1. La Belle Époque [1871-1914]: “The Beautiful Era”

2. Characteristics of La 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

3. La Belle Epoch Mass 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

4. La Belle Epoch 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 prices
2. Development “zones”
Inner Zone  Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, N Italy ,W Austria
Outer Zone  Ireland, Iberia, Italy, Eastern Europe
Underdeveloped Zone  Africa & Asia

5. New Inventions Larger factories Steamships 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)

6. La Belle Epoch 3. Free Trade & Protectionism
4. Economy ->World Markets -> Booms & Bust cycle
5. Advance of Democracy Extension of the vote to the working class. Creating a “welfare state.”
6. Materialism…Consumerism (consumer economy)
Higher standard of living
Department Stores created 1870
7. Migration from Europe
 60 million left Europe
Emigrate to  US, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Australia

7. La Belle Epoch 8. Increased European Population
1/5th of worlds population ( million from )
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-
Joseph Lister-
Medical schools developed

8. Mass 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’

9. La Belle Epoch 10. 11. Education-
Most of western Europeans became literate
Maria Montessori ( )
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 Zionism”

10. La Belle Epoch Women’s Movement- ‘Feminism’
They can work white collar jobs, but still raise the kids
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

11. La 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

12. La Belle Epoch 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.

13. La Belle Epoch Psychology Ivan Pavlov  conditioned responses
Sigmund Freud  psychoanalysis
The Interpretation of Dreams [1900]
The role of the unconscious [id, ego, super ego].
Friedrich Nietzsche ->Übermensch  “Super Man”->Morality is personal
Internal Religious Struggles
modernists vs. fundamentalists

14. La Belle Epoch Realism and Naturalism
Literature movement that is opposite of Romanticism
Attention to good and bad aspects of industrial states
Charles Dickens
Emile Zola
George Bernard Shaw
Leo Tolstoy- War and Peace

15. ART- Reflects economic, political and social problems
Impressionism- ‘Capture what the eye sees’
Use of lights and shadows, visible
brushstrokes and backgrounds
Claude Monet Pierre August Renoir
Edgar Degas Edmond Manet
Monet

16. <- Degas Renoir ^

17. Manet

18. Moving away from lights and
Postimpressionism
Moving away from lights and
shadow use
Van Gogh George Seurat

20. Expressionism
Distortion of color and use of color to capture problems in Europe

21. Cubism / Futurism
Glorified the influence of technology
Picasso