Cookie Policy

Our website uses cookies to understand content and feature usage to drive site improvements over time. To learn more, review our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Society and the Industrial Age

Driving Question: How did industrialization reshape social hierarchies and impact standards of living?

As industrialization spread, employers needed more workers, leading many women and children to join the workforce. Working-class women faced harsh working conditions and were also often left out of public and political life. Over time, growing ideas about gender equality helped spark women’s rights movements. These movements used activism and global connections to fight for voting rights and other important reforms.

Learning Objectives

  1. Explain how industrialization caused a change in existing social hierarchies and standards of living.
  2. Use the historical thinking practice of claim testing to comprehend the transformation of gender and class relations in the long nineteenth century.

Vocab Terms:

  • bourgeoisie
  • class-consciousness
  • collective bargaining
  • Marxist
  • proletariat
  • reform
  • union
STEP 1

Opener: Society and the Industrial Age

Explore how industrialization impacts where people move and what the physical environment looks like—part of a process called urbanization.

STEP 2

Class Structure

The divide between rich and poor grew exponentially during industrialization. But what led to this huge chasm?

STEP 3

Claim Testing: Social Class and Gender

STEP 4

Changing Gender Roles

The idea of gender changed radically during the nineteenth century. How was the idea of what a man or a woman was influenced by empire, nationalism, and industrialism?

STEP 5

Themes Notebook

STEP 6

Contextualizing: Child Labor

What it means to be a kid now is radically different than what it meant to be a kid during the nineteenth century. Using the materials below, practice contextualization by examining child labor and changing attitudes towards childhood.

STEP 7

Closer: Society and the Industrial Age