Research project

 Key Question:  

Topic:   Living conditions in the Victorian cities.

Questions to consider:

·         Were there social classes during this time period?

·         Was there poverty and child labor?

·         How long was working hours for the workers?

·         What were the life expectancy and death rates?

·         Were the Victorian cities overpopulated?

·         What was housing like?

·         Did pollution affect their daily lives?

·         Was there unemployment throughout the cities?

·         If so, what was the cause of unemployment during the Victorian era?

·         Did the New Poor Law contribute to any of their daily lives?

·         What is “The Great Unwashed”?

Sub Questions:

1.       What effect did the Industrial Revolution have on the Victorian society? Was it a good or bad impact on the Victorian cities?

2.       What were the differences in welfare between the social classes? How did that affect their lifestyle and daily lives?

3.       What were the laws and rules in the Victorian cities? Was it based on your social level? Explain why or not.

Research Question:   Were the Victorian Cities a good place to live for the rich and poor?

Factors of the Industrial Revolution

Between 1750 and 1850, Britain experienced the Industrial Revolution that had a rapid and huge impact in industry. It was one of the most fundamental periods of change in Great Britain because of its advancement in agriculture, technology, education, manufacturing as well as transportation. The Industrial Revolution brought great improvements in each of those areas and strengthened the economy along with the social class structure .It was a great success to Britain, but there were many factors of the Industrial Revolution that brought Great Britain to the top.

The most important factor in explaining the cause of the Industrial Revolution was the political changes. A long-lasting constitutional monarchy was introduced after the glorious revolution in 1688 and that led to a modern, standardized government. This controlled the rulers’ power, making England more stabled and strong. The creation of the modern navy contributed as it brought in the idea of nation debt, which helped increase their wealth.   Additionally, Britain’s trade in oversea colonies brought in plenty raw materials and goods. They successfully excluded the other powerful countries like Holland, Spain and France from their markets. This meant that Britain was extremely rich and steady because they had tons of money from the modern navy. Also, having a stabled marketing and supplies system and excluding the powerful countries made them successful and strong. Britain’s overseas colonies provided essential natural resources and that’s why it was the first to industrialize.

Natural resources were another important factor in explaining the Industrial Revolution.  The main products were coal, iron ores and cotton. Cotton was a cheap and simple product that everyone could use. Coals and iron ores were used in factories and to create machines. The imports of natural resources were important because it introduced them to new ideas and techniques.  Britain used wood to heat, instead of coal so they had a large amount of coal left. The availability of water and coal helped the growth of the industries in England. That is because coal was used as fuel for energy supply and steam production that led to advancement in technology.

An additional factor explaining the cause of the revolution was scientific advancement. The creation of the steam engine was used to pump water from deep places. It improved productivity and steam engines eventually found their way into boats railways, vehicles and farms.  Also, the new use of electric engines improved the speed of transportation around the cities, and decreased the level of pollution.  This shows that Britain was a clean and healthy place with really highly developed inventions that other countries have yet to discover. Britain had a better system of transportation than any other country in Europe. The water frame, which was a continuous textile machine, enabled the people to improve in machinery.  This meant that there were advanced in agriculture and manufactured products.

Furthermore, Economics also explained the cause of the Industrial Revolution.  The bank of London was created in 1694 and it introduced the supply chain, which meant that the government was distributing money everywhere. This explains their great accomplishment in banking and business making.   Farmlands got more efficient and improved because of the supply chain, and machinery was developed to do the jobs of the workers.  Also, only the rich could pay for enclosures while the poor had to sell land. This meant that because of the improvement in agriculture to increase production, the workers had fewer jobs and no money. This led to the movement from villages to cities to work in factories and urbanization was accomplished.

Finally, massive social changes were also an important cause in the Industrial Revolution. As the population started to increase in the cities, citizens started to move up to middle class. Most of them were doctors that introduced the discovery of medicines.  Having doctors around the cities provides better treatment of diseases and eliminates sickness in Britain.  Public education was developed, so that all British citizens would have an education. That led to an increase in education, literacy and intelligent citizens. The improvement of machinery in factories led to less worker’s hour requirements.  Workers had to work for only 8 hours instead of 12-16 according to the new labor code.  This shows that technology is improving everyday and life is now easier for all the social classes.

            The Industrial Revolution had a revolutionary impact on Britain between 1750 and 1850. It changed their entire life, their culture and the way they thought. It made them look forward into more achievements and accomplishments yet to come. Great Britain was the powerful and leading nation among the other countries because of the Industrial Revolution. It truly was, indeed an outstanding year in Great Britain history.

Question 3 and 4 of The Italian Revolution (1848)

    3.  The revolutions of 1848 contributed to the unification of Italy because they were against Nationalism. People started a revolution in the states, demanding a liberal government. They were also trying to remove Austrian’s control over them because Italy turned into a domain of Austria. Austria ruled some parts, and the others were independent Renaissance city-states. Italy divided into five kingdoms; so the Italians wanted to unify their country and get rid of the states.

                  Italy was affected by the 1848 because before the main revolt on March, there was the poor harvest of 1846-47 that produced protests in food riots from north to south. Peasants started uprising about their landowners. They were also influenced by the liberal friendly events happening in Rome Italy especially because they shared the same causes to create a revolution. The French revolution was basically the genesis of "liberal Italians"

    4.   A great leader named Giuseppe Mazzini inspired the revolution. He was fighting for autonomy (independence) His goal was to form a nationalist group called “Young Italy” and that’s what started to spread the idea of Nationalism but since Italy was divided, there was a huge cultural difference between the northern and southern Italy. . Austria also tried very hard to suppress Mazzini and Young Italy.  Other great key actors were Camilo Di Cavour and Giuseppe Garibaldi and they helped to unify Italy.

