| Glossary term | Definition |
| Industrialism | The process of economic transformation that began in Britain in the 1770s and 1780s. This process involved the rise of numerous technological innovations which in turn had lasting effects on the socioeconomic and cultural landscape of Europe. |
| Urbanization | The increase in the population of cities in relation to a region’s rural population. In the eighteenth century, Europe experienced massive migration from rural to more urban areas as factories offered more job opportunities. |
| Serfs | Peasants or laborers bound by a feudal contract to a lord which offers them protection in turn for working of the land. During the nineteenth century industrializing European countries saw a decline in the number of these peasants. |
| “putting out system” (cottage industries) | A system in which contractors or merchants supply raw materials to independent laborers working out of the home (mostly women) and then sell the finished goods. |
| “piecework” | The term used to describe the products of the ‘putting out system”. Women working at home were able to provide work for smaller “piece rates’ and thus took over many predominantly male occupations such as tailoring. |
| Factory Act of 1833 | Act passed in the United Kingdom to establish a regular working day in the textile industry. It outlawed the employment of children under the age of 9 in most textile mills and limited workdays for children 9-13 to 9hrs a day and 13-18 to 12hrs a day. |
| 1842 Mines Act | An act passed in the United Kingdom which prohibits the employment of women and girls underground. |
| Elizabeth Barrett Browning | One of the most respected poets of the Victorian era. Her poems such as “The Cry of the Children” denouncing child labour made her a champion of the oppressed in a time of great social change. |
| Charles Dickens | The foremost novelist of the Victorian era as well as a vigorous social campaigner. Known for his rich storytelling and memorable characters in such timeless classics as “Oliver Twist”, “David Copperfield” and “A Tale of Two Cities”. |
| Charlotte Bronte | An English novelist best known for her first novel “Jane Eyre”, a romance novel about a young governess who captures the heart of her employer. |
| George Sand | Pseudonym of French novelist and feminist of true name Amandine Dupin. Well known for her book “Indiana”, she most often depicted independent women. A highly controversial literary and political figure, she was often seen dressed in male clothing. |
| The Sunday School Movement | Movement that aimed to restore religion to the working classes of industrial Europe. The movement offered working-class children the opportunity to learn how to read at a time when most could not attend school during the week. |
| The British and Foreign Temperance Society | A London-based society established in 1831 as part of the Temperance Movement. It matched the original of these societies, the American Temperance Society, in its opposition to all alcohol. |
| S.P.C.A. (The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) | A society established to combat the blood sports considered cruel to animals such as cockfighting and bearbaiting. One of many organizations seeking to eliminate such popular recreations in an attempt to impose order and discipline on the working-class. |
| Colonialism | The extension of a nation's sovereignty over territory beyond its borders by the establishment of settler colonies in which indigenous populations are directly ruled and often subject to slave labor. |
| Imperialism | Policy of extending authority over foreign entities by more indirect methods of exerting control on the politics and/or economy. This often involves injecting the linguistic and social customs of the conquerors into the conquered population. |
| The East India Company | One of the first joint-stock companies, granted an English Royal Charter by Elizabeth I with the intention of favouring trade privileges in India. In the 19th century it transformed from a commercial trading venture to one that virtually ruled India. |
| Treaty of Nanking | Treaty between the East India Company and the Chinese government to settle the Opium Wars. It established British sovereignty in Hong Kong, opened four more Chinese ports to Europeans, and forced China to pay a war indemnity to Britain. |
| Opium Wars (Anglo-Chinese Wars) | Two wars fought in the mid-1800s that marked the climax of a long dispute between the Chinese government and the East India Company who had established a prosperous opium trade in China despite the ban imposed by the Qing Emperor. |
| Nationalism | An ideology that holds that a nation is the fundamental unit for human social life, and takes precedence over any other social and political principles. |
| Adam Mickiewiz | Hero of the Polish nationalist movement and founder of the Polish Legion. His writings portrayed Poles as martyrs with an international Christian mission. |
| Giuseppe Mazzini | Italian patriot, philosopher, politician and founder of Young Italy. His efforts helped bring about the modern Italian state in place of the several separate states. |
| Young Italy | A political movement founded in 1831 by Giuseppe Mazzini whose basic principle was the union of the several states and kingdoms of the peninsula into a single republic as the only true foundation of Italian liberty. |
| Zollverein | Also known as the German Customs Union, it was a union formed between the states of the German confederation in 1834 to remove internal customs barriers, while upholding a protectionist tariff system with foreign trade partners. |
| Slavophile | Advocate of the uniqueness of Slavic culture compared with others. Concentrated, for the most part, in Russia in the nineteenth century they rejected the political and social reforms of the West in favor of traditional Russian customs. |
| The Social Question | An expression reflecting the widely shared concern about social changes arising from industrialization and urbanization. Many romantic writers, poets and artists of the time addressed this issue explicitly in their works. |
