Week Seven

Explaining the Industrial Revolution:

• Increase in population, meaning decrease in resources and industrial fuels (wood and charcoal)
• Industrial Rev. is the human response to the dilemma of nonrenewable fossil fuel 
• Extraction of the mining changed the landscape of many places, and increased pollution
• Marked a new point in technology (spinning jenny, power loom, steam engine or cotton gin)
• Greatest breakthrough was coal-fired steam engine 
• Later in 19th century, there was a second Industrial Rev. focusing on chemicals
• Agriculture was heavily affected by all the chemicals in the environment

Why Europe?

• Islamic world generated major advances in ship building 
• India was the worlds center of cotton textile production
• Rapid spread of industrial techniques over so many parts of the world
• Industrial Rev erupted quickly and unexpectedly between 1750 and 1850
• Europe had a desperate need for revenue due to absence of tax-collecting, made and unusual alliance with their merchant class
• Government founded scientific societies and offered prizes to promote innovation
• European merchants and innovators gained an unusual degree 
• Asia is home to the richest and the most sophisticated societies

Why Britain?

• Industrial Revolution began in Britain
• British political life encouraged commercialization and economic innovations
• Country had a large supply of coal and iron

The First Industrial Society:

• Railroads passed through Britain and much of Europe
• Many people affected in a negative way

The British Aristocracy:

• Land owning aristocrats were not affected during the Industrial Revolution, they continued to dominate English Parliament 
• High tariffs on foreign agriculture imports were abolished 

The Middle Classes:

• Benefited the most form industrialization (Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers, Teachers, Journalist)
• Liberals favoring constitutional government, private property, free trade and social reforms 
• Middle- Class women were housewives seen as moral centers of family life
• Women not allowed to work for profit
• Children removed form productive labor and sent to school leading to an educated workforce
• Rise in lower middle class (clerks, salespeople, bank tellers, police officers, hotel staff)
• Men and Women got new employment opportunities which allowed the m to join get middle class

The Laboring Classes:

• 70% or more of the population were known as "the rest" which were manual workers
• By 1851 a majority of the Britain population lived in towns and cities
• Cities were crowded, smokey, and unsanitary
• Industrialist favored girls and young unmarried women because they accepted lower wages
• Women of the laboring classes engaged in industrial work and as servants 

Social Protest:

• A variety of "friendly societies" were made
• Working-class would pay dues to a self-help group as insurance against sickness, funeral, etc.
• Trade unions legalized in 1824, factory workers joined unions for better wages & conditions
• Socialist ideas spread in working class, challenging the capitalist society
• Socialist established political parties all over Europe
• Middle and Lower class consisted of 30% of the population
• Middle class forming a sense of nationalism, bounding workers to their middle class employers

Europeans in Motion

• Between 1815-1939, 20% of Europe's population (50-55 million) moved to the Americas, New Zealand, South Africa
• Enormous demand for labor overseas, availability of land and cheap transportation
• About 7 million people returned to Europe
• U.S. was the most diverse, about 30 mil newcomers from Europe between 1820 and 1930
• U.S. had affordable land and a lot more industrial jobs

The U.S. Industrialization without Socialism:

• American Industrialization began in textile factories in New England
• Produced 36% of the worlds manufactured goods
• U.S. Steel Corporation by 1901 had an annual budge 3 times the size of the federal gov.
• Pioneered techniques for mass production
• In 1890's small farmers or "populist" railed against the abuse of capitalist industrialization (Banks, Industrializations, Monopolies and existing money systems)

Russia Industrialization and Revolution:

• Beginning of 20th century Russia lacked national parliament, political parties, and elections
• Until 1861 most Russians were still peasants, this was their in which they were freed
• 1890's Russia's Revolution launched
• Growing middle-class of businessmen and professionals 
• Until 1897 13hr working days were common
• 1898 created an illegal Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party concerned with workers education, union organizing and revolutionary actions
• 1914: 40% of entire work industrial work force went out on strike
• Only in Russian was industrialization associated with violent social revolution

Week Six

Atlantic Revolutions in a Global Context:

• By 1730's Safavid dynasty, that ruled Persia, collapsed
• Early 19th century Islamic revolutions shook West Africa
• Wars financially strained European imperial states (Britain, France and Spain)
• Atlantic revolutionaries shared a set of common goals
• Atlantic revolutions had a global impact

The North American Revolution (1775-1787):

• American Rev. was a struggle for independence from oppressive British rule
• Britain's West Indian colonies seemed more profitable and important than the ones in North America
• American Rev. occurred because Britain was trying to tighten control of the colonies and extract more revenue from them
• Britain's national debt was increasing
• New types of society emerged within the colonies
• Slavery gradually abolished in the North but still prevalent in the south
• The US became the worlds most democratic country 
• Expressed a tension of a colonial relationship with a distant imperial power

