1919thth Century Timelines Century TimelinesEpisode Nine: Century of the Episode Nine: Century of the

Machine (1800-1900)Machine (1800-1900)

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/millennium/learning/timelines//

How the World Has Changed – World’s 5 Largest Urban Areas (million population)

1800

Peking (Beijing) 1.1

London .86

Canton .80

Edo (Tokyo) .69

Constantinople (Istanbul) .57

How the World Has Changed – World’s 5 Largest Urban Areas (million population)

1900

London 6.5

New York 4.2

Paris 3.3

Berlin 2.7

Chicago 1.7

The Larger Nineteenth-Century World Context

By 1800 the British navy ruled the seas but inexpensive Indian cottons still ruled the English markets. Beautifully hand-crafted, brightly-colored calico prints were far more desirable than traditional, scratchy English wool. English merchants sought ways to compete.

The answer lay in the mechanization of the spinning and weaving process. The wave of industrialization that followed these early innovations in textile manufacturing had a greater impact on people around the world than any change since the agricultural revolution.

Industrialization

Industrialization came in three distinct stages. First, machines were invented to augment human labor. John McKay's flying shuttle and James Hargreaves' spinning jenny reduced the number of workers needed for making textiles and speeded up the process.

In the second stage, inexpensive sources of power replaced the efforts of humans and animals. The water wheel is an early example, but a far more satisfactory attempt was James Watt's steam engine. The need for durable machines stimulated the development of the Bessemer process to produce the strong, high-grade steel needed to make these machines.

In the third stage, engineers analyzed and improved the process of manufacturing. Eli Whitney introduced interchangeable parts for his inventions, making the production process more efficient. Henry Ford's assembly line would similarly speed up production in the twentieth century.

Transportation and Communication

Cheap manufactured products were ready for shipment everywhere. The balance of trade shifted to the West, as London became the world's new financial capital. Modern corporations were formed. Plans for the Suez and Panama Canals moved from the drawing board to the construction phase.

The steam engine opened new lands to railroad transport and seas to steamships. Both of these inexpensive, reliable modes of transportation were scheduled and coordinated with the use of the telegraph. From 1850 to 1900, transport and communications improved and reached a global scale

Labor, Migrations, and Demographic Change

Populations continued to expand in most parts of the world, though isolated peoples in Polynesia and Siberia died of infectious diseases. In the early decades of the century, the plantation system was expanded, increasing the demand for African slave labor.

When slavery was abolished toward the end of the century, contract laborers from India and then China replaced slave laborers. Factories were hiring the poor; even young children were willing to work long hours in dangerous conditions for reduced wages.

As some nations passed legislation to regulate child labor, poor European immigrants became the new work force. By the end of the century, nearly 50 million Europeans had immigrated to new lands.

Consequences of Industrialization

Industrialization caused significant disruption within and between societies around the world. Mid-century conflicts like the Opium Wars, the Crimean War, and the American Civil War demonstrated the advantages industrialized societies achieved by using mass-produced weaponry in armed conflicts.

The century ended with the Battle of Omdurman (1898) in which the British killed eleven thousand Sudanese and lost <400 soldiers. Industrialization also brought changes to the basic organization of societies; as Japan and Russia began industrializing, their class structures changed.

Quest for Raw Materials and Markets

The second half of the nineteenth century, for industrialized societies, ushered in an imperialist quest for raw materials, new markets, and new territories. For non-industrialized societies, the nineteenth century brought conquest, colonialism, and dependency.

Those who sold raw materials and bought manufactured goods in an era of free trade were at a disadvantage. Societies like India and China, which had strong economies in 1750, were unable to develop their own manufacturing capabilities and compete in the global market.

Mass-produced rifles, automatic machine guns, and armored warships had given industrialized societies an important advantage. The century ended with Europe, the United States, and Japan locked in a contest for markets, raw materials, and colonies.

Dates/Developments of the 19 Century

1804 – Haiti wins independence

1812 – Canned Food

1819 – Bolivar liberates Colombia,

1826 – First photograph

1829 – First water filtration

1830 – First all-steam railway

1834 – Refrigeration

1838 – Rise of labor movement

1839 – Goodyear vulcanizes rubber

1844 – Marx meets Engels,

1844 – Morse’s telegraph

1846 – Anesthesia used in surgery

1848 – Birth of women’s suffrage movement

1851 – Singer sewing machine

1854 – Otis’s elevator

1854 – Bessemer refines steel

1859 – First oil well drilled

1859 – Darwin’s Origin of the Species,

1865 – Civil War ends U.S. slavery,

1866 – Mendel’s Law of Heredity

1867 – Nobel invents dynamite

1869 – Suez Canal opens

1876 – Bell invents telephone

1876 – Edison opens laboratory

1882 – Germ theory of disease proved

1886 – Coca-Cola bottled

1895 – First motion picture

1895 – Rontgen discovers X-rays

1896 – Modern Olympics

Nineteenth Century PeopleJane Addams 1860 – 1935,

Jane Addams founded Chicago's Hull House, one of the first settlement houses in North America, in 1889. Regarded as the mother of social work,

Susan B. Anthony 1820 – 1906,

Her tireless campaign for women's suffrage made her a leader in the first wave of American feminism. After brazenly casting a vote in 1872, she was arrested and fined $100 (which she never paid). The ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, 14 years after her death, finally confirmed her credo, "Failure is impossible."

Phineas T. Barnum 1810 – 1891

The patron saint of promoters, he had a flair for the spectacular that was -- and perhaps still is – unmatched. The circus he dubbed the Greatest Show on Earth, sealed his reputation as the consummate showman.

Ludwig von Beethoven

Arguably Western music's greatest composer, expanded the traditional sonata, quartet, concerto and symphony into personal expressions both sublime and profound.

Alexander Graham Bell 1847 – 1922

When Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone in 1876. Three days after the patent was issued, or so the legend goes, he spilled battery acid on his clothes while working near a transmitter in his lab. His shout for help to his assistant became the first phone transmission of voice.

Otto von Bismark 1815 – 1898

Otto von Bismarck unified his homeland with other German states into a single powerful nation. Remembered by some as a moderate, he's seen by others as a ruthless conservative who set the stage for fascism.

Charles Darwin

Though not the sole originator of the evolution hypothesis, nor even the first to apply the concept of descent to plants and animals, he was the first thinker to gain for that theory a wide acceptance among biological experts.

Simon Bolivar 1783 – 1830,

El Libertador devoted his life to fighting for the independence of northern South America. Military leader, statesman, dictator, Simón Bolívar was also the emancipator of Venezuela and Colombia and a key figure in the liberation of Ecuador and Peru.  

Napoleon Bonaparte 1769 – 1821

Napoléon Bonaparte seized power in France in 1799 and quickly set out to conquer the world. He said he hoped to build a federation of free governments throughout Europe. But to some, Napoleon looked like a tyrant.

Nicephore Niepce 1765 - 1833 Louis Daguerre 1789 – 1851

In 1826, the Frenchman Joseph-Nicéphore Niépce took a picture of a courtyard and a granary framed by a pigeon house and a bread oven’s chimney. This eight-hour exposure, was the world's first photograph. Later Louis Daguerre reproduced an image that required just a 20 minutes' exposure

Frederick Douglas 1818 – 1895

A self-made intellectual, he decried the ignorance and bigotry of a slave society. Crisscrossing the Union, he testified about the bonds that held his people's bodies and souls. His first autobiography was an overnight success; his North Star newspaper was, like Douglass himself, a never-to-be-ignored beacon of morality.

 

Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931

In 1879, Thomas Edison gave humans the power to create light without fire, by inventing a long-lasting, affordable incandescent lamp. The night after his funeral, Americans dimmed their lights for the man who lit up the world. 

Michael Faraday 1791 – 1867

He laid the groundwork for the electrical age. The Englishman's discoveries and inventions dealing with magnetic fields and electric currents showed there was promise in power.

Theodore Herzl 1860 – 1904

Theodor Herzl is considered the father of the movement that eventually led to the founding of a Jewish state, Israel. 

Abraham Lincoln 1809 – 1865

When Abraham Lincoln took his first presidential oath in 1861, he faced the greatest crisis in his nation's history. The fabric of the American experiment, "a more perfect Union," was being torn apart. This son of a poor Kentucky farmer led his countrymen -- South as well as North -- back to union.

Joseph Lister 1827 – 1912

Joseph Lister revolutionized surgery. Inspired by Pasteur, he reasoned that if microbes could cause infection, they could be killed before reaching the open wound. His method, employing carbolic acid as an antiseptic on dressings and instruments as well as on surgeons and patients, resulted in stunning statistics.

Karl Marx 1818 – 1883

He devoted his life to political journalism, supported by his patron and writing partner, Friedrich Engels. Marx's vision of a postcapitalist world where the working class owns the means of production has not come to pass, but his critique of the class system has inspired millions.