| Young Ireland Movement | A movement began in 1842 in resistance to English occupation of Ireland. Members of the movement sought to recover Irish history and preserve the Gaelic language. |
| Daniel O’Connell | Ireland's predominant political leader in the first half of the 19th century. A member of the British House of Commons, he campaigned for Catholic Emancipation and Repeal of the Union between Ireland and Great Britain. |
| Anti-Corn Law League | League founded in Manchester in 1839 to achieve the abolition of the Corn laws and to establish a fully free-trade economy in order to decrease the price of basic food products and support the performance of agriculture and industry. |
| Repeal of Corn Laws | In 1846, after the first appearance of the potato blight in Ireland, conservative Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel made a controversial move in an attempt to lower the price of basic food products. This decision would eventually force him to resign. |
| Lajos Kossouth | Magyar nationalist who advocated American democracy and British political liberalism. In 1844 he founded the Protective Association whose members bought only Hungarian goods to combat “colonial dependence” on Austria. |
| Louis Blanc | French historian and socialist politician whose Organization of Labor stressed the importance of working class associations and thus deeply influenced the French labor movement. |
| Pierre-Joseph Proudhon | French political philosopher who was the first individual to call himself an "anarchist". In his book What is theft?, he makes his most famous assertion that “property is theft!” and argues that labor alone is productive. |
| Etienne Cabet | French philosopher and utopian socialist who was the first to coin the term “communist”. His Travels in Icaria depicted an ideal society in which an elected government controlled all economic activity and supervised social affairs. |
| Karl Marx | German philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary most famous for the Communist Manifesto. He believed that the downfall of capitalism was inevitable, and that it would be replaced by communism. |
| Friedrich Engels | German political philosopher who wrote The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, collaborated with Karl Marx to develop the communist theory known as Marxism and co-authored the Communist Manifesto in 1848. |
| The Communist Manifesto | Written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to lay out the purposes and program of the Communist League. It suggested a course of action for a proletarian revolution to overthrow the bourgeoisie and to eventually bring about a classless society. |
| Chartists | Radical social and political reformers who aimed to transform Britain into a democracy. They gained their name from the People's Charter of 1838, which set out the six main aims of the movement to which they belonged. |
| The People’s Charter | A series of objectives published in 1838 calling for universal manhood suffrage, voting by secret ballot, equal electoral districts, annual elections, and an elimination of property qualifications for members of parliament. |
| Friedrich C. Schlosser | German historian who wrote the popular eighteen-volume General History for the German People. This book and other such histories were read avidly by the nationalists of the 19th century as they substantiated claims for a common national identity. |
| Thomas Macaulay | English poet, historian and Whig politician who aimed to broaden history to include the everyday life of British people as well as politics, war, and diplomacy. |
| Alexandre Dumas | French writer, best known for his numerous historical novels of high adventure including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask; making him one of the most widely read French authors in the world. |
| Leopold von Ranke | One of the greatest German historians of the 19th century, often considered the founder of "scientific" history. A professor at the University of Berlin, he introduced such ideas as a reliance on primary sources and objective examination of the past. |
| David Friedrich Strauss | German theologian and writer who applied critical methods to the history of religion in his highly controversial Life of Jesus. He scandalized Christian Europe by denying the divine nature of Jesus and asserting that gospels are stories, not history. |
| Charles Lyell | Scottish lawyer and geologist most famous for his Principles of Geology which argued that the Earth is in fact older than the Bible states and introduced the doctrine of uniformitarianism ("The present is the key to the past.") |
| Charles Darwin | An eminent English naturalist most famous for convincing the scientific community that species develop over time from a common origin. His theories of evolution by natural and sexual selection are central to our modern understanding of evolution. |
| Honore de Balzac | French novelist and playwright, often regarded as a founding father of realism in European literature. His La Comedie Humaine, a collection of almost 100 novels and plays, satirizes French society in the period of the Restoration. |
| Revolutions of 1848 | Revolutionary wave, ignited by the new ideas of liberalism, socialism and nationalism, which spread across Europe in 1848 calling for liberal political and social reforms in response to the changes of the first half of the 19th century. |
| French Revolution, 1848 | Begun with the February Revolution, demanding liberalization from Louis-Philippe’s regime, followed by Louis-Philippe’s abdication, the formation of the Second Republic, the bloody “June Days” and the election of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte. |
| Irish Potato Blight | Airborne blight which destroyed the staple crop, potatoes, in 1846, 1848 and again in 1851. Resulting famine and disease caused the deaths of at least one million people in Ireland and led to mass emigration to the U.S., Canada and England. |
| Alphonse de Lamartine | A French writer, romantic poet and historian of the French Revolution. He was a leading politician in the Second Republic and led efforts that eventually brought about the abolition of slavery and the death penalty. |
| “June Days” | French workers' revolt in June, 1848, after the closure of the National Workshops created by the Second Republic. Lasting only five days, it was repressed by the National Guard, marking the end of the hopes of a "Democratic and Social Republic". |
| Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte | Nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, elected under the new constitution adopted by the conservative National Assembly. His election marked the end of the Second Republic and in 1852 he declared himself Emperor Napoleon III. |
| Nationalist Revolution in Italy, 1848 | Series of failed insurrections with the ultimate goal of unifying the Italian territories. This would involve the expulsion of Austria and for the moderates, the establishment of a liberal constitution, while for the radicals, a unified Italian republic. |
| Charles Albert | King of Sardinia from 1831 to 1849 who led the military campaign against Austria during the Nationalist Revolution in Italy in 1848. His campaign however, eventually failed due to dissension over goals among nationalists. |
| Pope Pius IX | Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1846 until his death in 1878. He formally adopted the dogma of the Immaculate Conception and organized the First Vatican Council, which enshrined the dogma of papal infallibility. |
| Guiseppe Garibaldi | Italian patriot and soldier of the Risorgimento who personally led many of the military campaigns that brought about the formation of a unified Italy. He was a republican leader along with Mazzini during the Nationalist Revolution in Italy in 1848. |
| Frankfurt Parliament | The German National Assembly founded during the Revolutions of 1848 that tried to unite Germany in a democratic way. Having little political know-how and no legal power, they were eventually disbanded after Frederick William IV refused their constitution. |
| Frederick William IV | King of Prussia from 1840 to 1861, firmly against both liberalization and unification of Germany. He refused the emperorship of constitutional Prussia proposed by the Frankfurt Parliament, and helped local rulers put down revolutionaries in 1849. |
| Magyar Rebellion, 1848 | Demonstrations led by Magyar nationalists in Vienna to demand political autonomy for Hungary. As a result Metternich resigns, home rule is granted and Szechenyi and Kossuth become ministers in the new Hungarian government. |
| Frans Joseph | Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary and of Bohemia from 1848 until 1916. He assumed the imperial crown of Austria in December of 1848 and with the help of the army of Tsar Nicholas I, reestablished power in Hungary. |
| The Crystal Palace | An iron and glass building originally erected in London's Hyde Park to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition, which displayed the latest technology from around the world, served to inspire pride in the products of the Industrial Revolution. |
| Communists | Those socialists who after 1840 (when the word was first used by Etienne Cabet) advocated the abolition of private property in favor of communal, collective ownership. |
| Central Short Time Committee | One of Britain’s many social reform organizations during the industrial revolution. In 1847 they successfully pressured Parliament to limit the workday of women and children to ten hours. |
| Thomas Cole | English-born painter concerned with the realistic and detailed portrayal of nature. When he traveled to the United States to paint, he depicted landscapes untouched by machinery. |
| Elizabeth Fry | English Quaker minister, social reformer and philanthropist. She was the driving force in legislation to make the treatment of prisoners more humane and toured Europe in the 1830s helping set up institutions for female prisoners. |
| Flora Tristan | French socialist writer and activist, considered one of the founders of modern feminism. During the Industrial Revolution she devoted herself to reconciling the interests of male and female workers and advocated a Universal Union of Men and Women Workers |
| Frederic Chopin | Polish pianist and composer of the Romantic era. He became a powerful champion in the West for the cause of his native land, with his music that incorporated Polish folk rhythms and melodies. |
| Temperance Movement | Movement begun in the U.S. and Europe in the early 19th century to discourage consumption of alcohol. It was promoted fervently by Catholics and Protestants alike, who saw drunkenness as a sign of moral weakness and a threat to social order. |
| Daguerreotype | A form of photography invented by Jacques Daguerre in 1839. This new means of portraying reality offered vivid images of the effects of industrialization and urbanization. |
| Domesticity | The set of beliefs prevailing in the early to mid-nineteenth century, purporting that women should live their lives entirely within the domestic sphere and devote themselves to their families and the home. |
| Lithograph | A mass produced print from inked stone first developed in Bohemia in 1798. During the early19th century it played a key role in social commentary and political discussion, as artists tried to capture the swirl of social change in their work. |
| Cholera Epidemics | A series of epidemics that spread progressively from east to west across Europe during the 1830s and 1840s. They prompted authorities in Europe to set up public health agencies to coordinate the response and study sanitation conditions in the cities. |
| Scientific Socialism | Term used by Friedrich Engels to describe the socio-political-economic theory pioneered by Karl Marx. In difference to “utopian socialism” the term implies the scientific observation so essential in Marx’s theory. |
| Opium | A narcotic analgesic drug obtained from the unripe seed pods of the opium poppy. In the early 19th century the British East India Company pursued a monopoly on its production and export in India, eventually leading to the Opium Wars of the mid-1800s. |
