official posts.
Under James II the monarchy was restored in Ireland.
It was thought he might repeal the Act of Settlement (right to confiscate property from
Irish rebels, etc).
The Battle of the Boyne in 1690, and the Glorious Revolution meant the end of a
Catholic reign as James was exiled to France.
Irish Catholics had to swear an oath of allegiance and there were new penal laws.
There was a settlement by which 750,000 pieces of land were given to new owners.
Conscientious Catholics could not carry arms.
This led to Protestant ascendancy.
The penal code made risings/rebellions illegal
The Irish Catholics could not acquire land except by inheritance.
Leaseholders had very high rents.
Catholics were banned from voting and were barred from some trades and professions.
The North was run mainly by Presbyterians.

When the Hanoverians came to the throne, oppression continued.

Economic improvement led to the Patriot Movement.
Irish Protestants were induced to relax the penal code and by the Catholic Relief Act of
1778 and a later act in 1782, Catholics could purchase lands freely and have their own
schools. In 1791 and 1793, further relief acts allowed Catholic landlords to vote
although they were still not allowed to become MPs.
1790: Wolfe Tone, an Irish protestant started the Society of United Irishmen and took
part in a rebellion against the British.
The Society campaigned for Irish independence as well as for equal rights for Catholics
and Protestants. Because of campaigning, some anti-Catholic laws were repealed in
1793.
1796: He tried to bring a French expedition force (during the revolutionary wars) to
Ireland to help in the national uprising. In 1796 the French sent a fleet, but the bad
weather prevented it from landing. In 1798, French soldiers landed in Ireland but were
defeated and forced to surrender. Wolfe Tone was captured and sentenced to death.
Robert Emmets risings were also unsuccessful. A second rebellion was crushed by the
British at Vinegar Hill.Catholic peasants suffered greatly after the French Wars.
William Pitt, the Younger, who was Prime Minister feared an Independent Ireland
might be used to attack Britain by foreign forces.
He convinced the Irish to abolish their own Parliament and with the Act of Union,
Ireland became part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Act of
Union united the Parliaments of Ireland and Great Britain. Britain admitted Irelands
claims to be bound by its own laws and courts.
100 Irish MPs were elected to the Commons and 32 Peers entered the House of Lords.
The Anglican Church became the official Irish Church.
Most Irish were against the Union.
William Pitt, was in favour of Catholic emancipation. It was over this that he forced to
resign in 1801. However, there was no electoral reform and franchise was not extended.
1828: Daniel OConnell stood for the election of County Clare and was elected. He was
a Catholic and, as Catholics were prohibited from voting or becoming MPs, he was not
allowed to take his seat in Parliament.
The result was violence in Ireland which might have led to a Civil War. Fear of this
possibility, prompted Parliament to pass the Catholic Emancipation Act to give
Catholics the right to vote in 1829.
In Ireland, most landowners were English while the native population was extremely
poor. Farming methods were primitive and it was a problem how to feed the growing
population.
The Potato Famines between 1846 and 1848 led to the death of over a million people as
potatoes were the staple diet of the Irish poor.
Many Irish people blamed the English for this and groups like the Fenians were formed
in the struggle to obtain Home Rule.
The Liberal Government passed acts to improve the situation of the Irish, repealed the
law which established the Anglican Church as the official church of Ireland and gave
greater rights to tenant farmers. However, between 1874 and 1880, the Tory
Government refused to undertake further reforms.
In 1879, led by Charles Parnell, the Irish Land League pressed for land reform and for
Home Rule.
In 1886 and 1893 the Liberals presented two Home Rule Bills, but neither was passed
by Parliament.
THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION
Causes of the American Civil War
The South was more in favour of State law than Federal law. The difference in the
nature of the economies of North and South were also fundamental. While the North
was more industrial, the South had an agricultural economy as well as a slave economy.
The South was in favour of territorial expansion into Mexico, Cuba and Central
America because of soil depletion, their plantation economy and the desire to cultivate
more. King Cotton was a very successful industry (even Britain depended on cotton
imports from America for its textile industry) and the dependence on slave labour meant

emancipationist/abolitionist ideas in the North were disappointed.

Slave rebellions, particularly the slave conspiracy in Richmond, led to stricter laws
against the slaves in the South (for example, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850)).
Early in the 19th century, power lay mainly with the State legislatures and the South
wanted to maintain this.
There was developing factionalism at this time also.
In the late 18th century, Alexander Hamilton, who had been Secretary and a close friend
of George Washington, became the Secretary of the Treasury (still under Washington)
and in this post he advocated for a strong central government. He was behind the idea of
a national bank and the introduction of tariffs on imports. At first, his ideas were
strongly denounced by the Democratic-Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson and
James Madison (much later, these ideas would become widely accepted). As Secretary
of the Treasury, Hamilton made economic proposals related to a National Government
assuming the debts of each State. This was opposed by the South as it benefitted least.
As the proposals would mean an increase in the power of the National Government
(more bureaucracy and the likelihood of increased taxation), this was resisted by many,
including Madison and Jefferson: the latter mentioned that each State should be
responsible for all things not mentioned in the Constitution. Both Jefferson and Madison
maintained that each State had the right to nullify any Act of Congress that they decided
was unconstitutional.
Factionalism continued to increase with some Federalists in the early 19th century
contemplating the possibility of a Northern confederacy. This occurred on the brink of
the War of 1812 when Republicans tended to be in favour of war with Britain while the
Federalists were against. Hence the idea of secession first appeared because of such
differences.
Eventually, The Republicans would adopt Hamiltons ideas of finance (that is to use
federal funds for State business, etc).
There was apparent national unity after the War of 1812, in spite of which John Clay
and John C. Calhoun (who had supported the War) were in favour of the tariff that
would support local constituencies.
The Panic of 1819 meant economic depression. This led to great dislike of the National
Bank. When there was a vote on the 1824 Tariff, Southern interests were in the
minority. [Tariffs tended to prejudice the south and favour the north: taxes on imports
encouraged trade in northern manufactured products and hence northern industry
prospered; the south depended on manufactured goods which were often imported and
therefore more expensive for them]
There were also increased sectional reactions towards slavery:
Maine came into the Union as a Free State;
Missouri came into the Union as a Slave State;
There was a prohibition of slavery in parts of Louisiana;
The political representation of Slave States was under threat.
Congress enacted higher tariffs to favour and protect American manufacturing. This was
opposed by the South.
The Tariff of 1828 became known as the Tariff of Abominations by its southern
detractors although it was designed to protect manufacturing in both the North and the
South against low-priced European goods.
As a result, Britain reduced its imports of cotton from the South, which was harmful for
the Southern economy.
John C. Calhoun was vice President at this time and drafted an Exposition and Protest
suggesting a State Government could nullify a law passed by Congress. It was not
published till after President Jackson passed the Tariff of 1832. Then the State
Legislature of South Carolina called a convention and judged the Tariff
unconstitutional: they said, any attempt to enforce the tariff would be inconsistent with
longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union. Jackson lowered the Tariff but said
that any nullification by a State would be unconstitutional.
The Compromise Tariff of 1833 defused the crisis.
Some believed the real issue was not the Tariff itself, but the sense of isolation and
powerlessness of the South (that is, it wasnt only about European imports, but about
the power of State legislatures with regard to that of the Central/Federal Government).
Northern Abolitionists crusaded against Southern slave owners who were accused of

being morally evil because of slavery.

This coincided with the slave revolts.
There was a lot of support for the nullifiers but the South reacted by defending slavery
as a positive good.
The House of Representatives was forced to accept a Gag Rule in 1836 when the
Pinckney Resolutions were passed on May 26, 1826. This meant anti-slavery petitions
could not be discussed in Congress. The gag rule lasted between 1836 and 1844.
Abolitionists saw slavery as subverting republican principles; the slave owning
establishment saw all Yankees as abolitionists.
Because of this, as well as some of the other things we mentioned, there was mutual
suspicion between North and South. The annexation of Texas and other territories was
even viewed as due to the interests of an aggressive slaveocracy.
Attempts to limit the expansion of slavery were seen by the South as attempts to deny
the constitutional rights of property and to reduce the South once more to colonial status
(as in before Independence).
Northern Protestants protested against the evangelical position in the South that
presented slavery as a moral good. The South insisted on its full rights of citizenship,
including owning slaves as otherwise the denial of this legal right would reduce them to
an inferior political status.
As part of an Appropriations Bill for the acquisition of Mexican territories, David
Wilmot, in 1846, introduced the Wilmot Proviso, which stated that slavery would be
prohibited in newly acquired territories.
This led to a split in the Senate along sectional lines: the senate was divided between
free and slave constituencies.
This division brought up the question of the balance of power (between free and slave
states): if California was admitted as a free state, the South would be prejudiced:
basically, the southern states which based their economy on plantations and slavery
would become inferior.
Moderates like Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas introduced the Compromise of 1850 to
avoid the confrontation between slave states in the South and Free State sin the North:
this also avoided civil war, at least for a time. California came into the Union as a free
state and in Utah and New Mexico, popular sovereignty was to decide. To favour the
slave states, the Fugitive Slave Act was passed to strengthen southern property rights
(especially over their slaves).
Meanwhile in the North, personal liberty laws were passed.
In the South, the Gadson Purchase made the construction of the Southern Pacific
Railroad possible.
Uncle Toms Cabin was published in 1852: this abolitionist novel emphasised the
differenced between sections.
In 1856, Stephen Douglas introduced a Bill to organise the territories of Kansas and
Nebraska according to popular sovereignty (that is, the settlers would decide whether to
be a free state or a slave state).
In the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the Missouri Compromise was repealed (Missouri
in this Compromise was a slave state and Louisiana was free up to the 3630 North
parallel).
Lincoln and the Republicans campaigned against the expansion of slavery.
The South and the Democrats campaigned against the materialism of the North.
Sectional rivalry came to a head in Kansas where there were strong pro-slavery and free
soil factions.
James Buchanan was supported by the Democrats in the South and defeated John
Charles Frmont who had the majority in the North (Frmont won 11 out of 16 Free
states).
Although Buchanan became the President of the United States in 1856, the country was
divided.
In the Dred Scott Decision (Dred Scott vs. Sandford, 1857), the Court held that Blacks
were not citizens of the United States and that Congress lacked constitutional authority
to exclude slavery from the territories.
Northern plots and the slave revolts came to a head with John Browns raid on Harpers
Ferry in 1859 (John Brown was executed for this, but he was supported by many
abolitionists).The Freeport Doctrine was firmly opposed to the Dred Scott Decision.

Buchanan attempted to admit Kansas into the Union and allowed the pro-slavery
Lecompton Constitution.
In the Democratic Convention convened in Charleston, the Democrats proposed
Breckinridge and Bell for the Presidential elections. At Chicago, the Republicans
proposed Abraham Lincoln.
In these elections of 6 November 1860, Breckinridge and Bell won the Southern States,
but Lincoln won the Presidential election on a sectional vote.
This intensified the sense of Southern isolation from the National Government.
Shortly after, on 20 December 1860, in a special session of the Legislature in South
Carolina, Convention formerly repealed the States ratification of the Constitution.
In 6 weeks, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Texas, followed S. Carolina out
of the Union. They argued the constitutionality of secession and attempted to form a
new confederation based on the original principles of the Founding Fathers. They
asserted the uniqueness of Southern culture.
Buchanan (still in office) declared secession illegal; John J. Crittenden sponsored a
compromise (the Crittenden Compromise) on 18 December 1860 to guarantee slavery
wherever it already existed. Lincoln was opposed to the extension of slavery.
In February 1861, these States met in Montgomery, Alabama to form the Confederate
States of America. Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens were named their executive
officers.
The Constitution of the Southern States was conservative and emphasised the
independent nature of each States rights.
The Confederate States seized property belonging to the Union (the National/Federal
Government).
Lincoln announced his intention to hold, occupy and possess Federal property.
On of the places involved was Fort Sumter which guards the harbour of Charleston (S.
Carolina).
Lincoln sent supplies there.
Ships were sent to blockade Union troops and Davis attacked on 12 April 1861.
Lincoln sent troops to end the rebellion in South Carolina 3 days later.
2 days after that, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina also voted for secession and
war began.
The American Civil War
The American Civil War is also known as the War Between the States and the War of
Secession and took place between 1861 and 1865. 11 southern states declared their
secession from the United States of America to form the Confederate States of America
(the Confederacy).
Their leader was Jefferson Davis. The United States, called the Union was supported by
5 Border States and 5 Slave States.
In the election of 1860, the Republican Party led by Abraham Lincoln campaigned
against the expansion of slavery beyond those states in which it already existed. The
Republican victory resulted in 7 States declaring their secession before Lincoln took
office on 4 March 1861. Both the previous President (Buchanan) and the new President
(Lincoln) declared the illegality of secession: it was considered rebellion.
Confederate troops attacked Fort Sumter on April 12 1861. Lincoln called for a
volunteer army from each state which led to more states declaring secession.
The Union took control of the Slave States early on and established a naval blockade.
In September 1862, the Emancipation Proclamation made the end of slavery one of the
aims of the war, which dissuaded Britain from intervening.
The Confederate commander was Robert E. Lee: he won battles in the East but his
northward advance was turned back after the Battle of Gettysburg.
The Union gained control of Mississippi at the Battle of Wicksburg, thus splitting the
Confederacy.
In 1864, Ulysses S. Grant fought a war of attrition against Lee. The Union General
William Sherman captured Atlanta, Georgia, and marched to the sea. Lee surrendered to
Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 5, 1865.
This was one of the first industrial wars: rail, steamships, mass-produced weapons and
so on were involved. Shermans total war in Georgia and trench warfare around
Petersburg anticipated the First World War.

