History 121D9

Farm output rose substantially during the industrial revolution

Machinery is going to be found on the large factory farms as

opposed to the small independent ones

By 1850, European grain producers were finding stiff competition

from the US, Canada, and Australia

This would bring a decline in the prices of food for the average

person
Thousands and millions of people are flocking into the cities to

find work
Farms are becoming increasingly large which displaces the

smaller factory farms

Conditions from underemployment to severe poverty plagued

displaced farmers
Some farmers do remain competitive even as mechanization

increases
Instead of starving to death, farmers are living in abject poverty
In Britain, roughly 4,000 landowners possessed 4/7 of the land

and about 250,000 farmers worked it

They werent many alternatives for those driven off the land
The greatest wave of migration off the European continent came
in the later half of the 19th and early decades of the 20th

centuries
Over the course of the 19th century, roughly 200 million

Europeans settled elsewhere

Some farmers worked in handicrafts, worked as tenant farmers,

or became laborers
There is famine from these bad harvests
One of the way that people tried to keep from dying was to find
food substitutes

Famine bread was made from manure and hay or was bread

made from bean plants (which was totally indigestible)

A truly bad harvest could produce an excess of deaths over

births
Switzerland had a famine in 1817
1846-1848 was a European wide hunger/famine
In most of Prussia, 1/3 of the entire population stopped eating

bread and switched to potatoes

The potato blight came and destroyed the potato crop in most of

the European continent

Many areas began to rely heavily on the potato
They are more productive and more resistant to diseases that

could cause famine

The great potato famine in Ireland would cause death or

migration for most of the country

It was common for men to dress as women in periods of uprising
In peasant societies, a certain number of villages have common

areas
This is where people raise livestock and a large number of

peasants relied on the forests for subsistence

There is the introduction of new methods of farming where you

dont have fallow fields

Farmers would raise livestock on the fields that were left fallow
The enormous growth of the iron and leather industry require

enormous amounts of forest products

Bark for leather and charcoal to forge pig iron
So you have two separate groups both vying for the right to use

forests and lands for economic survival

Many states had laws that protected use of the lands by the
conglomerates

In many areas, laws were enacted that made the forest the

property of a large factory

In Southern Italy, peasants started to occupy disputed land so if

they were wanted off, troops would have to come in

Petty crime statistics started to be collected in the 19th century
By the mid-1840s, 1 inhabitant in 3 was convicted for the crime

of theft of wood
If the common property becomes private property and you cut

someones wood, it becomes stealing

The industrial revolution upends the traditional definition of

property
It is making private property out of what once used to be

collective property
In areas of western France, there is virtual civil war between

peasants and those that want to privatize the land

If you were a peasant and you wanted to sabotage your landlord
but didnt want to be whipped, you would work on his land slowly

and poorly and the days that you were forced to

There are rural revolutions that coincide with urban revolutions
Serf revolts are common throughout the century
A serf revolt in Galicia saw 1000 nobles murdered
In epidemics, peasants would hear rumors that the nobles were

poisoning the wells and slaughter them

Violent forms of resistance were a final response in the fruitless

effort to halt the expansions of rural capitalism

There were tensions between wealthy and poor peasants,

peasants and landlords, etc.

Rural hand weavers responded to poor working conditions with
Luddism

The Luddites engaged in what were called Swing riots as the

leader was Captain Swing

The worst poverty in Europe was in the countryside
Revolution, 1815-1848
There were a number of revolts during this period
There was not a single ruler who was safe from revolt
Decembrist Revolt1825, Greek Revolution1829, French

Revolution1830, and others

Ultimately, according to historians, these revolutions

accomplished nothing because they all fail

They dont establish new regimes, as in managed in France and

Russia
Authorities that were overthrown generally return to power
In spite of this, this period is one of the largest revolutionary

periods in world history

It is truly a pan-European revolution which is a logical

culmination of the developments that weve been looking at

So much of the European continent is still in transition
There is a seeming rapidly growing strength of the liberals and

the radicals
There is a growing frustration with the revolutions of the 1830s
Many of their goals have been thwarted so they begin to get

frustrated
Socialism emerges in the 19th century and becomes the major

competitor of liberalism
Peasants begin to take there first tentative movements onto the

political stage
Every time the peasants are frustrated, the ??
There is a complete disregard in the government towards the
horrific living conditions of the peasants

There are continually thwarted nationalist aspirations in the

Hapsburg empire and the Italian states

The continent was a tinderbox that just needed a spark
The spark was the acute economic crisis of 1845-1847
The 1840s had witnessed several bad harvests
There was an economic recession and various panics in the

financial and banking sectors of the economy

There is a movement towards production and market oriented

agriculture
This transition is causing conflict among peasants
In the spring of 1847, the prices of foodstuffs had doubled since

the 1840s
There were widespread bread and potato riots
Railroads helped to move products much more quickly
When food prices are high, people have less to spend on goods
Artisans and others lose wages and this sparks a widespread

recession
There is substantial unemployment throughout Europe
It was seen mainly in Paris
As prices shoot up, more people have to borrow
This leads to a credit crisis
In this transitional period, there was not a modern finance

system
In many areas, the finance system just collapsed
Credit crises stemming from bad harvests were the sparks of

these revolutions
These are not the revolutions of the 1820s and 1830s which
consisted of bourgeoisie who might use the peasants for their

purposes
The fact that the peasants were so discontent is the reason why

socialism and radicalism were so popular

Swiss Civil War (Sonderbund War)1847

Political organization was on the rise in this period even though

political organization was illegal

Petitions are often submitted to monarchs calling for liberal
demands: a constitution and a legislative body with lawmaking

power
Many monarchs said that no piece of paper would come between

them and their people

Political organization was illegal, so many liberals and radicals

start having banquets where the conversation turns political

In the Northern Italian states, campaigns were launched against

Austrian rule
In Prussia, a United Diet took place and refused to create new

loans unless the monarch made it a permanent legislative body

Frederic Wilhelm III refused
Even in the papal states was there call to reform
In late 1847, it was very clear that something was about to

happen
There were long economic crises that promoted discontent, there

was the liberal reform campaign

The authorities lacked the will to repress the liberal reform

movement
On the 29th of January of 1848, Alexis de Tocqueville expressed

sentiments that were widely held amongst the bourgeoisie

He disagreed that because there was no visible disorder, there
was no revolution at hand. He was convinced that they were

sleeping on a volcano and that revolution was at hand

The shopkeepers were seen to be unhappy
This was no longer a liberal revolt, this was a true social
revolution