540 Ch. 14 • The Industrial Revolution

A Culture of Comfort

The European middle classes gradually shaped a culture based on comfort
and privacy. Most bourgeois families were able to employ one or more ser­
vants and had apartments of several rooms. The wealthiest usually occu­
pied the first floors of apartment buildings—but rarely the ground floor,
where the concierge lived—while less well-off neighbors had to hike fur­
ther up the stairs.

A cross section of a Parisian apartment building, about 1850. Note that with the

exception of the concierge’s apartment on the ground floor, the farther you had to

walk up the stairs, the less well off you were.