Reactions to the Industrial Economy from 1750 to 1900 CE
Driving Question: What caused demands for change in industrial societies from 1750 to 1900 CE, and how did these demands shape society?
As industrialization spread, it transformed societies. Industrial capitalism enriched some, but many others struggled in the face of industrial changes. A new urban working class emerged, paid an hourly wage in exchange for their labor. Living and working conditions were often miserable. As a result, new economic ideologies, like socialism, emerged to challenge capitalism. In many places, the working class united to demand better pay and working conditions.
Learning Objectives
- Compare and contrast the economic systems of capitalism and socialism.
- Evaluate how different groups responded to increasing industrialization from c. 1750 to 1900 CE.
- Explain the causes and effects of calls for changes in industrial societies from 1750 to 1900.
Vocab Terms:
This SAQ activity flips the script on students by asking them to find images that go well with each prompt. The prompts focus on the themes of technology, economic systems, and social interactions and organization, and how these themes relate to nineteenth-century industrialization.
Want to inject some fun into this activity? Play musical chairs! Have students work as a team to answer the SAQ prompt. As students rotate, they can pick up where the last person left off.
By now, you’ve probably gotten pretty good at using evidence from an image to support your claims. So this time, we’re going to send you to find the images that support your claims.
Every revolution causes some sort of response. Industrialization did—in fact, it shook up ideas about who gets what, where, when, and how!
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Guiding Questions
Unlike those who lived through the Industrial Revolution, you do get to choose. In this activity, explore different options to get a feel for what life was really like back then.
Did you know? Proletariat comes from the term used in the Roman Empire that referred to people who were too poor for military service and whose main social contribution was producing children for the state. By the nineteenth century, scholars had begun applying the term to the working class, and Marx popularized its usage for wage laborers with little property.
Workers during the Industrial Revolution had only their labor to give—but they wanted a better wage for that labor.
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Guiding Questions
Need a quick way to assess students’ sourcing skills? Use the Sourcing Feedback Form.
Industrialization and imperialism provoked many different responses. In this exercise, you will examine primary sources to examine two distinct opinions regarding the social and economic conditions of the time. We recommend you use the Quick-Sourcing Tool to complete this exercise.
Looking to include more women in AP World? The OER Project teacher community’s question of the day—How do you include women in the story?—is full of ideas!
Who better to learn the perspective of an industrial-era worker from than from an industrial-era worker? You will read the story of Ottilie Baader, who started as a worker and became a labor organizer.
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Guiding Questions
when people have different status based on their wealth, occupation, education, and similar factors
Reformers in Russia looked to soften or erase the distinction between such social classes as the serfs and the nobility.