By the end of the war there were 620,000 dead soldiers and uncounted civilians.
It brought an end to slavery and to the Confederacy and strengthened the Central
Government.
Reconstruction and the American Civil War
There are two definitions of Reconstruction:
The period 1865-1877 after the American Civil War and
The transformation of Southern States between 1863 and 1877 which had to do with the
reconstruction of state society in the former Confederacy and the addition of three
amendments to the Constitution.
Reconstruction began and ended at different times in different states.
Federal reconstruction was abandoned following the Compromise of 1877.
Reconstruction policies were debated in the North even at the start of the War.
It began following the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 (Jan. 1).
Reconstruction policies were implemented when Confederate States came under the
control of Federal soldiers.
During the Civil War, Lincoln set up reconstructed governments in several southern
states: Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana.
In South Carolina, an experiment involved giving land to ex-slaves.
Following the assassination of Lincoln, Andrew Johnson continued Lincolns plans.
New governors were named in the summer of 1865.
He declared the aims of national unity and the end of slavery had been achieved: that is,
that reconstruction was over. However, Radical Republicans in Congress rejected
Johnsons terms and the new members of Congress elected in the South were also
rejected. Between 1866 and 1867, these radicals broke with President Johnson.
Republicans pressed for the political rights of newly freed black slaves:
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution (1865) banned slavery;
The 14th Amendment (1866) guaranteed the civil rights of former slaves and the equal
protection of laws;
The 15th Amendment (1870) prohibited the denial of the right to vote on grounds of
race, colour or previous servitude.
However, African Americans were often not allowed to exercise their rights.
President Johnson had vetoed the Civil Rights Bill and encouraged the Southern States
not to ratify the 14th Amendment. The result was that Freedmen were not always
allowed to vote.
Radical Reconstruction began in 1867:
In 1867, there were the Reconstruction Acts: civilian governments in 10 Southern States
were removed and the former Confederacy was placed under the rule of the U.S. Army.
New elections in the Southern States were run by the Army, blacks could vote and
former Confederate leaders could neither vote nor run for office.
In 10 States, Republican State Governments were formed which introduced
reconstruction programmes: aid for railroads, public schools, increased taxes.
Conservative opponents claimed widespread corruption; there was also opposition from
the Ku Klux Klan which was met by federal intervention by the now President Ulysses
S. Grant who closed down the Klan in 1870.
New taxes were introduced in the South.
The Panic of 1873 led to economic depression. There had been over-speculation on
railroads, the introduction of a gold standard (silver was no longer used to back
American currency) which affected the price of silver and the mining industry.
Grants policy was also to reduce the money supply.
In 1873, Jay Cooke and Company failed and the result of the Panic was that the
Democrats achieved gains in the North. Some of the railroads planned in the South
failed.
In 1874 election to the House of Representatives, the Republicans lost control of the
House to the Democrats during Grants second term.
The Compromise of 1877 meant the following:
The removal of federal soldiers from the former Confederate States
The Appointment of a Southern Democrat to President Hayes cabinet (David M. Key
of Tennessee was named Postmaster General)
The Construction of another transcontinental railroad using the Texan and Pacific in

the South
Introduction of legislation to industrialise the South
In the Election of 1876, the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes had won the Presidency
over Democrat Samuel J. Tidden on the understanding Hayes would remove troops
from the South. Hayes removed Federal soldiers from South Carolina and Louisiana;
Ulysses S. Grant had previously removed the troops from Florida.
After the Compromise of 1877 came what is known as the Redemption Period.
The Democratic Party controlled what they termed the Solid South.
The Jim Crow Laws were laws which reflected racial prejudice and enforced
segregation, etc. in the South.
Following the Reconstruction Acts of 1867, 10 Confederate States were placed under
military control.
The Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address is a speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln at the Dedication of
the Soldiers National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on Thursday, November
19, 1863, 4 and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy
at the decisive Battle of Gettysburg.
The Declaration invokes the principles of equality set out in the Declaration iof
Independence and considers the Civil War as more than a struggle for Union, but for a
new birth of freedom for all citizens in a unified nation in which States rights would
no longer dominate.
The closure of the speech is to dedicate the living to the struggle to ensure that
government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the
earth.
Following the Battle of Gettysburg 7,500 soldiers lay dead as well as the corpses of
5,000 horses. These were from the Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of
Northern Virginia.
Following a petition to the Governor of Pennsylvania by a prominent citizen, David
Wills, lands were purchased for a cemetery to honour the dead.
Edward Everett, the Secretary of State was invited to be the main speaker; Lincoln was
invited to participate later.
The context in which Lincolns speech takes on greater significance:
By August 1863, quarter of a million dead in the was
There were anti-war and anti-Lincoln feelings in the North
Peace Democrats hoped for a victory in the 1864 election against Lincoln and offer
concessions to the Confederacy
There were riots against the Draft (compulsory conscription) in 1863
There were political feelings running against the war
This means that the aim of the Address was not simply to dedicate the Cemetery to the
memory of the dead, but to gain support for the war effort by invoking the principles of
the Founding Fathers. Hence the Address is designed to evoke sentiments in the public
but also to foment patriotism and renewed belief in the war effort in the face of a hostile
political climate.
Frederick Douglass was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey around 1818 and
died in 1895. He was born into slavery but managed to escape and eventually became an
Abolitionist leader.
One of his autobiographies, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845),
tells of his life as a slave and his escape from captivity but, moreover, gives an account
of the brutality of slavery, the regular beatings, the custom of separating young children
from their mothers (as was his own case) and so on.
Following his escape, Douglass lived first with the abolitionist David Ruggles.
He married Anna Murray, who had helped him to escape, shortly afterwards and, once
settled in Massachusetts, following an intervention at one of William Lloyd Garrisons
meetings, began to participate regularly in conventions.
His autobiography became a bestseller and was probably one of the influences
on Harriet Beecher Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin which in turn exercised its influence on
the Abolitionist movement prior to the Civil War.

Douglass went to England and then Ireland for two years to avoid recapture and
the people of Newcastle upon Tyne collected money in order to buy his freedom from
his former master.
He returned to America, continued to work for the cause (public speaking and
publishing newspapers), attended Seneca Falls and spoke in favour of womens
suffrage.
During Reconstruction, he was president of the Freedmans Savings Bank
among other things, and before his death in 1881, was appointed US Marshall for the
District of Columbia.
VICTORIAN AGE INTO THE 20TH CENTURY
Britain in the 19th Century
Social and Ideological Change
The 19th and 20th centuries are periods of rapid change and transition, although this could be said of any
epoch. There is a reaction against traditional values and an apparent loss of any sense of consensus. We
find both conservative and destructive forces at work. The Industrial Revolution is regarded with both
optimism and pessimism.
Optimism of those who saw changes brought about by scientific and industrial innovation as an
improvement. Since the 18th century, rational philosophers believe in the improvement of human life
through environmental control. Robert Owen, for example, puts this into practice in New Lanark,
Scotland.
Utilitarianism, promoted by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill, sees an unlimited possibility of improving
conditions of man through education.
New theories of history see it as a series of cycles, patterns of rebirth and regeneration: J.S. Mill and
Thomas Carlyle see the progress of history as periods of belief followed by periods of unbelief. The
denial of truth is regarded as positive and necessary for progress. Pessimism is related to the fear of
Revolution. We find radical propaganda, theories of socialism, the decline of Christianity, the influence of
Marx, Engels, the Fabians, the Labour Party, trade unions. The speeding up of life: new worries, stress
and fatigue, industrial accidents, slum housing, fear of strikes and unemployment.
Middle-class fears and hypocrisies: the fear of financial failure, changes in the class system. This is the
culmination of the end of a feudal, agrarian lifestyle.
Materialism and Capitalism are the new philosophies. The emphasis on Mechanical laws of Cause and
Effect: Charles Darwin and Herbert Spenser:
the Survival of the Fittest; the rise of Naturalism; the end of Self-Determinism; Man lives in isolation
without God. Religion is the opiate of the people; God is dead: Marx and Nietzsche. New social
relationships in cities and factories bring about the isolation of the individual. Mechanism in society:
Thomas Carlyle writes "Signs of the Times"; this is the beginning of the Mechanical Age in every
outward and inward sense of the word. Man is governed not only by the machine, but by the clock.
The movement of masses into the cities separates people from Nature.
Literature often reflects a certain nostalgia for Nature: for Wordsworth, his Romantic poetry fills that lack
for the common man. Matthew Arnold sees poetry (or literature) as a substitute for lost religious belief.
There is a lack of any common Moral, Religious, or Political Standards; no sense of Personal Identity;
Moral Paralysis; Man is "hollow at the core."
Traditional Victorian Conservatism: National Conceit; the British Empire and Imperialism; British is
Best; Utopian Ideas. The length of Victoria's reign leads to stability, capitalism, individual enterprise, free
trade.
The struggle for markets leads to the formation of Alliances in Europe, leading to the
outbreak of the First World War.
After the War: Breakdown of values following Social and Economic Peak; the End of an Era; the End of
a Tradition.
Two basic trends in Art and Society:
To follow 19th century conventions in taste; or To react against the old ways and discover new
perspectives. With the coming of modernity we find new ways of considering art and experience. Among
many issues we find: A new awareness of the Changing Nature of Reality; the acceptance of Chaos.
Modernist preoccupations with Epistemological Questions. The relation between the individuals
perspective and reality becomes problematic: reality is only inside your head. Everything is subjective.
Henri Bergson: there is no Being, only Becoming. The Philosophy of Psychological Time. Time is
relative; the presentness of the past. Memory is like a cinematograph.

F.H. Bradley: the Individual is a circle closed on the outside; the inevitable isolation of the individual, the
impossibility of communication.
F. Nietzsche: the Death of God; there are no facts, only interpretations.
Sir James Frazer: Man as mythmaker; the end of Absolutist Religious Systems; Religion as myth. Karl
Marx: Religion is the opiate of the people; an empirical, socio-economic analysis of the evolution of
society.
Sigmund Freud: the bases of Modern Psychology; the importance of the Unconscious; the complex nature
of human motives. Karl Jung: the Universal Unconscious; the Archetype. Albert Einstein: Time and
Relativity; a changing Universe.
The growth of the Reading Public and the Mass Production of literature bring about changes in attitudes.
The Avant Garde is displaced. Innovation is often viewed with suspicion. Note: These times were times of
great upheaval and change and we should remember the continual presence of the following issues: The
ongoing effects of industrialisation; The Irish Question: the problems concerning Home Rule and the
often violent struggle to achieve it; The Changing Role of Women in Society (still an issue);
The Rise of Labour, Social and Parliamentary Reform, the Creation of the Welfare State; Two World Wars
and their Aftermath; The Growth and the Dissolution of the British Empire.
The Nineteenth Century in Britain.
Home Affairs.
Great economic and political change.
The industrial revolution was in full swing.
Overseas trade was increasing.
Britain became known as the workshop of the world.
Britain built up a huge empire.
In 1851, the Crystal Palace was built for the first international trade exhibition.
The working classes began to demand a better standard of living and for the right to
vote.
Problems in Ireland increased.
At the beginning of the century, there were three political groups: Whigs, Tories and
Radicals. Until 1858 all MPs had to be property owners.
Until 1911, MPs were unpaid.
Parliament was dominated by the upper classes because of this.
The working classes campaigned for political and social reform including the vote for
the working classes.
The majority of Tories did not want reform.
The Whigs only considered moderate change.
In the second half of the 19th century, two new political parties appeared: the Liberals
and the Independent Labour Party.
Early in the century, Britain was often involved in wars in Europe and in the United
States.
The increase in the use of machinery caused unemployment. Wages were low.
There were sometimes riots and demonstrations. Some of these were the Luddites, led
by Ned Ludd, who broke machinery. The Tory government prohibited political
meetings and propaganda.
The Introduction of the Corn Laws in 1815 was designed to help British farmers by
banning the importation of corn until British corn/cereals reached a certain price. The
price of corn and bread were very high. The Anti-Corn Law League led by Radical MP,
Richard Cobden campaigned for the repeal of the Laws, which happened in 1846.
This was a victory for the lower classes.
Following the repeal of the Corn Laws there was a split in the Tory Party (usually called
the Conservative Party after 1834).
The majority followed Benjamin Disraeli and Lord Derby.
The rest, along with some Whigs and Radicals, formed the Liberal Party following
Robert Peel. It was under the leadership of William Gladstone from 1868 till 1894.
The First Reform Bill was passed in 1832 by the Whig government. This meant
electoral reform but it only gave the vote to the middle classes.
After this, groups like the Chartists formed to campaign for universal male suffrage.
They were called Chartists because they presented the Peoples Charter to Parliament
seeking universal male suffrage, annual election, salaries for MPs and so on.

Trade Unions began to appear in Britain in the 19th century.

At first they were organised locally as a way to negotiate with employers about wages
and conditions.
Parliament had made them illegal in 1799-1800 because of fears of radical protest
following the French Revolution, but they were legalised again in 1824.
The first National Union, the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union formed in
1833 by Radical MP and mill owner, Robert Owen. He hoped a strong union would be
able to pressure government into reforms. Employers opposed the union and threatened
members with dismissal.
In 1834, six men were transported to Australia for trying to set up a local branch of the
Union. They were known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs.
The Union collapsed as workers sought different methods of political action like
Chartism.
During the 1850s small unions of skilled men and were set up. These were called model
unions.
Union officials from each area began to meet and in 1868 formed the Trades Union
Congress. The TUC acted as a more powerful means of political influence. A
government report stated a strong union in fact reduced the likelihood of violence rather
than encouraging it in 1869.
Afterwards, the government relaxed many of its anti-union laws.
Unskilled workers unions were formed in the 1880s.
In 1867, a further Reform Bill, made all male householders in towns eligible to vote and
stand for Parliament.
Over a million were added to the electorate.
In 1884, this was extended again to all male householders. In 1918, it was all men over
21.
In 1874, Thomas Burt and Alexander MacDonald became the first working class MPs.
In 1893, the Independent Labour Party was formed by Keir Hardie, an MP and miners
leader.
In 1900 the Labour Representation Committee was set up. It was renamed the Labour
Party in 1906.
Factory Reform also took place in the 19th century.
By the end of the century a lower wage limit had been set of 11 and rules were
established regarding working conditions in mines and factories.
The French Revolutionary Wars.
In the French Revolution of 1789-92, the French monarchy was overthrown and
replaced by a Republic.
Other countries feared that revolutionary ideas might spread.
In 1793, Britain allied with Austria and Prussia against France and in 1796 and 1797,
the French, led by Napoleon Bonaparte, seized parts of Belgium and Italy from Austria.
It was Napoleons intention to spread French influence throughout the world. His plans
were to first conquer Europe, then India, the Middle East and the Caribbean.
Napoleons intentions were undermined by the British fleet at the Battle of the Nile in
1799 under Admiral Horatio Nelson.
In 1803, Napoleon seized Switzerland and other parts of Italy. He was named emperor
in 1804.
He intended to invade Britain after destroying the British navy.
At the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Nelsons British fleet defeated the French navy.
However, Napoleons armies continued to be victorious against Austria and Russia.
France also controlled Germany.
In 1808, France invaded Spain and Portugal in what was to become known as the
Peninsular Wars.
With British support, Spain and Portugal drove out the French.
In 1812, Napoleons campaign to conquer Russia failed and in 1813, major battles were
lost in Germany against Austrian and Prussian armies.
In 1814, Britain invaded France, Napoleon was deposed and exiled.
Napoleon escaped from his exile and raised a new army but was defeated by the British,
under the Duke of Wellington, Prussian and Belgian armies at the Battle of Waterloo in
1815.
Peace was made at the Congress of Vienna in 1815.

