Chapter 18, "Toward a New World-View in the West," focused on the changing attitudes of the educated elites in Europe in response to the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment. But what about the common people?

• Were the shifting attitudes toward religion, science, and government affecting their lives?
  
  
• Did the new assumption that man could improve his world shape the lives of ordinary people?
  
  

Chapter 19 reveals that life for the ordinary person, whether that person lived in an urban or rural area, was difficult at best. Common people had to contend with famine, filth, disease, and social and political disenfranchisment at a level incomprehensible to most Europeans today. Yet, as your chapter illustrates, living conditions changed for most people in Europe during the eighteenth century. The following activities will explore some reasons for this change, as well as its consequences. They will also help you to analyze the effect of the Enlightenment on ordinary people.

Helpful Hints:

• You may want to begin by printing this page. As you explore different sites, use the printout to refer back to the instructions and questions detailed in each activity.
  
  
• On many web sites you can increase the size of the images by clicking on them. Whenever possible, use the larger images to examine fine details in photographs.
  
  

Activity One:

• According to McKay, A History of World Societies (Fifth Edition), roughly 80 percent of all the people of western Europe derived their living from agricultural pursuits. Thus an overwhelming percentage of the population were rural farmers. However, not everyone shared the same concerns and status. According to Eighteenth Century Society: An Overview, what were the major divisions among social classes in this rural society? Who controlled most of the land and had the most influence over its production? How integrated was the rural economy of Europe? (In other words, how much contact did people of different regions have with each other?) How uniform were social patterns throughout Europe? What was life like for peasants?
  
  
• For greater insight, read Social Conditions in 17th Century France. Briefly describe the conditions of the rural countryside in this time and place. What factors contributed to French peasants' miserable lives? How responsive was the French government to the peasants' plight? After reviewing pages 591-593 in McKay, A History of World Societies (Fifth Edition), do you believe that conditions had improved much by the year 1700?
  
  

Activity Two:

• Conditions in urban areas, where a small minority of people lived, were not much better than in the rural areas. Go to Paris: Urban Sanitation Before the 20th Century: A History of Invisible Infrastructure. To fully explore this site, be sure to click the hyperlinks that study Paris before 1789 at the bottom of this page. Using Paris as an example, how did urban centers deal with sanitation and sewage? What kinds of laws did the Parisian government create in the eighteenth century to deal with these issues? How successful were they?
  
  
• Using information gathered in Activity One, compare and contrast the lives of common people in urban areas to those in the countryside. What common problems did they face? What problems were not common to both areas? Evaluate which area was a better place to raise a family, and defend your answer.
  
  

Activity Three:

• One major theme of this chapter is the changing diet of Europeans during the eighteenth century. For the most part, this was the result of the Age of Discovery that you examined in Chapter 16, "The Acceleration of Global Contact." More specifically, the Columbian Exchange introduced many new crops to Europe from the Americas. Review the web activities, Chapter 16, Activity Four. What major crops of the Columbian Exchange improved the diet of Europeans?
  
  
• None of these crops had a greater impact than the potato, as many educated observers noted in the eighteenth century. Read some of their observations at Accounts of the "Potato Revolution," 1695 - 1845. After reading, list several positive attributes of the potato described by these commentators. Which attributes were accurate, and which were inaccurate? What group primarily consumed the potato? How readily did they adapt to this diet? If the potato was so useful, why did many people resist incorporating it into their diet?
  
  

Activity Four:

• Not all the products introduced into Europe as a result of the Columbian Exchange and Europe's greater trade with the rest of the world in the eighteenth century improved the diet of Europeans. Go to A TASTE OF EMPIRE, 1600-1800. According to this author, to what foreign luxury staples did Europeans become addicted during this time? How common was the consumption of these products among the wealthy and the less wealthy? Why did the consumption of these staples not necessarily improve the diet of Europeans? Where were these staples grown? Which nations had the easiest access to these products? How did these nations secure access to them? What impact did the increasing consumption of these products in Europe have on other regions of the world?
  
  
• Now analyze the effect of Europe's greater contact with the rest of the world on the diet of its ordinary people. In your assessment, was it overall beneficial or detrimental? Explain your answer.

Activity Five:

• nother area in which basic patterns changed in Europe during the eighteenth century was medicine. