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Social Structure of the Mass Society:
Improvements
- a. Despite improvements, wide disparities of wealth existed
- i. Wealthiest members of the upper middle classes were finding their way into the upper classes and the numbers of the middle classes were growing, most Europeans still in lower classes
- ii. Top of European society was wealthy elite (5% of population) with 30-40% of wealth
- 1. Aristocrats, industrialists, bankers, etc.
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Big business
- i. Big business had produced this group of wealthy plutocrats, while aristocrats, whose income from landed estates had declined, invested in railway shares, public utilities, government bonds, and businesses, sometimes on their own estates
- 1. The greatest fortunes shifted into the hands of the upper middle class
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Aristocrats and plutocrats
i. Increasingly, aristocrats and plutocrats fused as the wealthy upper middle class purchased landed estates to join the aristocrats in the pleasures of country living and the aristocrats bought lavish town houses for part-time urban life
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Common bonds
- 1. Common bonds were forged when sons of wealthy middle-class families were admitted to the elite schools dominated by the children of the aristocracy
- a. At Oxford, the landed upper class made up 40% of the student body in 1870 but only 15% in 1910, while undergraduates from business families went from 7à 21% during the same period
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educated elite
i. This educated elite, whether aristocratic or middle class in background, assumed leadership roles in government bureaucracies and military hierarchies
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Marriage
- i. Marriage also served to unite the two groups
- 1. Daughters of tycoons acquired titles, while aristocratic heirs gained new sources of cash
- a. Wealthy American heiresses were in special demand
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Middle Classes
- i. The middle classes consisted of a variety of groups
- 1. Below upper middle class was level that included professionals in law, medicine, as well as merchants, etc.
- 2. Industrial expansion of 19th also added new groups to this segment of the middle class
- a. Included business managers and new professionals, such as engineers, architects, accountants, and chemists who formed professional associations as the symbols of their newfound importance
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Lower middle class
- 1. lower middle class of small shopkeepers, traders, manufacturers, and prosperous peasants provided goods and services for the classes above them
- 2. Between lower middle class and lower class were white collar workers who were the product of the Second IR
- a. Traveling sales reps, bookkeepers, secretaries, etc.
- i. Property less and paid little more than skilled laborers, they were committed to middle-class ideals and optimistic about improving their status
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Moderately prosperous and successful middle classes
- 1. Moderately prosperous and successful middle classes shared a common lifestyle and values that dominated 19th century society
- a. Members of the middle class were active in preaching worldview to children and upper and lower classes of their society, especially in Victorian Britain
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European middle classes
- 1. It was the European middle classes who accepted and promulgated the importance of progress and science
- a. They believed in hard work, which they viewed as the primary human good, open to everyone and guaranteed to have positive results
- b. They were also regular churchgoers who believed in good conduct associated with traditional Christian morality
- i. Middle class concerned with proprietyà books aimed at middle-class markets with titles as The Habits of Good Society, etc.
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Lower classes
- i. Almost 80% belonged to lower classes
- 1. Many were landholding peasants, agricultural laborers, and sharecroppers, especially in eastern Europe
- a. Less true in w. and c. Europe
- 2. Many prosperous, landowning peasants shared the values of the middle class
- a. Military conscription brought peasants into contact with the other groups of society, and state-run elementary schools forced the children of peasants to speak the national dialect and accept national loyalties
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Urban working class
- 1. The urban working class consisted of many different groups, including skilled artisans in such trades as cabinetmaking, printing, and jewelry making
- 2. Semiskilled laborers earned wages that were about two-thirds of those of highly skilled workers
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At bottom of the working class
- 1. At the bottom of the working-class hierarchy stood the largest group of workers, the unskilled laborers, including day laborers and domestic servants
- 2. Urban workers experienced a real betterment in the material conditions of their lives after 1871
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Urban improvements
- a. Urban improvements meant better living conditions
- i. Rise in real wages, accompanied by decline in many consumer costs, made it possible for workers to buy more than just food and housing, but clothes and leisure
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