Mass Society and Popular Culture

I. Second Industrial Revolution

A. New technologies based on oil, electricity and chemicals

B. Acceleration of earlier industrial trends

1. population expansion

2. growth of the middle classes, democracy and trade unions

3. expansion of public institutions, especially education

C. New Patterns of consumption

1. expendable income and free time. The "weekend" is invented.

2. demand for entertainment suitable for the masses

II. Political power of the masses

A. Promise and limits of liberal and republican politics in Britain and France

1. ideology of rights, votes and free markets

2. best suited to the middle classes

B. Conservative governments concede some power to working men.

1. Britain: Benjamin Disraeli extends vote to most working men (1867)

a. Disraeli also legalizes strikes in 1875

2. France: universal suffrage since 1848; unions legal in 1884

3. Germany: Bismarck outlaws Socialist Party

a. but is the first to create social safety net

C. Conservatives appeal to the masses with politics of nationalism

1. imperialism and military strength

2. racism

III. Public Education

A. Reasons for adoption of compulsory elementary education

1. demands of the new economy

2. moral discipline for the urban working class

3. instilling nationalist identity and loyalty

B. cultural side-effects of mass education

1. a new profession for women

2. mass literacy for the first time

3. creating demand for popular literature

IV. Feminism

A. Emerges in the liberal middle classes. Well done, Mrs. Banks!

1. John Stuart Mill's promotion of women's suffrage in 1867

2. Practical advance in social reform movements, especially urban missions and temperance

B. Legal and educational advances

1. property rights for married women in Britain, 1870

2. teacher training colleges

3. university and professions very slowly open up

V. Divide of elite and popular culture

A. elite culture: modernism

1. abstraction and dissonance

2. interest in complication, conflict and struggle

3. examples in art

a. Claude Monet

b. Edvard Munch

B. Organized sports as leisure and entertainment

1. based on English team sports

2. good for socialization

3. formation of urban masculinity

4. professional sports as entertainment

a. the myth of sports

C. Popular music

1. music hall entertainments

2. sheet music for home use

3. eventually records and film