Britain in Africa
At the beginning of the nineteenth Century, most of Africa was unknown to Europeans, but it gradually
became apparent that there were great natural resources there (gold, diamonds, etc.). From the 1870s
onwards this led to many countries trying to establish colonies there. By 1914 and the outbreak of the
First World War, most of Africa had been colonised.
At the height of the British Empire, the British colonies were as follows:
West Africa: Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Southern Cameroon and Sierra Leone;
East Africa: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania (formerly Tanganyika and Zanzibar);
South Africa: South Africa, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe),
Nyasaland (Malawi), Botswana and Swaziland.
The situation in Egypt varied and the Sudan was ruled jointly with Egypt.
Around 1880, the situation was as follows:
Britain: Gambia, Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, Lagos and the island of Santa Helena (in West Africa); Cape
Colony, Natal and Transvaal (annexed from Holland) (in South Africa).
France: Dar and St Louis in Senegal, Ivory Coast and the colonisation of Algeria began in 1830).
Portugal: Angola (since 1482), Luanda (from Holland in 1648) and Mozambique since 1498 with trading
posts in 1505).
Spain: Ceuta and Melilla.
Turkey: Egypt, Libya and Tunisia (Tunisia became French in 1881; Britain occupied Egypt in 1884).
Germany: South West Africa, Cameroon, German East Africa and Togo).
Note that the Scramble for Africa, as it became known in the 19th century, was due to the need for
markets, the desire for expansion and the search for raw materials and mineral wealth. This struggle for
empire among European powers would be one of the causes (if not the main cause) of the First World
War.
It should be remembered that Britain had set up many trading companies throughout the world in the 17th
and 18th centuries. One of these was the Royal Africa Company which had been set up in West Africa.
Britains slave trade originated from there.
Britain was involved in conflicts with the Dutch for South Africa: initially the Dutch had settled there and
founded the Cape Colony in 1652. Other European settlers began to arrive in the 18th century.
In 1815, Britain took control of the Cape Colony and, as this was resented by the Dutch settlers, they set
up new colonies in Orange Free State and Transvaal.
In the 1870s, the Zulus became a serious threat to the Dutch colonists (called Boers). The Boers allowed
Britain to annex the Transvaal in return for protection (1877). The Zulu War took place in 1879 after
which the Boers wanted their land back.
The First Boer War took place in 1881: Britain was defeated and the Transvaal was granted independence.
The Second Boer War took place between 1899 and 1901: Transvaal and the Orange Free State became
part of the British Empire.
David Livingstone was a Scottish missionary who explored the area around Northern and Southern
Rhodesia between 1852 and 1856. During that time he discovered and
named Victoria Falls. HM. Stanley, an explorer, was commissioned to look for
Livingstone by an American newspaper, as he had lost touch with civilisation.
Stanley finally found him on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in 1871.
Britain in India
Trade in India began in the 16th Century with an increase in British influence in the
18th when the Mogul Empire, founded in the 14th century, began to decline. The last
Mogul emperor was deposed by the British in 1857 and the decline of this dynasty made
it easier to gain military and trade treaties with local rulers.
The East India Company Trading Company had been set up in 1600 and it monopolised
trade between England and the Far East.
Prior to 1784, it controlled a large part of India.
Britains greatest rival in India was France but by 1763 the East India Company led by
Robert Clive (Clive of India) had defeated them.
Previously, in the Battle of Plessey (1757), the ruler of Bengal had been defeated and
the Company had control of the west coast.
In 1773, the British Government elected a Governor-General to regulate the Companys
activities: this was Warren Hastings.
The India Act of 1784 separated government from trade, following which successive
Governor-Generals extended British control throughout the country.

Many Indians were hostile to British interference in their social and religious customs.
In 1857, the Indian Mutiny took place in which Indian soldiers (within the British
Army) rebelled against their British officers. The rebellion spread across northern and
central India but was eventually put down in 1858. The same year, the East India
Company was abolished and its properties taken over by the British Government.
In 1876, Queen Victoria became the Empress of India which was governed from then
on by the Viceroy.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad introduces the character Charlie Marlow who, while he and his
companions wait for the tide to turn on board a yacht anchored on the Thames, tells them the story of how
he took a paddle steamer up another river, the Congo, into the heart of the dark continent, in search of the
enigmatic Mr. Kurtz.
Conrads novel starts out like a seamans yarn, a story of adventure, but we soon discover that this is a
journey not only into Darkest Africa, but a psychological journey into the innermost recesses of Marlows
mind as well as an atavistic journey that takes us back to a more primitive state where men are cut off
from civilisation.
Marlow tells how he was employed in Brussels by a Belgian company to take a steamer up the Congo
River. Once there he is told to continue up river in search of Mr. Kurtz, a first-class agent, who sends back
more ivory from the depths of Africa than all the rest put together. Marlow finds this character enigmatic
and looks forward to meeting this man who will become a voice emanating from the heart of darkness
to reveal its deepest secret: the horror, the horror!
On one level, this novel shows that the imperialist beliefs that Europeans take civilisation and
Christianity, light, into the heart of darkness is an illusion. Marlow speaks of an idea at the back of all this
and that what saves Europeans in Africa is efficiency; but it becomes clear as we read the novel that this
is simply a saving illusion: what Marlow depicts ultimately is robbery with violence, aggravated
murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind. It is a novel about the conquest of Africa, about
absurd and brutal exploitation, a criticism of material interests covered over by false beliefs in the white
mans mission to civilise the natives.
It takes place in the Belgian Congo, later Zaire (now the Congo again). This is an area that was explored
by H.M. Stanley between 1878 and 1882 for Leopold II of Belgium.
Some believe that the meeting between Marlow and Kurtz is a parody of the meeting between Stanley
and the Scottish missionary David Livingstone (among other things, Livingstone discovered the Victoria
Falls which he named, obviously, after Queen Victoria).
The text shows the exploitation of the natives that took place as the Europeans
plunder the resources of Africa.
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) published his Origin of Species in 1859. It introduces the
theory of evolution that states that animal life evolves during a slow process of natural
selection over a number of generations. This leads to the branching of common descent
which is the cause of the great diversity that exists in the world. Darwin was able to
provide scientific evidence of his findings with evidence gathered during his expedition
to the South Season board HMS Beagle. Darwin worked on his theory for a period of
over 20 years when he submitted a paper stating his theory in 1858. A year later it
appeared as a book.
Even before Darwin published his theory, theories of evolution existed. A great
influence on Darwin was the work of his friend Sir Charles Lyell, the geologist and
paleontologist, whose Principles of Geology (1830) had drawn attention to the topic, as
had Robert Chambers popular book Vestiges of Creation (1843-46). The question of
evolution would even be referred to in Tennysons well-known elegy In Memoriam.
One of the effects of the theory was to test many peoples religious belief and there was
a good deal of violent opposition to it, some coming from scientists who questioned the
basis of the theory (they believed in the immutability of species) as well as from
religious leaders who attacked it because it contradicted a literal interpretation of the
creation in the Bible. These many detractors joined forces when in 1860 Bishop
Wilberforce became their spokesman.
However, Darwin also had his supporters who responded to these attacks, among them
T.H. Huxley and John Tyndall who popularized science at this time. Curiously, Darwin
believed that his theory was not at odds with religious belief. He himself, also partly

influenced by Lyell, was a deist: the existence of God can be discovered by reason (not
just through religion) and while God is responsible for the creation, nature is allowed to
take its course.
In Chapter 15 he provides a Recapitulation of the objections to the theory of Natural
SelectionRecapitulation of the general and special circumstances in its favour
Causes of the general belief in the immutability of speciesHow far the theory of
Natural Selection may be extended. As he says himself, I see no good reason why the
views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one. He then
goes on to refer to how in the past even Newtons Theory of Gravity had been opposed
by Leibniz (Gottfried Wilhelm: 1646-1716) and now it is universally accepted. He also
refers to Lyell and his geological discoveries. The person that he refers to speaking in
his favour is probably Huxley).
Darwins theory would soon receive acceptance from a new generation of scientists
(naturalists) just as he anticipates in his book. The theory would also have an almost
immediate effect on others, particularly Herbert Spencer (1810-1903) and his Social
Darwinism, where he applies Darwins theories to society. He would introduce the ideas
of social determinism and the survival of the fittest. This would be a more immediate
influence on a literary phenomenon called Naturalism which in the novel and in drama
would show that heredity and environment determine the fate of the individual. This
trend in literature was begun in France by the Goncourt brothers and mile Zola in
France after which it would spread to the rest of Europe and America. In the United
States, famous exponents of Naturalism are Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser and Jack
London.
The Victorian Novel and Charles Dickens
Victorian literature is that produced in England between 1837 and 1901 during the reign
of Queen Victoria. It often reflects the complacency and hypocrisy of Victorian
attitudes, pride in the growth of the Empire, optimism in the light of the new science
and industrial development. The Royal family also served as a model for respectability,
decency and earnestness, values that are often reflected in the literature of the time.
However, the self-satisfaction of the Victorians would later be seen as hypocritical, false
and narrow-minded.
At this time a form social realism began to appear in the novel which reflected social
problems and conditions under industrialization, even religious and philosophical doubt.
It would sometimes take the form of a problem novel, focusing on the social forces that
act on the individual, considering social issues after the industrial revolution. On
occasions it would draw attention to how these conditions affect workers and their
families (Mary Barton by Mrs Gaskell, for example) and Dickens does this, too,
especially in Hard Times where he introduces the hand, Stephen Blackpool and his
drunken wife, the helpful Rachael and the Union delegate, Slackbridge.
Dickens is not typical of realistic novelists and some would consider that he is not
realistic at all, tending towards caricature in his characterization and heightening for
dramatic effect. He himself wrote that Every writer of fiction although he may not
adopt the dramatic form, writes, in effect, for the stage. So we often find a stagey
side to his novels and he rarely explores the inner lives of his characters.
In Hard Times, Dickens is greatly influenced by Thomas Carlyle (to whom the novel is
dedicated) and, like him he criticizes the mechanism in society in every outward and
inward sense. It is clearly a reaction against Utilitarianism whose main purpose was the
greatest happiness for the greatest number. The novel is not only critical of the
mechanism brought about by industry which he reflects in the description of the
repetitive and monotonous activities and even appearance of the city of Coketown
(based probably on Preston), but he also criticizes the mechanical nature of everything
else including education which is based purely on facts.
The novel sets up a contrast between nature and mechanism and also between fact and
fancy, or the imagination. Those lives that have been deprived of the imagination and of
nature (like Tom and Luisa Gradrind who have been brought up under a Utilitarian
education) will suffer the consequences and live a life starved of affection.
Dickens (1812-1870) writes here a condition of England novel in which, once again,
characters like Sissy Jupe or Rachael show that human affection is paramount. Although
he draws attention to social inequalities, he is not really a reformer, even though he

seems to distrust social institutions, including the trade unions.

Coketown is a mill-town and workers are exploited, working long hours and in poor
working and housing conditions. Factory owners (like Bounderby, are unfeeling with no
concern for individuals: all that is important is profit and the values inherent in
capitalism (producing at the cheapest price and selling at the highest) are made clear in
the text).
This is a novel in which the style often tries to imitate the utilitarian environment of the
town: the repetitive and sometimes monotonous descriptions convey what we find in
Coketown with its continuous and endless routines; everything is described with
geometrical regularity, from the school to the streets. As we said, nature is set up in
contrast or opposition to the mechanism of society and the novel is divided into three
books, Sowing, Reaping and Garnering.
Not that this three-volume novel first appeared in episodes in the journal, Household
Words.
THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND BEYOND
Poetry of the First World War
Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914 after Germany had violated the
neutrality of Belgium.
Previously, the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria had been assassinated in Serbia. So,
Austria, supported by Germany declared war on Serbia who, in turn, was supported by
Russia.
An alliance existed between Russia, France and Britain and with the German invasion
of Belgium, Britain entered the war.
But there were other causes: there was a struggle for empire at this time, even an
international arms race; France wanted to recover Alsace-Lorraine, annexed by
Germany in 1870 and Germany and Austria had interests in the Balkans.
In October, 1914, Turkey joined the alliance wit Germany and in 1915, so did Bulgaria.
Japan allied itself with Britain and France in August 1914 and later by Italy (which
withdrew from the triple alliance with Germany and Austrian) in 1915. The United
States entered the war in 1917.
When the Armistice was signed at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh
month, 1918 over eight and a half million people had been killed.
This was a modern war and for some time the people at home were ignorant of the
horrors of trench warfare. The Western Front stretched from NW France to Switzerland
and often futile charges would end with many dead but the status quo preserved.
Germany used poisoned gas at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915 and many battles
became, sadly, famous: the Marne in 1914; Ypres, 1915; Verdun (where there was a
huge German attack), 1916; the Somme (where the British used tanks); but there was no
breakthrough.
As the civilians at home had little knowledge of what went on on the Western Front or
in the Dardanelles (Gallipoli), the old-fashioned notions of patriotism, heroism, cavalry
charges and glory in battle still persisted and found their way into some of the writing.
But the First World War would mean the end of innocence.
Prior to the war, the poetry of this period was known as Georgian Poetry: between 1912
and 1920, there were several volumes of poetry given this name which continued in the
traditional vein of meditations on the English countryside or self-conscious evocations
of the exotic or romantic.
But as the War continued, many poets were killed and others became disillusioned.
What characterises some war poetry is the search for a way to express the terrible truths
of modern warfare: the horror of war.
From now on, the world depicted by the Georgian poets would seem anachronistic; the
same can be said of Rupert Brookes poem, The Soldier in which the patriotism now
seems ridiculous.
One modern critic finds the following lines from John Freemans Happy is England
Now obscene:
Theres not a nobleness of heart, head, brain/But shines the purer; happiest is England
now/In those that fight.
While there were those who continued to present war as something glorious and heroic,

