European powers started to create colonial empires way back in the 16th century, but businesses really took off in the 19th century, especially in Asia and Africa. During the 1800s, European powers carved out spheres of influence in China, India, and pretty much all of Africa. While all of the major (and some minor) powers in Europe participated in this new imperialism, England was by far the most dominant, once able to claim that the "sun never set on the British Empire." Also, they went to war for the right to continue to sell opium to the people of China. Twice.
John will teach you how these empires managed to leverage the advances of the Industrial Revolution to build vast, wealth-generating empires. As it turns out, improved medicine, steam engines, and better guns were crucial in the 19th-century conquests. Also, the willingness to exploit and abuse the people and resources of so-called "primitive" nations was very helpful in the whole enterprise.
Review the descriptions of each photograph on Handout C: Snapshots of Imperialism. Then read Section 2 of the Student Text. In the first column, explain the factors, motives, and events that led up to the moment captured in the photo. In the last column, explain what happened after the photo was taken.
Although camera photography began in the 1820s, the photographic process and equipment used to take photos improved vastly throughout the 19th century.
In contrast to other artistic forms, such as painting or drawing, photography has the benefit of producing more detailed and life-like images.
Here, we see English scientist and pioneering photographer Henry Fox Talbot at work (far right).
In this activity, you will examine primary source photographs to learn about imperialism around the world.
Review the descriptions of each photograph on Handout C: Snapshots of Imperialism. Then read Section 2 of the Student Text. In the first column, explain the factors, motives, and events that led up to the moment captured in the photo. In the last column, explain what happened after the photo was taken.
In just a handful of decades, European colonizers carved up almost the entire African continent. Europeans had been involved in and with Africa for a very long time prior to the late 19th century. The specific moment we refer to as the Scramble for Africa really relates to an acceleration and intensification of European activity in and with Africa.” Every present-day country except Ethiopia and Liberia was affected. These territories were then governed—and exploited—by foreigners. Why? A lot of reasons. Nineteenth-century exploration of Africa had made Europeans more aware of the continent. African economies—and their vast resources—caught the eye of European parties. And then there was the Suez Canal. Stephen: “The Suez Canal was only about 10 years old when the Scramble started.
Imagine that a powerful foreign country announces that it will enter your country, take control of your government, and change your political system. What reasons might your country have for resisting?
Is defending your country the same as attacking another country? Does a powerful nation have the right to control a smaller nation?
How might the powerful nation justify its actions?
During the late 1800s, European nations increasingly competed to control territory in Africa. This period became known as the Scramble for Africa.
The Zulu Kingdom, led by King Cetshwayo, was a powerful African state that maintained its independence and resisted British expansion.
Britain wanted greater control over southern Africa for political, strategic, and economic reasons. British officials also sought to consolidate neighboring territories into a larger political system under British influence.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with new immigrants. These new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing Ireland's potato famine of 1846, helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally. Taking from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today's "trick-or-treat" tradition. Click here to learn more.
Marx and Engels argued that societies have often been divided between groups with different levels of wealth and power. In industrial society, they focused on two important classes:
The bourgeoisie: The owners of factories, machinery, and other resources used to produce goods.
The proletariat: Workers who earn wages by selling their ability to work.
The authors argued that industrial capitalism created new forms of conflict between these classes. Factory owners wanted businesses to earn profits and compete successfully. Workers wanted wages, security, and better conditions. Although both groups depended on the economy, their interests could conflict.
Marx and Engels also argued that workers could recognize their shared interests and organize together. Rather than facing employers individually, workers could act collectively to challenge existing economic relationships.
Their argument was not simply that some factory owners were cruel. They believed that conflict grew out of the way the economic system was organized, especially the difference between owning productive resources and working for wages.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848)
Excerpt 1 — Class conflict
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
“The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class
antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old
ones.”
Excerpt 2 — Workers and wages
“In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern
working class, developed; a class of laborers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as
their labour increases capital.”
Source note: From Chapter I, “Bourgeois and Proletarians,” in the 1888 English translation edited by Friedrich Engels. Spelling and punctuation
follow that edition. Marx and Engels were writing an argument about society, not a neutral report; evaluate their claims using evidence.
Document Analysis
1. In your own words, what does Marx mean by “class struggles”?
2. Who are the bourgeoisie and the proletariat? How are their economic positions different?
3. According to the excerpt, why does Marx believe industrial capitalism creates new forms of conflict?
4. Connect to Adam Smith: How can markets coordinate production without guaranteeing equal bargaining power or fair
working conditions?
5. Connect to the Wobblies: Why might workers organize together instead of negotiating with employers one at a time?
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