A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

514 Ch. 14 • The Industrial Revolution

A factory town in Germany in the 1830s.

which burgeoned as never before. Conditions of life in gritty industrial
towns were appalling. At the same time, large-scale industrialization
undercut many artisans, who lost protection when guilds were abolished
under the influence of the French Revolution. Mechanization undercut
their livelihood. At the same time, lurid but not inaccurate accounts of the
awful conditions of workers (men, women, and children) in factories and
mines began to reach the public. Calls for state-sponsored reform from
state officials and middle-class moralists echoed far and wide. Moreover,
many skilled workers in Western Europe not only protested harsh condi­
tions of work and life but began to see themselves as a class with interests
defined by shared work experience. During the 1830s and 1840s, workers
began to demand social and political reform. Proclaiming the equality of
all people, the dignity of labor, and the perniciousness of unrestrained
capitalism, the first socialists challenged the existing economic, social, and
political order.

Preconditions for Transformation

We have come to call the transformation of the European economy the

“Industrial Revolution.” It began in England and parts of northwestern

Europe during the eighteenth century (see Chapter 10). Early histories of