La Belle Époque

[1871-1914]:

“The Beautiful Era”

La Belle Époque

[1871-1914]:

“The Beautiful Era”

Characteristics of Characteristics of La Belle EpochLa Belle Epoch

• Advances in technology, democratic reform and creativity in arts

• Everything solved by the new ideas• Mass Politics, Mass Society and Mass

Production overwhelms individualism and nationality

• Outsiders use violence to be more included• Intellectual trends stress struggle and

violence• Art movement changed

La Belle EpochLa Belle EpochMass SocietyMass Society

• Middle Class-Age of the Middle Class• They created the ‘status quo’ and are the

‘arbiter of taste’• Not homogenous ‘white collar’ workers• Paris, Vienna and Manchester urbanize

better

1. Second Industrial Revolution (1850-WWI)

Steam electricity & Petroleum

Internal combustion & diesel engines

Britain “The World’s Industrial Workshop”

Germany & U.S.-> surpasses Britain (1900)

Corporations limited liability of investments.

Cartels to control prices2. Development “zones”

Inner Zone Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, N Italy ,W AustriaOuter Zone Ireland, Iberia, Italy, Eastern Europe Underdeveloped Zone Africa & Asia

La Belle EpochLa Belle Epoch

New Inventions• Larger factories• Bessemer Steel• Skyscrapers• Chemicals• Lighted cities• Refrigeration• TNT• X-Rays• ****ASSEMBLY

LINES***• Cars

• Steamships• Suez Canal (1869)• Panama Canal

(1914)• Airplanes (1903)• Subways• Suburbs• Transatlantic

Telegraph cable laid• Marconi’s Radio

(1880)

3. Free Trade & Protectionism

4. Economy ->World Markets -> Booms & Bust cycle

5. Advance of DemocracyExtension of the vote to the working

class. Creating a “welfare state.”

6. Materialism…Consumerism (consumer economy)

Higher standard of livingDepartment Stores created 1870

7. Migration from Europe1850-1940 60 million left EuropeEmigrate to US, Argentina, Brazil,

Canada, Australia

La Belle EpochLa Belle Epoch

La Belle EpochLa Belle Epoch8. Increased European Population

1/5th of worlds population ( 260-450 million from 1850-1914)

Smaller families, improved health, living conditions & industrialization

Rural people crowded cities Americas, Australia & South Africa

9. Growth of Cities & Urban Life • More leisure time • parks, dance and concert halls created

10. Medicine-•Louis Pasteur-Louis Pasteur-•Joseph ListerJoseph Lister-•Medical schools developed

Mass PoliticsMass Politics

• Governments used republicanism, public opinion, and mass communication

• Mass Communication influences public opinion• Most countries controlled by a ruling elite• Conflicts arise (social and ethnic)…outsiders

bad!• Mass politics Large Groups manipulation

of public opinion generally against minority groups and ‘outsiders’

La Belle EpochLa Belle Epoch10. 11. Education-

– Most of western Europeans became literate – Maria Montessori (1870-1952)– Nationalism and xenophobia spread

12. Family and Childhood-– Distinct gender roles– Use of Enlightened ideas to raise kids

13. Jews-• Most have been liberated due to Enlightenment• Marx, Freud, and Einstein famous Jews of this

time…led to anti Semitism (accidentally)• Anti-Semitism

Darwinism…Pogroms…Dreyfus Affair Led to…Theodore Herzl 1896… “Father of

Modern ZionismZionism”

La Belle EpochLa Belle EpochWomen’s Movement- ‘Feminism’

– They can work white collar jobs, but still raise the kids

– 1850-1914 Women gained rights such in legal system, property ownership, divorce and custody of kids

– Obscenity Laws- prohibited publications on birth control

– Right to vote occurs after WWI for most western countries• Emmeline Pankhurst created (Women’s Social

and Political Union)• Florence Nightingale• Maria Montessori

La Belle EpochLa Belle Epoch• Faith in Science Alone

– Science at the core of industrialization.– “New Wonders” of daily life.– Positivism – Auguste Comte

• Father of sociology…3 Stages of history

– Charles Darwin - Darwinism• Origin of Species [1859]• “survival of the fittest”

• “Social Darwinism” Herbert Spenser• Promote racism

• Physics-

• Newtonian Science turned on its head

• Einstein “Theory of Relativity”

• Marie Curie -> discovered radium & said atoms emitted radioactivity

• William Roentgen -> x-rays

“New” sciences ->anthropology, archaeology, sociology, psychology, etc.

La Belle EpochLa Belle Epoch

• Psychology

Ivan Pavlov conditioned responses

Sigmund Freud psychoanalysis

o The Interpretation of Dreams [1900]

o The role of the unconscious [id, ego, super ego].

o Friedrich Nietzsche ->Übermensch “Super Man”->Morality is personal

o Internal Religious Struggles

modernists vs. fundamentalists

La Belle EpochLa Belle Epoch

La Belle EpochLa Belle Epoch Realism and Naturalism• Literature movement that is Literature movement that is

opposite of Romanticismopposite of Romanticism• Attention to good and bad aspects Attention to good and bad aspects

of industrial statesof industrial states• Charles DickensCharles Dickens• Emile ZolaEmile Zola• George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw • Leo Tolstoy- War and PeaceLeo Tolstoy- War and Peace

ART- Reflects economic, political and social problems

Impressionism- ‘Capture what the eye sees’Use of lights and shadows, visible brushstrokes and backgroundsClaude Monet Pierre August Renoir Edgar Degas Edmond Manet

Monet

<- Degas Renoir ^

Manet

Postimpressionism

Moving away from lights and

shadow use

Van Gogh George Seurat

Expressionism

•Distortion of color and use of color to capture problems in Europe

Cubism / Futurism

• Glorified the influence of technology

Picasso