The French Revolution (1789-1815):

• The French aided the Americans when trying to escape British rule
• National Assembly which consisted of a representative form the clergy, nobility & commoners
• They drew up the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
• French insurrection was driven by sharp conflicts within French society 
• Efforts to establish a constitutional monarchy & promote harmony among the classes
• Peasants attacked their lords castles, burning the documents that recorder their dues 
• Slavery was abolished, briefly
• Guillotine became the primary source of execution
• French Rev. raised the question of female political equality (far more than the American Rev)
• French women were active in the major events of the revolution
• Over 60 women clubs established

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804):

• French Rev. impact the French Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue, lated named Haiti 
• 8k plantations, producing 40% of the worlds sugar and half of its coffee
• Due to rumors that the King had ended slavery, slaves burned 1,000 plantations and killed hundreds of whites. 
• Slaves, whites and free colored people began to battle one another
• Salves became equal, free and independent citizens
• Threw off French colonial rule, ebbing the second independent republic in the Americas and the first non-European state to emerge from Western colonialism
• Renamed the country "Haiti" meaning "mountainous" or "rugged" in their language
• All Haitian citizens were legally equal regardless of color or class

Spanish American Revolutions (1810-1825):

• Final act of Atlantic Rev. took place in the Spanish & Portuguese colonies of Latin America
• In 1808 Napoleon invaded Spain and Portugal, Portugal royal family had to move to Brazil
• With authority disorganized, Latin America took action
• Outcome was independence for various states in Latin America
• Established almost everywhere in 1826
• Creole sponsors of independence required the support of the people
• Native Americans and slaves benefited very little form independence
• Women helped reach independence, but were punished for their disloyalty to the crown
• Newly independent regions in Latin American because underdeveloped and impoverished

Week Five

Julie Billiart and Francoise Blin de Bourdon

• Wanted to help those vulnerable due to poverty or neglect
• SND formed in France
• Julie was humble, had sclerosis (abnormal hardening of body tissue) & couldn't speak clearly
• Francoise was an aristocrat, outdoors enthusiasts 
• Very different but soon formed a deep bond

Francoise’s early life & education (1756-1781)

• Raised by maternal grandparents
• Financially stable, attended elite boarding schools
• Learned practical skills, how to run a household
• Her and her grandmother checked on villagers well-being often
• At 12 she moved to continue her education
• At 16 she made her debut to French society
• Moved to Amiens

Julie’s early life & education (1751-1773)

• Raised in a small village
• Father sold lace and cloth, owned some land
• at age 9 she was already teaching poorer children about religion
• At 16 financial crisis happened, her fathers store was robbed
• Worked as a farmer for some income
• Early twenties formed muscular disorder, state of paralysis 

Francoise’s 20s & early 30s (1781-1794)

• Julie had people come to her room for lessons
• Francois refused to get married
• Cared for medial health of poor villagers
• Francis and her father arrested and incarcerated in Amiens

Julie’s 20s & 30s (1773 - 1794)

• Providing religious education, Julie became known as the Saint of Cuvilly
• Had some connections with both the First and the Second estates
• Had to be carried in a special chair due to her paralysis
• An active supporter of several non-juring priests

Julie & Francoise Meet in Amiens (1794)

• Francoise escaped the guillotine
• Friendship between Francoise and Julie developed during the Winter of 1794-95 while both were residents at the Blin home in Amiens
• Their sense of mission gradually formed into the founding principles of a new order of nuns
• Sisters of Notre Dame, established by Julie and Francoise together on February 2, 1804.

.

Week Four

A New Way of Thinking: The Birth of Modern Science

• Europeans Scientific Revolution took place mid-16th and early 18th century
• No longer relied on religious ideas, wanted explanations from facts and scientific evidence
• Science used to legitimize racial & gender inequlities

The Questions of Origins: Why Europe?