other poets like Siegfried Sassoon, with harsh irony, and Wilfred Owen, with much
more compassion though the irony is still there, drew attention to the horrors of the
conflict.
Now, the traditional values that had been valued prior to the war were no longer valid.
The foundations of modern civilisation had been shaken. What was once believed in
had led to the war (to end all wars) and this is reflected in the poetry of TS. Eliot,
especially The Waste Land. But some of the poets of the First World War provide a
much more direct response.
Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)
The Soldier takes the traditional form of the sonnet and expresses the traditional and
conventional ideals of patriotism; its sentiments could not survive the reality of the
horror of trench warfare.
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
The concentration and power of Owenss war poems are remarkable. He wrote in a
preface to his poems which would not be published till after his death that the poetry is
in the pity.
While they are about the horrors of war, they are also the terrible human waste that it
brings about; he is able to express also the confusions of modern warfare from firsthand
experience.
He combines irony with his feelings of compassion as well as making us aware of his
involvement with human suffering, including that of others.
Dulce et Decorum Est is an ironical comment on the Latin poet Horaces famous line
Dulce et decorum est pro patria Mori. It shows that it is not at all pleasant or
honourable to die for ones country, but horrific, painful and pointless.
In particular, it depicts the horrors of gas warfare.
The Irish Question
The main political issue at the turn of the century and for a long time previously had been Irish affairs.
There had been ongoing attempts to alleviate the situation of Catholics in Ireland, who in the past had
been denied the rights to own land and to vote. During A.J. Balfours ministry, 1902-5, the Land Purchase
Act for Ireland was passed in 1903 making it possible for the Irish (mainly Catholics) to purchase their
farms for an annual payment of 3,1/4%. But the main question was that of the Independence of the Irish
nation.
Late in the nineteenth century, in 1893, the Prime Minister Gladstone failed to get the Second Home Rule
Bill passed through the House of Lords. Earlier in 1886, the First Home Rule Bill had failed to get
sufficient support in the Commons, too..
Part of the reason for this was that there were two clearly opposed parties in Ireland: the Catholics wanted
Home Rule, while the Protestants, who lived mainly in the north, wished to continue as a part of the
United Kingdom. Both the Catholic Home Rulers and the Protestant Unionists believed in violent
confrontation and following the failure to pass the Third Home Rule Bill in 1912, which Protestant Ulster
was very much against, a civil war seemed imminent. Even the Liberal governments agreement to a
plebiscite on the issue looked unlikely to resolve the situation. However, the beginning of the First World
War meant that the parties involved would await the end of the conflict and Home Rule was suspended
till after the War. Even so, the Easter Rising of 1916 in which a small group of Republicans in favour of
Home Rule tried to take over the Government in Dublin, was to remind the Government of its promise;
and government action against Catholics after the Rising failed only helped to gain further support for the
Republican cause. After the war, the Irish problem becomes an issue once more with the Sinn Fein
movement. The establishment of a republican parliament in Dublin and the threat of further rebellion led
first to the use of force against the republicans by the British army and the partitioning in 1920 of Ireland
between Protestant Ulster and the Catholic south. Initially, each part was to have limited home rule, but
this was considered unacceptable by the south and the treaty of 1922 when Ireland was given the status
similar to that of a dominion, although Ulster decided to continue as part of the U.K.
The Irish Agreement in 1938 meant that Eire would remain neutral without British use of its ports during
the Second World War. After the Second World War, the south of Ireland was to become the Republic of
Eire and leave the British Commonwealth. However, many Catholics still remained in the north and the
feeling that they were still oppressed by the Protestant majority remained. So much so that a movement to
unite Ireland as a republic was to reappear and, particularly in the late 60s, the troubles were to begin
again.
ECII Notes 64

A Couple of Points about Easter 1916

On Easter Sunday 1916, Irish Nationalists attempted a rebellion against the British
Government known as the Easter Rising.
They set up a headquarters in the General Post Office in Dublin and fighting continued
for a week.
A number of Nationalists were executed.
This took place during the First WorldWar.
Germany supported the rebels which meant there was no tolerance shown by the
British.
Yeats knew the rebels personally and had not taken them seriously; rather, he thought of
them as fools.
However, the poem represents how all has Changed, changed utterly in that these men
have now become heroes and martyrs in the Nationalist cause.
The imagery of the stone in the water is an image of the constancy and fortitude of the
Nationalists that brought about this terrible beauty and Yeats writes the poem to show
how his attitude has changed under these circumstances.
That woman refers to Constance Gore-Booth who would later become Countess
Marcievicz, one of the Sligo aristocracy: her nationalist tendencies annoyed Yeats.
She was sent to prison after the Rising.
This man had kept school refers to Patrick Pearse, a schoolmaster and one of the
leaders of the movement to restore Gaelici n Ireland; he was also a poet.
His helper and friend was Thomas McDonagh.
The drunken lout refers to Major John MacBride who married Maud Gonne (Yeats
muse) in 1903. They separated 2 years later but Yeats was displeased, to say the least,
by the marriage.
Connolly refers to James Connolly who led the rebellion with Pearse.
All of these men were executed by shooting.
The Rise of Labour, Social and Parliamentary Reform, and the Welfare State
At the turn of the century, we also find the rise of socialism at home while foreign policy brought about
the rise of imperialism. In the 1880s there was a development in interest in Socialism partly due to trade
depression. As wages had gone down and due to the harshness of the Poor Law, there was a series of
strikes in the 1880s, the most famous being the London Dockers Strike of 1889. As a result, new Trade
Unions were organised on industrial as opposed to craft basis and had enrolled about two million
members by the start of the twentieth Century. Of course, this led to a great deal of conflict bewteen
workers and employers; and one of the consequences was the Taff Vale decision of 1901, which was a
great set-back for the Unions as following a strike the Union was forced to pay 23.000 pounds in
compensation by the courts.This decision could only be reversed by new legislation and the Unions began
to seek representation for Labour in Parliament.
Gradually, the influence of Marx began to make itself more apparent. H.M. Hyndman founder of Social
Democratic Federation. Seen as too militant in their desire to overthrow capitalism. Less extreme socialist
group was the Independent Labour party founded by the Scottish miners leader, Kier Hardy, who was
elected to Parliament in 1892. Middle-class intellectuals formed the membership of the Fabian Society,
hoped to influence the opinion of Liberals and Conservatives towards socialism. Founded by Beatrice and
Sidney Webb undertook research that they hoped would convince others of the need for socialist
measures in Britain. One of their most effective spokesmen was the Irish playwright George Bernard
Shaw. There was also a more radical wing of the Liberal Party which took up a number of socialist ideas.
It was a difficult matter to reconcile so many different approaches, policies. However, Kier Hardy was
able to convince the trade unions that it was time for a new parliamentary force. The Labour
Representation Committee with another Scot, Ramsey MacDonald, as its secretary was set up in 1900. Of
fifty candidates who stood for parliament in 1906, twenty six were elected and the birth of a new
parliamentary force was a fact. Workmens Compensation act, 1897 (injury at work through negligence
of company)
Following on from the Education Act of 1870, which made elementary education compulsory and
universal, the Education Act of 1902 made the same true for Secondary Schools. This meant the rise of
new educated classes, and, of course a new reading public. New journalism directed to this new reading
public. The new literacy meant a variety of different kinds of writing directed towards different audience;
the highbrows, lowbrows and middlebrows.
In December 1905, there was a Liberal landslide in the General Elections. But, significantly,
there were also 53 new Labour MPs, which was an indication of impending change in British politics.

The Liberal majority gave them an ideal opportunity to introduce much needed changes and the Liberal
Reforms between 1906 and 1914 marked a new tendency towards parliamentary and social reform.
Among the most important of these are some of the following: the Trade Disputes Act, 1906, was
designed to improve relations between trade unions and the government. The new Old Age Pensions Act,
1908, meant there was no need for old people to go to the workhouse.
David Lloyd George became Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1909. He brought about the introduction
of Labour Exchanges to help the unemployed. The National Insurance Act, 1911, meant sick pay for
workers and the payment of M.P.s also became a fact in1911 which made it possible for the working
classes to enter Parliament. Lloyd George became unpopular in some sectors for levying new taxes on the
rich but with the Parliament Act of 1911 important money bills could become law without having to pass
through he House of Lords, introducing what is now known as the Budget.
War saw an end of any further attempts at reform, but this was to continue soon afterwards. The coalition
government introduced the new parliamentary reform act of 1918: vote for all men over 21 and women
over 30 who were ratepayers or wives of ratepayers.
The Ministry of Health was set up by Lloyd George in 1919, but Lloyd George soon lost Conservative
support which kept him in power at this time. Replaced as PM by Conservative Bonar Law. There was
the Housing Act 1919 which introduced subsidies for local authorities to provide homes at low rents for
those who coul not afford to buy one. The Unempoyment Insurance Act (1920) meant that everyone
except for agricultural or domestic workers would be covered by scheme.
The initial postwar boom of 1918-19 for industry (due to demand and return to normality)
soon gives way to the slump when drop in trade, failure to recover international markets, etc. leads to
mass unemployment (over 2.000.000 by end of 1921. Coal trouble due to privitisation of the industry,
leads to threat of a general strike which wouldnt occur until 1926.
In Britain after the First World War, it was a time of disappointment, unrest and discontent. The land fit
for heroes which Lloyd George hoped to create was far from becoming a reality for those who returned
from the war. There were difficulties in bringing about the transition from war to peace: inflation soared
and it was clear that there was a need for economic change from a war economy to that of peace. The
increase in taxes coupled with an imminent trade crisis meant that the initial optimism after the war soon
disappeared as Britain began to struggle under the weight of its economic difficulties.
Lloyd George was no longer Prime Minister and Asquiths political career also ended. Bonar
Law took over as Prime Minister from 1922 bringing the Conservatives back to power following the
Liberal leadership of Lloyd George, although Stanley Baldwin was to take over from Law due to his
illhealth.
Baldwins protectionist policy (to put an end to free trade) led to the Labour and Liberal pact of
1923 enabling Labour to form a Government with Ramsey MacDonald at the head. This was the first ever
labour government.
Because of high unemployment and introduction of new tariffs by the Conservative PM Stanley baldwin,
the 1923 election led to a split in the vote which meant that the Conservatives did not have an overall
majority. The support of the Liberals meant that the Labour Party formed the Government. No drastic
change, most outstanding feature of the legislation was to restore diplomatic relations with Russia.
Red letter election of 1924 (Russians had promised to instruct British Socialists in Revolution.
Conservatives win by landslide, but now its Lab.-Con. Opposition, Liberals take back seat.
Baldwin becomes P.M. once again. Neville Chamberlain as Minister of Health extends social services;
introduces pensions for widows and orphans, and OAP from age 65 instead of 70. Also increase in house
building
Local Govt. Act, 1929 (end of workhouse, local authorities to manage Public Assistance Committees, as
well as exempting farms and other industries from payment of rates to help production.
Pensions Act, 1925 (pensions from age 65)Electricity Act of 1926 leads to setting up of National Grid to
provide electricity for all, completed in 1933.
BBC means broadcasting is brought under government control in 1927.
Fifth Parliamentary Reform Act of 1928 gives franchise to both men and women over 21.
Mining was to be source of industrial conflict. Proposals for Nationalisation by a Royal commision which
are turned down by Government. (would come to pass much later).
Miners crisis of 1926 leads to the General Strike when the General Council of the Trade Union Congress
hoped to force the government to accept the miners demands to work the same hours without a reduction
in pay.
Due to the revolutionary nature of the strike, in the end the T.U.C. Govt and public in general
were hostile to the strike. Volunteers manned buses, trains, etc. Strike was a failure after T.U.C.
withdrew its support without any demands or concessions being successful. Many lost their jobs and the
miners had to continue their strike alone, but finally had to acdept lower wages and longer hours after

seven months on strike. The 1980s would see how history was to repat itself.
Trade Disputes Act of 1927 makes such strikes illegal. After War: Labour voted into power with Clement
Atlee as P.M.
Economic crisis reached its culmination in 1929.
High unemployment throughout the 30s (the hungry 30s) High unemployment throughout the country but
particularly in the North of England and Scotland South Wales and parts of Northern Ireland .and
concentrated in the old-established industries of iron and steel, coal mining, shipbuilding and textiles.
Demontrations and Protest marches, like Jarrow march to London from Jarrow in Tyneside to protest to
Parliament.
During period between the wars there had been mainly a Conservative Government (Labour 2 short spells
in power), but the main feature to be emphasised is how the labour Party had taken plave of the liberals as
the alternative to the Conservatives. Liberals take a back seat.
Free trade was abandoned in 1931. British industry proteced from competition of goods from overseas,
excepting those from Empire. Governments continue to consolidate the welfare state
Protection of British Industry. In 1932, customs duties levied on imports.
Between wars we find dole queues and soup kitchens in areas of high unemployment, protest marches a
general strike, belief that labour had betrayed workers. But also greater prosperity (motor cars radio,
cinema in most towns).
The outbreak of war and the bombing of many parts of Britain did not end completely the desire to
improve the situation for the less fortunate in Britain, In 1942 Sir William Beveridge presented a report
which would be the foundation of the Welfae State after the war: social benefits and State medecine for
everyone. In 1944, the passing of the Butler act meant the reorganisation of secondary education after the
war and the raising of the school leaving age to 15.
After the War, Labour was voted into power with Clement Atlee as Prime Minister. With a new Labour
GovernmentNationalisation of about 20% of the British economy.
The National Health Act meant free medical treatment and medicine.
National Insurance Scheme, 1948, meant sickness and unemployment benefits and pensions for all.
National Health service 1948, etc. under Labour Government.
Nationalisation of iron and steel; coal, Bank of England, electricity, gas, etc. 1946-48. National Insurance
Scheme, 1948, National Health service 1948, etc. under Labour Government.
Nationalisation of iron and steel; coal, Bank of England, electricity, gas, etc. 1946-48.
Curiously in the 50s, there was a great deal of protest over proposals to charge a small sum for certain
items on the National Health like glasses or false teeth. This was seen as a possible threat to a free health
service.
In the 50s, the 11+ is also attacked
Modernist Poetry
The European influence which affected modernist prose narrative also had its effects on the poetry of the
time, but in more general terms this was a time of renewal and innovation when the psychological
tendency which became a feature of prose narrative as well as influence of psychological time, problems
of identity, communication, etc., reflected in poetry too.
In poetry: we find symbolism, imagism.
Imagist Manifesto, 1913: T.E. Hulme and Ezra Pound. Need for concrete images, more colloquial
language, loosening of rhythm, juxtaposition of disparate images
Symbolism: concrete but allusive, connotations, suggestive, not final. Influence of French symbolist poets
is significant here. Also
The Celtic Revival.
Poetry: Language becomes more colloquial, there is a loosening of rhythm, more conversational rhythms,
occasional use of free verse, less conventional rhythms and rhyme schemes, opting for rhythm patterns
often based on similar number of stressed syllables in each line without bothering too much about the
number of syllables; innovative rhythms (Hopkins sprung rhythm), there is a new use of symbol and a
new awareness of the importance of the archetype, shift into a more urban landscape, rather than the rural
landscapes of Edwardians and Georgian poets, the mythological method which Eliot ascribes to Joyce in
Ulysses, also becomes part of some modernist poetry, myth as a form of discovering correpondance
which can provide significance in the chaotic present; new attitudes to tradition and history: we might
quote T.S. Eliot here in this regard: The historical sense involves a perception not only of the pastness of
the past but of its presence; the historical sense compels to write not only with his own generation in his
bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the Literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of
the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order
(Tradition and the Individual Talent The Sacred Wood. Essays on Poetry and Criticism. London:

Methuen, 1960 49). With this we find a higher incidence of intertextuality in poetry and elsewhere, with
the use of allusions to already existing works from the literary past either quoted, parodied or
paraphrased.
At one point in the same essay Eliot also suggests that the poet has, not a personality to express, but a
particular medium(56).This leads to a tendency to less direct forms of expresssion, the use of the mask
or a variety of personas particularly within the form of the dramatic monologue. Poetry ceases to be the
direct expression of the poets voice. Significantly, there is a movement away from the direct revelation of
the feelings of the poet which coincides with a similar tendency with regard to the representation of
character in fiction. We can also think of the difficulty of Modern poetry. The straightforward
understanding of poetry would seem to come to an end with the Georgian Poets. Modernist poetry is
much more allusive, and ambivalent. All modernist literature tends to signify much less in terms of
referentiality and much more in terms of the meaning of its patterns of imagery and symbol.
Yeats.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was born in Sandymount in Ireland and gained a public reputation as
director of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and as an Irish senator, his politics being rather reactionary, even
right wing. Yeats believed that poetry was a public art so that it is not surprising that he would also write
for the theatre. His subject was often Ireland and his poetry falls into three main categories: his early
poetry, which is often rather mystical and based on Irish myth and legend (the Celtic twilight); his middle
periodin which we find many poems about specific issues, even about people he knew who were involved
in political causes which affected Ireland as it sought independence ; and his last period, which tends
towards poems which express his own private mythology and aesthetic beliefs, or desires, where
everything can be transfigured by art.
In his early work there is a clear influence of Romantic poets like Shelley and Blake (imagery of
the Second Coming in particular as an example) as well as that of the aesthetic movement, particularly
through Walter Pater (the search for a beatific or aesthetic vision), and the Pre-Raphaelites and their
tendency towards a dreamy and evocative language. What was often a tendency towards the use of
symbolism was also combined with his own interest in Irish folklore. This interest led to him becoming a
central figure in a movement called the Irish literary revival, which sought to rediscover the Irish identity
through the recovery of its mythological or legendary past , which, in a sense, is not unlike Eliots belief
in tradition as the source of meaning or significance for the apparently meaningless present. This early
period might be considered as a phase during his search for a more esoteric form of thought which, in
part, was to be a substitute for his loss of religious faith in early life. This led to his interest in the occult,
spiritualism and neo-Platonic theories, including the Rosacrucian Order, which was sometimes a source
of symbolism for his work. This symbolist element in his poetry (the rose, the cross, the tower, the stair,
the gyre or spiral, and so on), often relies on the use of objects which have already an assigned
significance (the cross or the rose in particular), and in general he is a great believer in the use of concrete
images, although it should be said that for Yeats the poem itself was a symbol. This meant that, for Yeats,
unity within the poem was of the utmost importance, so that all the parts of the poem should be
interrelated.
Gradually, he moved away from the idea of Romantic expressionism and became interested in an
impersonal idea of beauty, which would later lead him to create a series of masks or personae as
representations of the poetic voice; a voice which would represent a more rational individual and which
would mingle both formal and colloquial language. Owing mainly to political events in Ireland, Yeats
gradually took greater interest in political affairs and found he had to take some of the more extreme
Republicans more seriously (reflected, for example in Easter 1916). However, in 1917, Yeats began to
develop his own personal system of Metaphysics, which combined with his other interests, was to mark
his poetry from that time on.
Perhaps all of this can be seen as a typically modernist response to a sense of loss regarding any
established or accepted values. Similarly, Yeats was to experiment with rhythm, trying to make it looser
and freer, although at times some of his poems can almost be read like incantations ("To the Rose upon
the Rood of Time, for example). Although he was to be influenced by the French symbolists, as Eliot
was, too, in spite of the solidity of the imagery there is often a vague allusiveness in his poetry. This
vagueness is somethiat Yeats himself attributed to the fact that man might embody truth but could not
know it.
In an age when the increasingly chaotic vision of life was prevalent, Yeats was preoccupied with the
many contradictions and antitheses of life, of history and even within the individual. This was one of the
reasons why he tended to adopt a mask in his poems. He felt that the poets should assume a role and hide
behind it as his was essentially an impersonal view of art. But his desire to reconcile these many
contradictions was resolved by his metaphysical system expounded in his book , A Vision, based on, or
suggested, by his wifes automatic writing. Part of this system has to do with the idea of recurrence and a

belief that events form part of a pattern. Such ideas had already formed part of his earlier writing. As in
No Second Troy, but his new Metaphysics was to give it a more precise form which would manifest
itself in his later poetry.
There are two basic sybols in his system: these are the wheel and the gyre (or spiral): the latter would be
linked to both the symbols of the stair and the tower.
The Great Wheel is divided into 28 parts which represent the 28 phases of the moon. Each phase
represents a different type of human personality in terms of the degree of subjectivity or objectivity
involved. Any human soul for Yeats would pass through all 28 in a series of incarnations but this is also
true of a single lifetime, from the objective unindividualised infant, to a subjective, individualised
maturity. The same is true of history. Through the turn of the Great Wheel, we turn through one era as we
move towards its opposite, which in recent history can be associated with the movement of the wheel
through the era of Christ, but as we move towards the era of the Anti-Christ.. The Gyre, or spiral,
represents the movement of the wheel through time, but Yeats goes further to suggets that time and
history are made up of two interconnected spirals, where the beginning of one marks the end of another
and viceversa. These gyres last 2000 years and the suggestion is that in them the contradictions which
Yeats observes in life and history are reconciled as there is no point in these interconnected spirals when
there is a moment of complete objectivity or subjectivity: this is always counterpointed by the spiral
which is movong in the opposite direction.
The poem which perhaps best incorporates Yeats system into itself, or best represents it is The Second
Coming:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blooddimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
This can be considered as a kind of visionary poem, where Yeats makes use of a mask, or persona, in this
case, that of the visionary and scholar Michael Robartes, to anticipate the coming of a period of violence.
This clearly has to do with his belief that history moves in 2000 year cycles and we see, too, the use of the
image of the gyre or spiral, which literally coincides with the movement of both the falcon and the desert
birds. It is a poem of contrasts, where the 2000 year period of innocence associated with the coming of
Christ is about to violently come to an end, giving way, not to the second coming of Christ, but rather his
opposite. Hence images of a beast, the desert, and vultures are juxtaposed with the birthplace of Christ.
Yeats continued to express his esoteric beliefs in his poems, frequently making used of the mask
or another persona in order to do so.The movement from the kind of mystical poetry that can be linked to
the Irish Literary Revival, led to poems that are more poltically aware, often dealing with contemporary
issues, and the people who formed part of these causes both political and literary (Easter 1916, September
1919 and so on). Latterly, he would return to the esoteric imagery and aestheticism of the Byzantium
poems (Sailing to Byzantium (1927) and Byzantium (1930), where Byzantium is the city where
everything is transfigured into art, which as well as being timeless, can give a new meaning to life.
T.S. Eliot.
Among the most influential poets of the modernist movement is T.S. Eliot.
Although born a North-American (St. Louis, Missouri, 1888), T.S. Eliot is a peculiarly European poet.
The influences upon his writing are wide-ranging, but if we were to pinpoint an influence on his work,
paradoxically, it would be that of Western European culture, particularly, its poetry and drama, although
as a student of philosophy, his interests range from the thought of George Santayana in the United States

to Indian mystical philosophy, as well as that of the Greeks upon whom he wrote his dissertation while
studying in England. As a student at Harvard University, he came under the influence of the antiRomanticism of Irving Babbit as well as the thought of Santayana, while developing a more literary
interest in Elizabethan and Jacobean poetry and drama. Once graduated from Harvard, he lived and
studied in France and Germany for a time, and, at the outbreak of war, went to England. He studied Greek
philosophy at Oxford while living and teaching in London; he later worked in a bank, before joining the
Faber and Gwyer publishing company, of which he later became editor, then Faber and Faber, in 1929.
Eliot was directly influenced by the philosophy of the English idealist F.H. Bradley: (the
individual is a circle enclosed on the outside (the impossibility of communication, the inability of one
person to know another, the dissociation between the private individual and the public or social self))
Obviously, the widespread influence of the philosopher Henri Bergson and his philosophy of
psychological time is also a feature of his work (the presentness of the past, the random movement of
thought, governed by association and imagination much more than by logic or chronology)
These are the underlying forces which influence particularly his earlier work, although Eliot showed
himself to be a believer in the presentness of the past in a much broader sense. In his essay, Tradition
and the Individual Talent, he explains: [Tradition] involves, in the first place, the historical sense
[which] involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense
compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the
whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous
order. This historical sense, which is a sense of the timelessness as well as of the temporal and the
timeless and the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. (1960: 49) He goes on: The poet
is not likeley to know what is to be done unless he lives not merely in the present, but the present moment
of the ast, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living (49). Through the use
of intertextuality, allusions to, or paraphrases and even quotations from earlier literary and non literary
texts, Eliots poetry implies an ongoing dialogue between the past and present discourses that make up
our culture and identity.
Another significant feature of Eliots poetry whichalso exerts an influence on both contemporaries and
future generations of poets alike, is what he considers to be the need for depesonalization in poetry
because, as he puts it, the poet has not a personality to express but a particular medium (59). Both
tradition and convention make up part of that medium and impersonality, which leads to the poet adopting
a mask or persona in his work, particularly in the form of the dramatic monologue, the voices that we hear
are made up of fragments of that tradition.
We find the influence of the Imagist poets and in particular that of Ezra Pound during the composition of
his most famous poem The Waste Land. The use of precise and concrete images that are more
communicative than linguistic explanation.
Also, more colloquial language, looser rhythms
Prior to that we can suggest that everything that had to do with the Renaissance, Dante in particular (note
the epigraphs to his poems)
French symbolism Baudelaire, Jules Laforgue, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Mallarme, Gautier, among others
influence his desire to make use of a precise yet evocative imagery in his poems; images of the city of
decadence of a sick civilisation.
However Eliots life and his work underwent a gradual transformation: from the pessimism of the easrlier
poems this gives way to a positive desire to seek reconciliation and regeneration in the face of
fragmentation, flux and decadence of contemporary experience, largely influenced by his conversion to
the Church of England, after becoming a British citizen in 1927.
Later poems like Ash Wednesday, but even The Four Quartets can be included here although there is no
facile, obvious or easy attempt at reconciliation, as he calls on the Greek and other philosophers, shows
an awareness of contemporary philosophers also as the Heraclitian reconciliation of the rose and the fire,
the conflict, the present and the past....
Curiously, Eliots later poetry, except for The Four Quartets, tends to attract less attention than his more
pessimistic earlier work. This gives way to a search for peace, drawing attention to relation between time
and eternity, doubt and revelation.
The early poems are basically related to the concerns of The Waste Land: that is, the decay of culture in
Western civilisation.
The Waste Land: reflects the decadence of modern civilisation; the absence of spirituality anticipated by
Gerontion (the desire to believe or spirituality has given way to the spiritualism of clairvoyants, etc.)
There is no regenerating belief.
However, perhaps the most innovative feature of The Waste Land is its variety of voices, the adoption of
various masks or personae: Just as in earlier poems, Eliot uses an indirect method (that is we do not hear
the direct expression of the poets feelings as in Romantic poetry) , is the use Eliot makes of legend and

mythology: specifically, in The Waste Land we find the Fisher King and the Grail myth,, Eliot himself
drawing attenmtion to these influences in his notesd to the poem, but as later references in essays to Joyce
and Ulysses confirm, this is a generalised tendency which Eliot gave shape to poth in the poetic form and
in his essay Tradition and the Individual talent. Underlying the several situations which are depicted,
both contemporary and historical (there seems to be some kind of longing for a past time and a better
time) are these two myths
The past can give meaning to the present: the idea of correspondence.
Again the theme is that of reconciliation and regeneration.
The most significant poems by Eliot can `perhaps be simply divided into those prior to and those after the
Waste Land, those which voiced pessimism, those which begin to suggest the possible reawakening
through cultural awareness and those with a more religious tendency, although they should not be
considered as religious poetry.
AMERICA TO THE DEPRESION
The Conquest of the West
When the Civil War began in 1861 there were around 300.000 Native Americans living
to the west of the Mississippi. Important tribes were:
Sioux (Dakota) in Minnesota; the Dakotas, Cheyenne, Arapahos, and Comanche on the
Plains of Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado; Apaches and Navahos to the Southwest; and
Utes and Nez Perces in the Rocky Mountain area of Utah and Idaho.
There were over 100.000 Native Americans in California in small tribes till the White
Americans moved to the Pacific Coast in the 40s and 50s.
During the Civil War, General James Carleton went with his Union army from
California to Arizona and New Mexico in order to defend against the Confederates.
Later, he decided to expel Native Americans so that whites could settle there. There
were no talks or treaties with the Indians. His orders were to kill all males. The Apaches
retreated into Mexico.
The Navahos lived from agriculture and cattle; as the white army destroyed their crops
and killed their livestock, they starved. Survivors fled to the nearby mountains.
In 1860, the US Government permitted them to occupy only the most desolate part of
their former lands.
There were treaties with the Americans: Native Americans gave up much of their land
in return for a perpetual right to a smaller piece of land and an annuity, but treaties were
broken as the whites continued to move west.
Little Crow, a chief of the Sentee tribe (Sioux), had participated in talks in Washington
and decided to adapt to the white mans way of life (he attended church, took up
farming, built a square house, etc): However, young warriors sought him out to help
them resist the white mens advance into their territory. American soldiers defeated
them in 6 weeks; the whole tribe was captured; 303 were sentenced to death; Lincoln
ordered that only 39 would be executed; Little Crow was killed trying to escape and on
26 December 1862, 38 were hanged. The survivors were told their treaty was no longer
valid; they were exiled from Minnesota and sent to a reservation in Dakota Territory.
Sitting Bull, a Teton Sioux, was decided this should not happen again. It was clear the
Indians could not negotiate with the whites. In 1865, General Patrick E. Connor
marched with his army into the Great Plains to end the problems with the Sioux and
Cheyenne.
For 2 years, Sioux, Arapaho and Cheyenne under their chief, Red Cloud, defeated them.
In 1868, forts were abandoned and a treaty was made with Red Cloud.
There was a new strategy to overcome the Native Americans: rather than enter into
another armed conflict with them, General Philip Sheridan promoted the idea to kill the
buffalo. Between 1870 and 1880, 15 million buffalo were slaughtered by the army and
by hunters.
In 1874, the Government sent Colonel George Armstrong Custer to explore the Black
Hills: this was a sacred place guaranteed to the Sioux in a Treaty of 1868. Gold had
been discovered there, the Government wanted the land and so they broke the treaty,
ordered the chiefs to sell their land, move to reservations and adopt white customs.
In a manner reminiscent of Tecumseh, Sitting Bull emphasised that Native Americans
were free and a young chief, Crazy Horse, stated, A man does not sell the land on
which the people walk.