             Camilo Di Cavour was prime minster of the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1852 and he was able to invent a secretly planned war with Austria. He made alliance with France and Austria got defeated in two major battles, and had to surrender Lombardy and Milan. Meanwhile, In the southern part of Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi raised an army (Red Shirts) that helped take over Sicily and Naples and the new kingdom of Italy (without Rome and Venice) was named by King Emmanuel II. 
     King Emmanuel II (1820-1878) was the first king of the united Italy. He succeeded his father Charles Albert to the throne of Piedmont-Sardinia on March 24, 1849, following the resignation of Charles Albert after two humiliating defeats (1848 and 1849) by the Austrian Empire. The first task to face the young, inexperienced monarch was making peace with Austria with the help of his prime minster, Camilo Di Cavour.

                The only long term consequences would be disagreements between the people since there’s still different cultural beliefs. Rome is still under papal possession and Venice is under Austrian’s control so the only problem might be Austria gaining more power, and tumult against the people themselves

           Another long term consequences was The Treaty of Zurich that was signed by the Austrian Empire, the French Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia on November 10, 1859. It was an agreement to end the war between Piedmont-Sardinia, France, and Austria. Piedmont-Sardinia received Lombardy back but, to the great disappointment of the Italian nationalism, Venice and Tuscany remained under Austrian control or influence and Rome was still under the control of the Papal states. It wasn't until 1870 that Rome finally became the capital of Italy.

Louis XIV: The Absolute Monarch

During the time of the 17^th century, a new key term called Absolutism was created. Absolutism is a political theory holding that all power should be vested in one ruler/monarch or dictators. Therefore, an absolute monarch is a ruler who governs alone and is not controlled by laws or constitution. Absolutist monarchs consider themselves to be the “Divine Right of Kings” which meant that they were only answerable by God and could be judged by no one but God. An ideal example of an absolute monarch of that time period is Louis XIV who crowned king of France in 1643. There are many key points that show why he was considered an important absolute leader.

Louis XIV was widely known as “France’s Sun King” and had the longest reign in European history (1643- 1715). He brought absolute monarchy to its greatest height, established a court at Versailles and fought most of the other European countries in four wars. During this time period, leaders were allowed to rule for 6 years through democratic elections and only dictators (rulers with absolute power) were able to rule for such a long time. Louis XIV had complete power and dictatorship which is one reason why he was considered an absolute monarch.

The second reason why Louis XIV was considered an absolute monarch was because he was in charge of decision making.  At the age of twenty three, he entrusted the government of his affairs to the Late Cardinal and governed the secretaries and ministers of state. He clearly stated: “You [secretaries and ministers of state] will assist me with your counsels when I ask for them. I request and order you to seal no orders except by my command.” They had to obey his orders, advice him, follow his commandments and favor no one but him. This gave the government less democratic freedom because Louis XIV had complete power over them and everyone within the government and that’s why he was such a successful leader.

Louis XIV was able to weaken the nobility of his ministers by getting rid of the high and wealthy nobles and replacing them with nobles that came from new aristocratic families. Nicholas Fouquet, the superintendent of finances, began to show off his enormous wealth as well as luxury and ended up in imprisonment by Louis XIV. Louis XIV also made sure that the local government was increasingly placed under removable civil servants. Louis XIV feared that the high nobilities would overpower him any time and that’s why he relied on the new judicial nobilities because he knew they had no chance of seizing his power. This strategy was a great way for Louis XIV to establish royal power and authority in the provinces.

             By centralizing his power, Louis XIV was able to limit the legislative power which caused the parliament to lose their traditional rights.  The parliament weakened because Louis XIV banned them from creating laws as he started to reform the judicial structure and criminal procedures (1667-1669) by himself.  This shows that he was truly an absolute, dominating ruler.

            Louis XIV created a bureaucracy, which was an organization with administrators and non-elective government officials that were assigned fixed rules and tasks. The ministers could not make their own decisions but could only follow directions of the king. This also led to a more efficient way of taxation and the bureaucracy was one of the major keys to his huge accomplishments.

            With the abundant amount of money Louis XIV had, he glorified his monarchy by using arts and design. Louis XIV ordered paintings that showed his wealth and luxury. He also had extravagance sculptures showing how high and special he was. Finally, he ordered the building of the Versailles Palace. Louis XIV brought in the finest architectures and transformed the place (which was originally a hunting lodge) to a magnificent, luxurious palace with a fairy tale park around it. The palace of Versailles became one of the most classical and fashionable palace within Europe. Although this was a huge accomplishment in France, it took about 40,000 workers to build it. He was impatient and wanted the palace to be done as soon as possible, which meant that they would have to work all day and night. Louis XIV used sculptures, buildings and painting to show off his power and wealth.

Louis XIV also fought in the continental wars that were later called “War of Devolution”. Louis conquered Spanish territories claiming that his wife was to inherit them anyway rather than her half-brother, Charles II who inherited the Spanish throne. More wars were fought later on which expanded France borders even though the size of France was big enough. The purpose of the wars was to demonstrate how independent and powerful he was and to send out a strong image to everyone.

 A major aspect of Louis XIV’s life that strongly expresses freedom was his personality.  He was arrogant man with a large ego and also believed that his symbol/representation was a Greek god. Louis XIV didn’t like being told what to do and considered himself the “Sun King” since everything revolves around him just as the planets circles the sun. Ever since he took over the crown, he wished to become the most powerful reigning king of France. All these characteristics show that he had a great desire to become powerful and to leave a legacy.

Louis XIV was indeed a prefect epitome of an absolute monarch. He was in charge of decision making, centralized his power, glorified the monarchy and had total authority over the government. All of this proves that Louis XIV was a powerful, “God-given” dictator and that’s why he’s a great example of an absolute monarch.