Tuesday, September 20, 2016

How did demographic, environmental, medical, and technological changes shape the experience of everyday life in late nineteenth-century Europe through the years 1848 to 1914?

The significance of the period outlined in this question cannot be understated for European history. During this time, Europe saw an unprecedented rise to global prominence and power precisely because of changes within each of the categories included in your question. To illustrate this and encourage further exploration, I will trace a number of developments in each category to illustrate how life transformed during this period.
The 19th century as a whole ushered in a new era of economic intensification that allowed for explosions in demographics across the European continent and the world beyond. This was made possible by advancements in agriculture that enabled population booms as food was produced more efficiently. The birth of modern factories facilitated mass migrations of lower-class citizens, who moved into urban centers across the entire continent, and increased travel between nations created new opportunities for fluid demographic exchange. Factories began mass producing consumer goods that fed economic enfranchisement of lower-class citizens into the middle classes.
The birth of technologically-driven mass agriculture facilitated these demographic explosions but had cascading impacts on the European environment. Increasingly larger areas of European territories were devoted to agriculture and animal husbandry, and deforestation during this period was rampant to feed development and urbanization. However, these advancements proved fragile, as seen in the Irish potato blight that devastated the Irish countryside and sparked mass migrations due to environmental instability.
This period saw the birth of truly modern medical establishments, including hospitals, professional doctors' organizations, and more accurate models of disease, such as the bacteriological model. Phenomena such as epidemics began to be combated effectively by medical interventions, and efficacious vaccinations started to demonstrate the usefulness of medical technology to solve the health needs of the day. French, British, Scottish and German doctors all contributed to a thriving international culture of medical research in pursuit of medical advancements that served as the origin for many of Europe's most successful pharmaceutical companies to date.
No arena of public and private life went unchanged by technological advancements, whether in textile and iron manufacturing allowing for cheap mass consumer goods or the birth of rapid transit in the form of trains, steam engines, and airplanes. Military technology, too, saw major advancements during this period of relative inter-European calm. Besides a number of brief conflicts, including the Crimean War and the Franco-Prussian war, most European powers were focused on imperial conquests elsewhere, and the tenuous international order that followed the Napoleonic Wars held until the end of this period.
With all these changes, Europeans could expect to lead longer, healthier lives due to medical advances, be more hunger-free than any prior generation due to mass agriculture, travel with far more ease across Europe and the world, and witness the birth of thriving urban life that had major consequences for European culture in all aspects of life.

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