In the summer of 1876, the Battle of Little Big Horn took place: the Sioux and
Cheyenne massacred a column led by Custer. More troops were sent to the area: Crazy
Horse fled with his people and, as there was no game to provide food, many
surrendered. Later, Crazy Horse was captured and murdered.
Sitting Bull fled to Canada but was not allowed to remain. On his return to the Unites
States in 1881, he was taken prisoner but was later allowed to return to his people at
Standing Rock Reservation. Sitting Bull opposed the decision to reduce the size of the
Reservation but eventually had to give in when Senator John Logan instructed him that
he was a dependent child who must learn from the white men: his argument was that
the Native Americans were like children because the Government fed, clothed and
educated them, etc.
The Native Americans were confined to reservations; social deviance required the
segregation of those who did not accept white rules. It was feared that to allow the free
movement of Indians within the reservations would mean the continuation of their
customs. So, in 1887, the Dawes Act was passed which allotted 160 acres to each head
of a family; the common reservation lands were divided into pieces of private property
and what was left over was sold to white settlers.
In the 1880s, many Native Americans made the pilgrimage to hear Wovoka (though to
be the red Messiah), who prophesied that the white men would be buried beneath new
soil and that they would survive by dancing the Ghost Dance.
The US Government believed that in spite of his pacifist teachings, this was a dangerous
situation. Potential leaders were arrested, among them Sitting Bull who was shot.
At this point, another Sioux tribe, the Hankpapa, fled to the plains led by Big Foot, the
leader of the Minnecanjou tribe. They were captured on 28 December 1890 and forced
to camp at Wounded Knee. A shot was fired, the Indians fled, pursued by the army and
300 of 350 Indians were massacred, including women and children.
The more civilised tribes of the south east had been promised a refuge forever in their
reservation in the Oklahoma Territory: they transplanted their agriculture, customs and
government there, but white settlers were already prepared to take their land; their
communal land was also split up and they were forced to live by the system of private
property (Dawes Act).
In 1893, at the Columbia Exposition in Chicago, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner
announced the end on the American Frontier (dating this in 1890).
The free lands were gone and the tendency now was to mass population in urban
centres; even in the west, the number of cities multiplied: Pittsburgh, Cleveland,
Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee, St. Paul, Minneapolis to name only
some of them.
New Immigration and the Growth of the Cities
Urban growth depended on immigration: in the 1860s as the land was cleared of Native
Americans, St. Paul, in the centre of Minnesota was full of Irish Catholics. As we know,
the white majority identified America with Protestantism (especially Evangelical
Protestantism). The autonomy of the life of the homestead was related to this (both
economic and individual), but this kind of autonomy did not exist in the city.
From the Protestant point of view, America was a Christian country that observed the
Sabbath (on Sundays there would be sober worship but no leisure or play).
After the Civil War, Protestant leaders noted decadence in these practices owing to the
acceptance of trans-Atlantic theories and practices owing to the mixed character of our
great population, representing too many divergent types of thought, Sabbath desecration
has assumed alarming proportions and summons the Churches of Christ to a new and
vigorous campaign for its repression (in Carroll and Noble 239).
It was believed by many Protestants that Christian beliefs would spread throughout the
world (in America this even found itself reflected in textbooks. This referred clearly to
Protestant beliefs but in the 1880s what has been called a Religious Manifest Destiny
was threatened due to Catholic immigration. The Protestant forefathers legacy of free
institutions was under threat from the Catholic bishops and priests.
In Our Country (1884), Josiah Strong sees the city as representing the seven perils
facing America. These are Romanism [Catholicism], Mormonism, intemperance,
socialism, wealth, immigration and the city itself. Immigrants began to be seen as an
alien army (C&N 240) and the lack of space (the end of the frontier) meant the loss of

an environment for individual liberty and equality. Given this situation, Charles Tazl
Russell founded the Zions Watch Tower Society. This would become known as the
Jehovahs Witnesses in the 20th Century. He preached that Americas Protestant leaders
had become corrupted as they had in Europe and predicted that the Establishment would
be destroyed in 1914 after which only his followers would inherit a purged and purified
earth.
Even Mark Twain manifested his disappointment at the political corruption that existed
after the Civil War and his writing reflects the idea that men have become trapped in an
urban industrial society.
In the cities, it was not only political corruption that was feared; there was also a great
deal of prostitution. By 1870, there was a movement to have it legalised but this was
opposed by feminist leaders like Susan B. Antony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Dr.
Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Antoinette Brown Blackwell also joined this
opposition.
At the same time there was the Womens Christian Temperance Union led by Frances
Willard to fight against the corrupting influence of alcohol and other womens
organisations were formed to promote feminine principles in the cities: The American
Committee for the Prevention of Legalising Prostitution (1870s), the Social Purity
Alliance (1880s), the National League of Working Womens Clubs and the National
Consumer League to help working women resist the temptations of the city. These
womens groups reflect the new involvement of women in politics as they continued to
strive for the vote. Gradually more and more women began to work (teachers, librarians,
social workers) and to attend college. Many working women remained unmarried and
many working women as well as wealthier married women joined clubs.
At the start of the 20th century, the fight against immorality saw the formation of the
League for the Protection of the Family and the National Vigilance Society. All these
groups were mainly protestant but they began to have links with Catholics in their
common crusade for purity. The pressure these groups exerted resulted in the 1910
Mann Act which made interstate traffic in white female slaves a federal crime.
There was also legislation to prohibit abortion and the Harrison Narcotic Act (1914)
prohibited the sale of drugs without a prescription (there was a great deal of drug and
alcohol abuse following the Civil War).
Anti-Semitism was also a problem in America. There had been a great deal of
immigration of German Jews in the mid 19th century.
Historians like William Prescott spoke of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants eventually
triumphing over the Catholics and Jews, and this kind of attitude eventually led to
segregation in some schools and colleges. The wives of many elitists established the
Daughters of the American Revolution and the Mothers Congress, which eventually
became the Parent-Teachers Association lobbied to have the American flag in every
classroom.
As we know, many women became involved in politics through the Abolitionist
Movement prior to the Civil War: their struggle for black emancipation and rights
would hopefully lead to womens rights, too.
The 14th and 15th Amendments disappointed women as they were not included as up to
the 1890s they continued to argue that they had the same right to vote as white and
black men.
The National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage
Association united to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (1890).
Leaders like Carrie Chapman Cott related the struggle for WASP womens suffrage to
the Purity Crusade so that the Womens Temperance Unions interests were joined to
the suffragists.
WASP interests were also WASP womens interests, particularly to keep America free
of the threat from Latins, Slavs and Blacks. Cott argued that Government in America
was threatened by danger from slums of the cities, and the ignorant foreign vote. They
argued that WASP womens votes would help to counteract the foreign vote and white
supremacy would also continue in this way in the South.
Some Western States began to give women the vote in the 1890s and this coincided
with the disenfranchising of the blacks. This tendency gradually began to appear in the
East and in 1914, more militant feminists led by Alice Paul formed the Womens Party
to lobby for an Amendment to the Constitution.

The result was that in 1920 the 18th and 19th Amendments were passed, the former
establishing Prohibition and the latter womens suffrage.
Towards the end of the 19th century (1890-1914), high schools were introduced into the
public education system. It was believed that the children of the new immigrants would
be Americanized there. There were also citizenship classes where immigrants were
taught to respect national leadership. Institutions like the Boy Scouts also taught loyalty
to God and the nation.
Reform schools were also introduced around this time for juvenile delinquents and
Purity Crusaders believed that the children of Catholics, Jews and Native Americans
would be Americanized through schools and the reformatory.
However, for the majority of good clean-living citizens this would not include AfroAmericans. Racist attitudes continued still against the blacks: following the
Reformation they had greater geographical mobility, they formed their own churches,
some entered the professions and they began to have their own political leaders. This
was disliked by some who believed that blacks should know their place. Between 1890
and 1910 laws were passed to segregate blacks on trains, street cars, stations, theatres ,
restaurants; whites were forbidden to use black brothels in the south and Woodrow
Wilson instituted further segregation in places of work.
In 1890, there were 15.000 Blacks in Chicago; 80% of the population was born outside
of America or had foreign-born parents.
In 1915, there were 50.000 blacks or more as they left the South because of lack of
opportunities, social and political oppression.
In the South it was difficult to bring about change and most Blacks continued to work
for white landowners (land was not confiscated and sold to Blacks as had at first been
thought possible).
In the South, there was a new tendency towards sharecropping: the owner divided the
land and individual black families would work small farms; they were expected to give
up a share of the crop as rent. However, many black sharecroppers fell into debt with
shopkeepers; they couldnt afford to eventually buy their farms and so their children
migrated to the cities.
As America moved towards the end of the century, there was dramatic growth . The
extension of the railroad meant hundreds of thousands of white settlers could take
advantage of the 1862 Homestead Act which entitled them to a 160 acre farm. The
railroads were given lands to help expand the railroad west and they would sell unused
land to new settlers afterwards for between 2 and 10 dollars an acre. The railroads,
Midwestern and western governments sent agents East or even to Europe to encourage
immigration in the hope of encouraging growth in the agricultural West.
But in spite of the rapid mechanisation of agriculture, improved industrialisation in the
cities where industry set the prices meant a fall in prices; some farmers couldnt afford
to pay their mortgages and were forced, even in the 1930s, to become tenant farmers.
Many of their children moved to the cities where the population grew from 6 million in
1860 to 45 million in 1910. This was 50% of the national population.
In 1910, 11 million city-dwellers were from rural America, but 20 million were
immigrants. These were mainly European peasants who were obliged to give up
agriculture for the same reasons as in America.
This resulted in a demographic explosion in urban America.
As a result, the wealthy moved to the outskirts of the cities: street cars and trains
increased mobility; factories were concentrated in particular areas; sanitation was
introduced and coal and later electricity were used to power industry.
The wealthy and middle classes lived in the suburbs; the city centre or downtown was
where commercial and banking activities took place; grouped round this area was a ring
of housing for the poorest city dwellers. Homes that had been abandoned by the wealthy
were subdivided and occupied by the inner-city poor.
In Chicago, the population in 1870 was 300.000; by 1920 it was 3 million.
This would lead to problems, not all of which could be solved by moving farther outside
the cities. This mobility outwards meant that a pattern of residential rings round the city
centre would characterize metropolitan development at this time.
In many cities, for example Chicago, Protestants, Irish, German and Italian Catholics,
Slavic groups and Blacks all settled in different neighbourhoods. There were black
ghettos in Chicago and other cities, too.

As America moved into the 20th century some immigrants, workers from England,
Germany and Russian urban Jews could be well paid in industry.
Irish, Italian and Polish agricultural workers became unskilled labour.
Irish-Americans often improved their situation from one generation to the next (bluecollar
workers becoming white-collar workers). This was not the case of the black
population, for example.
The cities filled with ethnic neighbourhoods: 60% of these were occupied by a
dominant immigrant group (Italian, Irish, Jewish, etc.).
The Blacks, as we said, were pushed into ghettos and, ironically, while they received
poorer pay, in these ghettos they often had to pay higher rents.
Even so, gradually, there would be not only more black professionals (doctors, lawyers,
dentists), but also successful businessmen.
After World War I, there was a change in demographic distribution: many more blacks
had moved north to fill posts during the labour shortage. This would lead to conflict as
the Blacks impinged on other working-class neighbourhoods. Segregation would then
become more rigid, even in parks and so on. This would lead in July 1919 to a race riot
in Chicago and elsewhere.
Blacks were invited to return south.
On Naturalism and Stephen Crane
Naturalism is more than an extreme form of Realism; it involves the appliance of
scientific determinism to fiction.
This type of writing appears after Darwins Origin of Species and the Social Darwinism
of Herbert Spencer who sees the evolution of man as dependent upon the survival of
the fittest: that is the animal or individual that best adapts to a new environment will
survive while others fall or perish.
Man responds to environmental forces or internal forces. In particular the forces of
heredity and environment determine what happens to people.
Darwin speaks of biological determinism; Marx speaks of the economic and social
forces in society; Freud stresses the importance of the inner subconscious and of events
that take place in infancy that affect people in later life.
In Le roman experimental, mile Zola bases his writing on the selection of truthful
instances subjected to laboratory conditions, to show the operation of these forces on
man.
As a kind of experiment, Naturalistic writers often place their characters in a new
environment in order to see how they adapt to it.
A writer like Jack London placed his characters in a wilderness and pitted them against
Nature.
In the work of Theodore Dreiser we find a concrete or asphalt jungle. Dreiser actually
felt that women were more suitable to adapting themselves to a modern urban
environment.
We must remember that the Frontier had come to an end by 1890 and now many
travelled from the west or mid-west back east to look for their fortune.
We should remember that that the cities had grown considerably towards the end of the
19th century. We can also say that the distinctions among the different classes and races
were reflected in the demographic distribution within the cities and their suburbs.
This kind of thing is reflected in Stephen Cranes novel, Maggie, a Girl of the
Streets (1893) where the influence of heredity and environment are clearly at work. The
novel is set in the Bowery, Lower Manhattan, New York and begins with a street brawl
where the different ethnic backgrounds of the characters are made clear. The district
itself is violent but there is violence and drunkenness in the home of Maggie, too. She
has an older brother (Jimmie) who has been helped out in the first chapter in the fight
we mentioned by Pete (who works in a bar), and a younger brother, a toddler, called
Tommie.
Maggies parents are both drunkards and both are violent, they terrorise their children
and the mother is always in a drunken rage.
Maggie works in a shirt factory but hopes to improve herself; she starts going out with
Pete, but Jimmie doesnt like this. Her mother and brother think she has ruined herself
and throw her out of the tenement where they live. Pete, of course, abandons her and