Hiram Maxim 1840 – 1916

He changed the way we wage war. In 1884, Hiram Maxim, an American-born British inventor, developed a recoil mechanism that made it possible to load cartridges into a machine gun and eject them without using a hand crank. As a result World War I came to be called the machine gun war.

Gregor Mendel 1882 – 1884

Gregor Mendel, a 19th century Austrian monk, discovered a basic principle of biology. Not until 16 years after his death was he recognized for having discovered the fundamentals of genetics.

Samuel F.B. Morse 1791 – 1872

Morse developed the first telegraph machine. By 1844, when he wired (in his Morse Code) the biblical verse "What hath God wrought!" from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, there was no question that Morse – an influential painter and publisher as well as an inventor -- had invented a new way to communicate.

Florence Nightingale 1820 – 1910

Florence Nightingale served with the British army during the Crimean War, turning filthy, vermin-infested camps where the wounded were brought to die into clean wards where they could heal.. Nightingale worked for improved conditions in hospitals and workhouses, and established the first school for nurses.

Louis Pasteur 1822 – 1895

The French chemist discovered that heat killed the microorganisms that turned wine sour. The process of "pasteurization" is now applied to many foods and beverages. His greatest contribution was his work on the germ theory of disease. Pasteur founded the modern science of immunology.

Santiago Ramon y Cajal 1852 – 1934

Ramon y Cajal's work is the foundation of modern neuroscience, the study of everything from the biological basis of psychology to how a person learns, remembers, smells, sees, walks and talks – in essence, how the brain makes us what we are.

John D. Rockefeller 1839 – 1937

John D. Rockefeller was the first billionaire, building his pile on the monolithic Standard Oil Co. At age 58, after three decades as an oilman, the robber baron turned to charity. He spent $540 million -- the equivalent of $5.6 billion today – on projects primarily in medical research and education.

Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943

His work on the rotating magnetic field and alternating current (AC, as in AC/DC, the patents for which he sold to George Westinghouse in 1885) helped electrify the world by enabling power to travel over wires to customers great distances away.

Leo Tolstoy 1828 – 1910

The son of a Russian nobleman, Leo Tolstoy began wrestling with questions about the purpose of life while writing Anna Karenina. The author of War and Peace attracted admirers from around the world, including a fellow believer in nonviolence, Mohandas Gandhi.

Video Segments for the 19th Century

Britain - Improved Transportation

In nineteenth-century Britain, engineers and inventors became heroes. The newly industrialized powers also had further means to expand, colonize, and control the world

England – Darwin and the “survival of the fittest”

Charles Darwin, a young scientist conducting a world survey for the Royal Navy, developed astounding new theories about evolution. The doctrine of "survival of the fittest" was interpreted as justification for the nations of the West to dominate and conquer other less "fit" cultures.

United States – The Westward Movement

Nineteenth-century mechanization also contributed to the drift of American settlers westward. Steel plows and railroads made settlement of the prairies easier.

China – Trade, England and the Opium Wars

China¹s position as a world-trade power changed in this century when the British used new steam gunboats to defeat China in the Opium Wars. China is opened up to European powers and to Western ways.

Europe – Industrialization, Human and Political Rights

Industrialization changed the conditions of many people's lives. For some, manufactured goods improved living conditions, but others were stirred to protest the factories and the hardships they created.

Legacies of the Nineteenth CenturyLegacies of the Nineteenth Century

The most significant legacy of this century is the The most significant legacy of this century is the Industrial Revolution, which changed work habits Industrial Revolution, which changed work habits and family structure, introduced a new style of and family structure, introduced a new style of urban living, and increased the number of ways urban living, and increased the number of ways we have to communicate with one another. we have to communicate with one another. Industrialization transformed societies and Industrialization transformed societies and unleashed an imperial race for raw materials and unleashed an imperial race for raw materials and markets. markets. The experiences of the colonized shaped the The experiences of the colonized shaped the various independence movements of the various independence movements of the twentieth century. twentieth century.

Legacies of the Nineteenth CenturyLegacies of the Nineteenth Century

Reactions to imperial expansion set Reactions to imperial expansion set the stage for the many armed the stage for the many armed conflicts of the twentieth century. conflicts of the twentieth century.

Mass produced goods were cheaper. Mass produced goods were cheaper. Industrialization provided better Industrialization provided better food, housing, and clothing. The food, housing, and clothing. The quality of people's lives improved. quality of people's lives improved.