• Islam was much more advanced mathematically, medically, and in astronomy
• Europe evolved a legal system where a group of people (Church, Town, Universities) had certain rights to regulate and control their own members
• Major figures in the Scientific Revolution were affiliated with Universities in Europe 
• In the Islamic world science was patronized by local authorities 
• Arab medical, astronomical and greek information played a major role in the rebirth of European natural philosophy 
• Europe had a wave of new information about lands, people, animals etc. exclusive to them

Science as Cultural Revolution 

• European used to have a view of the world derived from Aristotle 
• Breakthrough of Scientific Rev. was Nicolaus Copernicus, sun was at the center of the universe
• Johannes Kepler realized planets follow elliptical orbits
• Isaac Newton formulated laws of motion and gravity, creating calculus 
• Rene Descartes emphasizing math and logic, creating geometry 

Science and Enlightenment

• Ideas of the Scientific Rev. spread to the European public during the 18th century 
• In the 1700's women's right were being questioned, and women were bring defended
• What made enlightenment revolutionary was that it was based on human progress

Looking Ahead: Science in the Nineteenth Century

• Perspectives on Enlightenment heavily challenged
• New ideas sparked, Darwinism 
• Ideas of changing human civilizations came about
• New psychological ideas, Freud

European Science beyond the West

• Ideas of Scientific Rev. spread globally
• European science impacted Chinese scholars
• Ottoman scholars chose not to translate major European findings 

Cultural Borrowing and Its Hazards 

• Borrowing is selective not wholesale
• Caused some conflict

Week Three

During this week I found it particularly interesting how the slave trade impacted Africa. They were introduced to corn which added calories to their diet, decreasing mortality rates. On the other hand they were losing a large fraction of their male population. This meant that the females of the area had to take over, therefore the women took over the work force. 

In chapter 15 we were able to learn about the globalization of Christianity. At first this religion was limited to Europe and the world wide religion was Islam. Christianity motivated political as well as economic expansion for Europeans. They created missionaries that were meant to spread the Christian message. The Portugese missionaries were mostly located in Africa and Asia. The Spanish and French missionaries were located in the Americas. Many people converted but those who considered themselves Confucian, Buddhist, Hindu or Islamic usually resisted the Christianity message. 

In Spanish America most Native Americans had been baptized or considered themselves to be Christian by the 1700's. This meant that women who had been priest or spiritual specialist had to retire since Christians believe that those are male roles. Europeans were the first to impose their religion on the Native people. Conquistadores before them allowed people to maintain their own traditions and their own ways of life. 

We also got to learn about China and India. Neither one of these experienced dramatic culture or religious changes, though there were slight ones. One of the new concepts was Neo-Confucianism which has a Confucian framework with a Buddhist and Daoism insight. There was also a new movement called Kaozheng which mean "research based on evidence". This movement seeked truth from facts which was critical for the founding of Confucian Philosophy. 

Week Two

In this weeks reading I found it interesting how the Spanish came to the Americas and enslaved the people Native to the land. The Natives were used for labor, but they eventually started dying off due to disease they had never encountered before. Central Mexico's population decreased from 10-20 million to about one million by 1650 and in North America about 9 out of every 10 Natives died. In order to replenish their working force, the Spanish began to import another race that was inferior, Africans.

Different groups brought different disease, crops, plants, and animals to the Americas which increased diversity. American crops, such as corn and potatoes, also made their way into the Eastern Hemisphere which increased calories intake for many people. Since people were living healthier lives due to these crops these populations began expanding. Essentially there was a worldwide exchange of people, food, animals and disease.

In the next chapter we learn about the Indian Ocean Commercial Network. Those who were trading along that territory wanted tropical spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, mace and pepper. Rather than trading the Europeans purchased Asian spices and textiles with cash, gold or silver since they did not have many valuables to trade. Once the Chinese abandoned the Indian Ocean Trade ships began to be pirated since there was no longer a major power. This allowed the Portuguese to create the "Trading POSt Empire" in the Indian Ocean which they did not succeed in doing. They began to sell shipping series to Asian ports but eventually they just settled in different Asian and African ports.

Spain challenged Portugal by establishing themselves in the Philippines, so they could grow and exploit the spice island. Spanish affect was not a pleasant one, they converted everyone into Catholicism, made them pay taxes and created unpaid labor. This ended up killing about 20 thousand people on the island, almost the entire Chinese population.

Later on the Dutch and English entered the Indian Ocean Trade. Since they were militarily and economically sound they were able to over throw Portugal, and started up private trading companies. The Dutch settled in Indonesia where they seized control of small-producing islands and limited their trade and sales only to the Dutch. British on the other hand focused on the cotton textiles in India, since they could not seem to get spices.

Eventually the Japanese won civil wards and thought european ideas were a threat to their culture sine they tried imposing their religion on them, so they were vanished. However, they kept trade with the Dutch since they were not imposing their religion or ideas.

Silver demand grew higher at the time, so mining in Bolivia only increased. Like any other currency when there is too much of it the value drops which occurred in the 17th century which meant the Spanish were no longer the wealthiest. That was when the Indian cotton textiles outsold the European good such as wool. The Chinese goods also surpassed those of the Spanish. Once weather began to cool down, furs joined silver, textiles, and spices as major items of global commerce.