when she returns home she is not accepted by her family. It is implied that Maggie,
inevitably becomes a prostitute although the novel ends ironically with her mother now
saying (now shes dead), shell forgive her.
The description in Chapter Two shows how Crane makes use of the regional dialect of
the characters which contrasts with the more standard discourse of the narrative. What is
most significant is the decadence of this section of society which seems to have no way
to escape the weight of circumstance that is upon them.
Industrialisation and Urbanisation: The New Industrial Economy
The Centennial Celebrations of 1876 celebrated progress rather than looking back to the
foundations of the Nation.
The basis for growth continued to be the railroads with 30.000 miles of track laid
between 1866 and 1873.
The railroad stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from nortyh to south.
In the 1860s the major industries were regional and served an agricultural society,
processing crops, providing tools and machinery, clothes and supplies.
Raw materials tended to be produced locally and products were elaborated and sold
within the region.
However, the growth of the railroads meant the growth of an enormous market for
industrial products: particularly, iron, steel, coal and lumber were needed for the
railroads.
This led to regional specialisation: Lumber came from Michigan, Wisconsin,
Minnesota, Washington, Oregon and California; Minerals came from the Rocky
Mountains; Cattle were raised in Texas and the Northern Plains; Wheat came mainly
from Minnesota and Pigs from Illinois.
There were industrial factory cities: Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit
and Chicago: their products could reach markets all over the country by rail.
Industry began to be organised in a new way:
The first big Corporations: the Corporation Railroads were the first major private
bureaucracy.
The Corporation was based on the model of the Union Army: that is, it was divided into
several divisions: a General Staff and heads of Corporate Divisions.
Time became an important factor as Timetables were needed for the efficient running of
the railroads.
Railroad had their watches synchronised to keep company schedules.
This became the model for the new national industries.
The figure of the Captain of Industry begins to appear: they headed corporations that
produced for a national market.
We begin to hear big names:
Gustavus Swift in Meats; Charles Pillsbury in Grain; Henry Harvemeyer in Sugar;
Frederick Weyerhauser in lumber; John D. Rockerfeller in Oil; Andrew Carnegie in
Steel; James Duke in Tobacco:
All these Corporations had independent departments of marketing, processing,
purchasing, and accounting. Department heads would also delegate a great deal of
authority.
In 1870, Rockerfeller introduced a new approach to business based on giant
corporations: these integrated smaller companies into larger companies and he called it
the origin of the whole system of modern economic administration.The day of
combination is here to stay. Individualism has gone, never to return (in Carroll &
Noble 261).
Rockerfeller waged an economic war with his competitors: he built pipelines, forced
railroads to give discounts if they were to transport his products and could therefore
undersell his competitors and eliminate competition.
He would either buy them out, they became his agents, or they were ruined.
The Panic of 1873 allowed Rockerfeller to buy out or ruin his rivals in the oil business.
There were takeovers in the refining business in Ohio and then later in New York and
Pennsylvania. By 1880, Rockerfeller controlled 90% of oil refining in America because
of the size and superior organisation of his company.
Small businessmen approached the Government to help them but in 1879, William
Vanderbilt suggested before a congressional committee that the Robber Barons could

not be controlled.
By 1900, large corporations controlled Americas economy.
Labour Disputes and Unions
A consequence of all this was the rise of the National Labour Union as small
businessmen had no organised political opposition to the trend.
Organised labour had increased prior to and during the Civil War. Workers in craft
unions saw small factory owners as fellow producers and not as a threat.
Aware of the situation, the NLU decided the threat to their livelihoods was the
Corporation which threatened their independence.
They promoted cooperation among small businesses and formed producers and
consumers cooperatives.
The National Labour Union grew until 1873 when there was a depression and
widespread unemployment.
Large-scale migration from Europe and rural America meant that employers had a
source of unskilled labour to replace skilled workers who belonged to the unions.
This undermined the unions and forced the railroad workers to rebel against pay-cuts in
1877. There were riots and government troops were sent to put down the riots. Some
workers were killed.
Renewed prosperity in the 1880s and the return of full employment meant the workers
had renewed bargaining power.
A new union organisation called the Knights of Labour was formed (they had an anticorporate
ideology and believed in the independence of the worker): they had almost 1
million members, but even by 1890 the workers situation hadnt really changed.
There were larger factories but workers had little to say in things: in 1886 there were
strikes for shorter hours in Chicago; radicals were involved and a bomb exploded at
Haymarket Square on the 5th of May. 7 known anarchists were condemned to death.
Another economic crisis in 1893 meant wages were reduced and the power of unions
was reduced.
Confrontations continued.
A former strike leader, Eugene V. Debs who had led a strike in Cleveland where 30
people were killed in a confrontation with troops became a Socialist when he came out
of prison. He and Samuel Gompers (later the leader of the American Federation of
Labour) decided to go in favour of the corporate structure..
Corporate leaders took advantage of the divisions between ethnic minorities to avoid
union among the workers.
The Knights of Labour sought support among industrial and farm labourers; the
American Federation of Labour was a loosely structured federation of craft unions.
Some unions had disappeared by the 1890s and some business leaders (the National
Association of Manufacturers) also wanted to eliminate the AFL. Others were in favour.
The AFL was seen as preferable to the Socialist movement and so corporate leaders like
Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio promoted the founding of the National Civic Federation in
1900: Hanna was President, Gompers was vice-President.
President Roosevelt supported the idea of the common interests of management and
labour and even supported the conservative labour leader John Mitchell, the President of
the United Mine Workers against coal mine owners.
Roosevelt felt there was a need to distinguish between radical and conservative union
activity and at the turn of the century we can speak of a limited union movement
allowed within the increasing number of corporations (by 1904, 318 corporations
The Ku Klux Klan
The victory of William McKinley in the 1896 elections was thanks to the urban
industrialists who voted for him. Those who still believed in an agricultural frontier had
voted for the Democrats and William J. Bryan.
Much of the political debate in 1896 revolved round the question of who was an
American and who was not. This was related to the idea of a frontier and the political
economy of America, mainly the differences between North and South.
In the South, cotton farmers wanted help from the government because of falling prices.
In the North, we had the growth of the big corporations.
At this time, around 1890, a party called the Populists was formed to represent the
People (the Peoples Party). They would defend the concerns of those who wanted

protection from the corporate economy and a free market for all. They denounced the
increasing difference between classes: tramps and millionaires (it was felt that
America was becoming like Europe in this sense).
They wanted a National Constitution and they believed that the only real producers
were farmers and workers, not the corporations.
Bryan attracted the populist vote and inn his desire to beat the Republicans, he stressed
the importance of farms on the prairies.
Republicans, on the other hand, stressed the need to provide jobs on the industrial
frontier in order to stimulate economic growth.
The Republicans also claimed that the Democrats call for controls was against the open
market place and was therefore un-American.
Both parties claimed conspiracies on either side and both promised to rid the country of
evil. Black Americans became the focus of animosity.
Remember that during Reconstruction, emancipated blacks and lower class whites had
joined against those in power. Politicians made it look as though Blacks had been
involved in hideous crimes against whites. Southern State Democratic parties like
Virginia and N. Carolina urged people to join the Democrats to get Blacks out of
politics, restore racial purity and restore order.
There was racial hysteria and lynching in the South; there were calls to disenfranchise
blacks, first in Mississippi (in 1890). In spite of the 15th Amendment, there were literacy
tests and poll taxes as an excuse in some states to exclude the black vote. Jim Crow
laws legalised segregation and the Supreme Court did nothing to prevent any of this.
In 1896, Tom Watson, a Populist leader, advised low-income whites to seek a coalition
with the blacks against segregation: the race antagonism perpetuates a monetary
system which beggars both [blacks and whites] (in Carroll and Noble 294). Watson
was unsuccessful and became disillusioned.
Many one-party States in the South (Democrats) excluded blacks from voting and racial
discrimination was allowed.
At this time Tom Watson turned anti-Black and with others kept an Anti-Negro
Crusade alive after 1900 (they were also anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic). All were
thought to present a threat to liberty. He later called for the re-creation of the Ku Klux
Klan which had been suppressed during Reconstruction. In 1915, in Georgia, a national
organisation began to spread the anti-Black Crusade to the North (they were also against
Catholics and Jews).
Home and Foreign Policy in America at the start of the 20th Century
William McKinley was re-elected in 1900. Under him, as we have seen, political power
was in the hands of industry which meant a great deal of hostility towards him from
certain sectors. Many were willing to join the Socialist Party which became stronger
between 1900 and 1912.
There were divisions within the Republican Party, too, with some against big businesss
control of the market and McKinleys desire to enter world markets.
There was great social, economic and political division in the country when McKinley
was assassinated by an anarchist on September 6th, 1901.
Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt had to restore order.
He had been a hero of the Spanish-American War (1898) and had led the Rough Riders
in Cuba.
The small farmers of the West thought he would defend them from the exploitation of
the East and the big corporations.
In the cities, too, there was a call for control of the Corporations and demands for
governmental commissions to be set up.
Roosevelt stood against the greed and misconduct of big business and there was a call
for more disinterested experts in government and fewer professional politicians. This
was thought to be advantageous for the corporations, too, as it would mean a stable
political climate for industry.
Regulatory Commission were set up that were supported by industry: the Meat
Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) were thought to be a victory for the
progressives (Farmers, small businessmen and professionals saw themselves as part
of democratic progressivism). But small businesses couldnt afford to keep up
standards and prices did not drop: this consolidated the control of large meat-packers

and drug companies.

Conservation of the forests was controlled by a Government commission, too. Forests
and natural resources came under national control. Big business was also in favour of
this.
In spite of his popularity, after two terms, Roosevelt was replaced by William Howard
Taft after the 1906 election. In 1912, not everyone was pleased with Tafts support of
the traditional competitive marketplace.
In the 1912 election, Socialists were at their stroingest; Roosevely led the Progressive
Party and got more votes, but Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, got the presidency
because of a split in the Republican Party.
Wilson was the first Southern president since before the Civil War. Southerners became
the leaders in Congress.
Wilson did much for small business: the Farm Loan Act, The Warehouse Act
(Government would store crops); the Adamson Act (an 8-hour day for railroad
workers). He also introduced new government commissions to regulate the economy
like the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Reserve Board.
Wilson also saw the need for an overseas frontier (this means the need for foreign
markets).
In the 1890s he had advocated the annexation of foreign countries partly towards this
end and this actually took place after the Spanish American War in the case of Hawaii
and the Philippines.
Even so, an Open Door Policy was more popular.
Open Door notes were sent to Japan and China to favour trade with Asia.
There were frequent incursions into Central America to impose order in government
there.
Britain was in favour of these policies and of a canal in Central America to facilitate
commerce but withdrew from the project when the growth of the German fleet became
threatening.
During Roosevelts legislature, he sent marines into Panama.
Wislon was also willing to interfere in the political affairs in Central Americas, even in
Mexico. It had been Roosevelt who had started this with a corollary of the Monroe
Doctrine: America would oversee the internal affairs of the Caribbean and Central
American countries. Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson all agreed on this policy and without
consultation or interference they sent the American fleet around the world and marines
into these countries and militarily controlled the Panama Canal.
America and World War I
The First World War broke out in August 1914. Wilson advocated US neutrality: it was
not in Americas interests to take part as involvement would mean preserving one
Empire (British, French, German, Austro-Hungarian) or another.
America warned Britain against violations of International Law and did the same with
Germany regarding U-boat warfare.
In 1916, America gave Germany an ultimatum to stop submarine activity.
If it was to begin again, America might be forced to enter the war: because of this
Wilson tried to persuade the Allies and Germany to negotiate a peace.
In January 1917, Germanys submarine warfare began again. They hoped to defeat the
British before America had the chance to mobilize.
American ships were armed to ensure their safe passage to England (there was a free
trade policy) but were fired on by German warships. This led American ships to
retaliate and so in March 1917 there were the first hostilities prior to Americas entry
into the war in April.
Americas entry into the war meant the Allied forces became stronger and Germany was
forced to surrender in November 1918.
The talks in Paris meant a compromise with Britain, France, Italy and Japan and their
imperial ambitions.
There was talk of the formation of the League of Nations and American membership but
America refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles or to join the League of Nations.
In 1920, Wilson had a stroke and Warren Harley was elected president.
Curiously, Wilson believed that it was Americas entry into the war that had allowed
Bolshevism to take control of Russia.

The Twenties, the Jazz Age, the Lost Generation

After the First World War, the Purity Crusade had its way and the 18th Amendment to
the Constitution introduced Prohibition (the prohibition of the sale of alcohol).
They also believed that from now on Protestant missionaries would spread Christian
organisation throughout the rest of the world.
This didnt happen and even the respectable middle classes refused to observe the 18th
Amendment.
In the bigger cities there were nightclubs and there they sold bootleg liquor; they also
played jazz music and now, in such places, the upper and lower classes began to mingle.
The Purity Crusade had stood against the decadence of morality but between 1890 and
1920 the number of divorces increased and in the 1920s it doubled. Parents were more
permissive towards their children, a sexual revolution took place (there was a greater
interest and use of contraception) and so the birth rate dropped.
The Woman Rebel, a publication by Margaret Sanger brought this to public attention
and in 1921 the American Birth Control League was formed.
The middle classes were unable to prevent their children from taking part in all of this
and it went hand in hand with the increasing popularity of jazz music: young people
listened and danced to the sensual rhythms of jazz, deriving from the black AfricanAmerican community and from as early as the 1890s it began to become an influence on
the white community.
Ragtime was one of the first styles to take hole among the white population and the sale
of sheet music escalated even before the outbreak of WWI. The more explicitly sexual
lyrics were perhaps a factor in this.
In the 20s it was blues and jazz that became more popular and among the establishment
it was believed that this was a threat to established morals as it aroused the baser
instincts of the young.
There was a movement to have jazz music banned from dance halls in New York and
elsewhere, but this simply made it more attractive to a rebellious younger generation.
For the first time, whites began to express their admiration for black culture; they were
attracted by the spontaneity, honesty and vitality of their music.
The historian, Charles Beard at the end of the 19th century stated that there was a new
industrial frontier and that this meant progress; this was a time for optimism.
But at the same time the poets and novelists of the age, in particular, those of the 1920s
born between 1890 and 1900 who had been brought up with this illusion of optimism
had been disillusioned by the terrible slaughter of the First World War. Something had
failed; some, like Hemingway, had experienced this first hand. These writers became
known as the Lost Generation.
Idealism disappeared; the American Dream had failed; there was no longer faith in
progress where this just meant destruction and disaster.
In 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby: it presents America as a
valley of ashes: it is contemporaneous with Eliots The Waste Land: this is the image
which governs the view of society among the writers of the time.
Gatsby turns the pattern of renewal of those who had migrated to the West around and
returns east, a self-made man in the industrial frontier of New York. But there, there is
only decadence and corruption, as we said, the end of the American Dream, a reflection
of the disillusionment after the World War.
Fitzgerald and Gatsby
In 1920, the 18th Amendment introduced Prohibition which made the manufacture,
sale, or consumption of alcohol illegal.
Even so, this coincided with what many called the Roaring 20s a time of optimism
and high spirits which F. Scott Fitzgerald would call the Jazz Age because of young
people becoming more and more interested in this music of Afro-American origin.
Ragtime, blues and Jazz became the favorites on the radio and in the dance-halls
and in the clandestine clubs where alcohol was consumed. The older generation
frowned upon this but for young people this became associated with rebellion and
coincided with greater permissiveness and even something of a sexual revolution.
However, in spite of the optimism of the times (the American economy was
expanding), for intellectuals and especially for some American writers, this was not
a time for celebration. By the 1920s, it seems that the American Dream had

somehow become corrupted, there was no frontier left to conquer and the illusions
of many had been dissipated by the horrors of the First World War.
Those writers who had been born between 1890 and 1900 and who had to
participate in the World War, like Ernest Hemingway, or F. Scott Fitzgerald, became
known as the Lost Generation because of their disillusionment with anything
associated with the American Dream.
This situation is reflected in Fitzgeralds novel, The Great Gatsby, published in 1925.
Side by side with a world of youth, promise, wealth and luxury, the narrator, Nick
Carraway, describes a valley of ashes which inevitable reminds us of T.S. Eliots
The Waste Land. The novel inverts the mythic pattern of renewal of those who
migrated west with Gatsby returning east, a self-made man (a success story) in the
industrial and economic frontier of New York City. However, what the novel presents
is the decadence and corruption of society at that time and the disillusionment that
we mentioned before.
The narrator is from the Midwest and heads for New York to get into the bond
business. Gatsbys former girlfriend, Daisy, has married a wealthy man called Tom
Buchanan whose family has old money. Gatsby is nouveau riche and it turns out
he made his fortune as a bootlegger, selling illicit liquor.
Marital infidelities, constant parties and eventually the death of the enigmatic
protagonist, murdered by a man who mistakenly believes he has knocked down and
killed his wife in his car when it was in fact Daisy, draw attention to the fact that
something seems to have been lost along the way in the struggle towards the
American dream The irony of the whole thing is that Gatsby still has the dream; he
believes he can turn the clock back to the time when he andDaisy were lovers. But
Daisy is superficial; his dream is false, just like so many other dreams not that there
are no frontiers left to cross.
The 1920s and the Depression
The 1920s began with great optimism: We are entering a new era . Our new thinking
and new doing are bringing us a new world, and a new heaven and a new earth.
(Henry Ford).
Businessmen and politicians were all optimistic in the same way as America had
become a fully rational and scientific economy and society (Carroll & Noble 329).
The efficiency expert Frederick W. Taylor introduced time and motion studies into
industry; in 1914, Henry Ford introduced the production line (moving assembly line).
No longer were the American heroes like Teddy Roosevelt, but new administrative
heroes. These were the practical men who had been behind the war effort like Herbert
Hoover. It was the organisation of business that had been behind the war effort. In 1912
the National Chamber of Commerce was set up, then Under Woodrow Wilson, the
Industrial Preparedness Committee in case of war.
Political, business and military leaders formed the first Defence Advisory Commission
and, after 1914, the War Industries Board. To regulate the national economy, there was
the Food Administration, led by Hoover, also a Fuel Administration, a Railroad
Administration, a Shipping Board, War Trade Board, National War Labour Board (that
introduced the 8-hour working day), and the Committee on Public Information, which
used college professors to write propaganda.
However, when the Russian Revolution led to their alliance with Germany, propaganda
began to be used against socialism. The Attourney-General, A. Mitchell Palmer
organised raids on peoples homes and on private meetings. An Anti-Radical Division
was set up led by J. Edgar Hoover. At that time the Socialist Party was legal but they
and the AFL Unions were not looked on kindly. Their membership dropped.
At this time, there was a new emphasis placed on business management: a National
Association of Manufacturers argued in favour of open shops rather than union
shops and there were yellow dog contracts for workers in which they had to promise
not to join a union. Some large corporations even started their own company unions.
Business schools began to appear; there was the new figure of the personnel manager;
colleges began courses on business administration.
It was a period of corporate growth and confidence.
The Republican leader, Warren G. Harding, with the support of the Secretary of
Commerce (Herbert Hoover) and the Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes,

promoted Woodrow Wilsons plans for American world leadership. For this they sought
to stabilise Europe to create a market for the surplus of American manufactured goods.
The idea was to contain Communism and create a stable economy in Europe and Asia;
America even advocated in favour of the restoration of the German economy and
advocated the reduction of reparations, America even lent money to Germany.
The Open Door Policy with Asia meant continued stability there and in all the
atmosphere was one of great optimism.
In March 1929, when Hoover came to the presidency, there was higher productivity
than at any other time. There were cars, refrigerators, telephones and radios in most
homes. In his acceptance speech, Hoover said: We are a happy people the statistics
prove it. We have more cars, more bath tubs, oil furnaces, silk stockings, bank accounts
than any other people on earth.
Earlier, Hoover had supported the reduction of income tax and gift taxes for the
wealthy; the corporations profits soared; the national debt dropped because of the
surplus in manufacturing.
However, on farms, between 1919 and 1928, their income had dropped to almost a third
of what it had been. Hoover encouraged farmers to join associations to control
production and prices, but there was still competitiveness among the farmers and this
kept their prices low. The introduction of petrol-driven tractors even meant many farm
workers migrating to the cities.
By the mid 1920s, the growth of this consumer society began to level off; at this time,
unemployment was also relatively high and wages had not kept up with economic
growth.
This was a new consumer society which depended on the growth of advertising to
create a demand for products; the cheaper goods of the assembly lines and the
availability of credit meant that people bought more and more.
The amount of money spent on advertising continued to rise.
By 1929, consumers had accumulated a debt of $5 billion in credit; during the
prosperous 20s, the upper classes were the ones who went furthest into debt; they took
risks with what was seen as the unlimited benefits of the stock market which in 1924
was at 106, rising to 245 in 1927 and to 449 in 1929. Banks lent money to these
speculators which increased from $1 billion in 1924 to $9 billion in 1929.
In October 1929, the Crash came; the stock market started to fall and continued to do so
till in 1932 it reached a low of 28.
At this time there was an excess of overseas investment, too. America was owed over
$20 billion around the world in 1929.
In America, there were no social services; there were private charities supported by
businessmen, but that wasnt enough to support the unemployed which was around 40%
in the bigger cities.
People were literally starving.
Hoover was not inclined to begin Government intervention but in 1931 Congress
created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation: this was to lend money to private
corporations to avoid their collapse. Franklin D. Roosevelt replaced Hoover in 1933: he
introduced the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the Federal Emergency Relief
Administration (1933) to provide the States with federal money for the relief of the
unemployed and starving.
The National Industrial Recovery Act made trade association agreements of production
and prices legal.
The Civilian Conservation Corps sent the jobless to work camps; the Home Owners
Loan Corporation lent money to allow people to pay their mortgages.
Roosevelt also used Hoovers Reconstruction Finance Corporation to lend money to the
railroads and large and small businesses.
From 1934, there were many strikes: the Wagner Labour Relations Act created the
Labour Relations Board; the Fair Labour Standards Act meant a 44-hour working week;
a Wealth Tax increased income tax for the wealthy; the Social Security Act (1935)
created a government fund from which a sum deducted from a workers wages would be
matched by his employer; the retrial age was to be 65.
By 1936, Recovery meant that Roosevelt could reduce the amount of federal funds
allotted to the creation of jobs for the unemployed (Works Progress Administration), but
as unemployment increased to 10 million in 1937 he increased expenditure again.

Meantime, in the rest of the world, the threat of Bolshevism continued in Russia and
Japan spread its influence into Manchuria in 1931.
America from the 1930s up to World War Two and the lead up to the Cold War
After Roosevelts emergency measures Roosevelts New Deal), economic collapse was
halted (the Home Owners Loan Corporation, Hoovers Reconstruction Finance
Corporation, $10 billion loans to railroads and large and small businesses).
Roosevelt saw that the system of corporations helped by the Government was now a
permanent necessity: Our last frontier has long been reached meaning America had
reached the end of economic expansion as well as the end of the monopolies of the
financial titans.
But Roosevelt was criticised for not helping the poor. Older workers began to ask for
pensions for those over 60. Strikes began to take place all over the country in 1934.
Earlier, in 1932, the Norris-LaGuardia Act protected labour forces use of boycotts,
strikes and picketing from court injunctions. It also made yellow dog contracts illegal.
The American Federation of Labour frowned on militant strike action and decided to
form a new labour movement called the Congress of Industrial Organisations. It
acquired a huge membership and became established throughout industry.
In 1935, the Wagner Labour Relations Act established the National Labour Relations
Board (workers themselves were to decide if they were to be unionised or not).
Later a Fair Labour Standards Act established the 40-hour week and the minimum wage
(50 cents an hour).
A Wealth Tax appeared in 1935 and also the Social Security Act which meant Old Age
Pensions for those 65 and over. A sum would be deducted from each employees wage
and matched by the employer and paid into a national pension fund.
Roosevelt was re-elected in 1936.
He saw a need for foreign markets and was prepared to use political and military power
to protect trade from threats from Japan and Germany to expand their interests in Asia
and Europe.
However, there was a large neutralist sentiment in America. In 1935, 36 and 36,
Neutrality Acts were passed designed avoid Americas economy becoming involved
with those of warring nations. It was mainly the farm bloc senators that supported
this.
In the 1920s and 30s, Revisionist historians like Charles Beard began to realise that
WWI was caused by the capitalist ambitions of the countries involved (especially
Russia, Germany and Austria). Bankers and arms manufacturers had been responsible
for US entry into the war. In the 1920s and 30s, it was believed the same forces were
again at work. This view of recent events led Beard and other intellectuals like John
Dewey to believe the only way to stop this happening again was isolation, especially as
the rivalry of international economies was even more intense.
After re-election, Roosevelt tried to reverse this trend towards neutrality and in a speech
made in Chicago he warned of the threat of Japanese aggression as well as of the threat
of Germany and Italy.
After Hitler came to power in1933 he decided not to observe the Treaty of Versailles
and to ignore the League of Nations and to re-arm. German markets began to expand
overseas and the same was true of Italy under Mussolini.
Japan challenged the open door policy of America in China and Germany did the
same in Europe. The US was even more worried by these countries establishing markets
in Latin America which the US had felt to be exclusive to them since 1900.
At this time, Roosevelt did not receive the support he wanted from Congress but he
managed, in 1938, to enlarge the navy.
In 1939, as war seemed inevitable in Europe, Congress modified the Neutrality Acts:
the embargo on the sale of arms was ended.
In 1940, Roosevelt campaigned for political and military preparations against Japan,
Germany and Italy: $18 billion was appropriated for military preparedness; in
September 1940, there was the first peacetime conscription act.
Prior to this, the Government had released arms to private enterprise to be sold to
Britain but in 1940, Roosevelt issued an executive agreement to donate 50 destroyers to
Britain in return for permission to establish military bases on British possessions
throughout the world.

Even so, even in 1940, public opinion was still against American involvement in the
war.
Prior to the 1940 elections, Roosevelt told Americans that they would not be sent to
foreign wars, but after his re-election in 1941 Congress passed a Lend-Lease Act which
allowed the US to give Britain all the arms and supplies it needed. Roosevelt and his
advisers were also involved in secret talks with British leaders over strategy in the war:
it was taken for granted that America would soon enter the war and the policy which
was decided was to first defeat Germany and then Japan.
In the summer and autumn of 1941, American ships were ordered to fire on German
submarines that interfered with merchant ships on their way to Britain.
They were to work in the Atlantic as far north as Iceland where they now had bases.
In October 1941, Roosevelt announced over the radio that the US had been attacked by
German submarines and that shots had been fired.
War was not yet declared but soon would be after 7 December 10941 when Japanese
aircraft attacked Pearl Harbour in Hawaii.
For a year previous to the attack, America had put an embargo on the sale of oil steel
and other raw materials to Japan which led to an economic crisis.
In Japan there were those who advocated Japanese expansion without having to go to
war with the United States but others felt that such a war was unavoidable and
demanded immediate action to make sure the supply of the materials they needed was
restored. Although the US had learned of Japanese plans the navy leaders at Pearl
Harbour were not sufficiently prepared for the attack.
The following day, 8 December 1941, a state of war with Japan was formally
recognised.
Both Germany and Italy had a treaty with Japan and declared war on the United States.
For many, Roosevelt had broken his pre-electoral promise of not sending Americans
into a foreign war.
As early as 1939, the new deal between Corporations and the Government had been
renewed (Remember Roosevelts New Deal during the Depression). Following the
experience of World War I a War Resources Board was set up; there was a War
Production Board, a Food Administration, an Office of Economic Stabilisation, a War
Manpower Commission, and an Office of Price Administration: all this meant a planned
economy headed by the big corporations.
Rationing was introduced; the Government paid for the reconversion of factories to
wartime production.
Between 1940 and 1945 $200 billion was added to the national debt because of
increased defence spending.
Because of increased production factory and other workers earnings increased by 50%.
The profits of the corporations doubled.
By the end of the war, America was prosperous but the economy was based on the
Government spending massive amounts on defence. Between 1945 and 1970, $1.000
billion was spent on defence, 60% of the total budget.
During WWII, corporations had accepted an organised labour force which brought
about an increase in union membership.
By 1950, labour leaders were in favour of the cold war and big government spending.
The lead up to the Cold War: In 1941, Roosevelt was in favour of using military
power to back up international relations.
The League of Nations was replaced by the United Nations and as well as the General
Assembly there was a Security Council formed by the major powers: US, Britain,
France, China and the USSR; they had permanent seats and the right of veto.
Although the USSR had received land-lease from America, it was important that Russia
not only help to make sure of an allied victory but that they should not extend
communist control further than need be, particularly into Germany.
This made it vital for America and Britain to land in France and advance into Germany
to help keep most of that country out of Russian hands.
When Roosevelt died, Russia had already occupied most of Eastern Europe.
The New President was Harry Truman who ordered the use of the Atomic Bomb on
Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 to force the Japanese surrender.
Truman believed that America should be the trustees of this new force (Carroll &
Noble 354).

Truman tried a tough diplomatic policy after the war to convince Russia to open the
Eastern Block to American commerce but Stalin refused.
America prepared for a Cold War with Russia and Congress provided billions to help
rebuild western economies, including West Germany: this was known as the Marshall
Plan.
This was followed by the creation of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) which
meant that each member was committed to go to war if other members were threatened.
When Britain could no longer afford to keep troops in Greece, the Truman Doctrine was
to send American troops into Greece and Turkey to contain the military threat of Russia
Stenbech Wraps
The Grapes of Wrath was published in 1939 by John Steinbeck. It is set during the
Depression and tells of the Joad family who are poor tenant farmers who leave
home in Oklahoma and set out for California in search of work. Following a drought
(in the Dust Bowl there were severe wind storms on eroded land in 1934 and 1936)
which meant families could not keep up their loan/rent payments, farms were
repossessed by the banks/owners.
The protagonist is Tom Joad, recently released from prison for homicide, who returns
home to find his home deserted. He discovers almost all the farms have been
repossessed. Influenced by publicity about opportunities in California and they set
out.
On the way, many are already returning disappointed and they begin to doubt. First
Grampa and then Granma die on the way. Tom's brother and brother in law both
leave. Ma is effectively the head of the family even over Pa.
On arrival there are too many workers and not enough jobs. They settle at
Weedpatch Camp run by the Resettlement Administration (one of the New Deal
Agencies).
A Union is set up. Casy, Tom's friend, has joined but the Joads work as
strikebreakers. Casy is killed during a confrontation and Tom kills his attacker in
turn, becoming a fugitive.
The text, shows the impotence of the Oakies and Steinbeck was criticised for this
portrayal of them. He was also criticised for not being hard enough on banks and
landowners which are seen as purely impersonal.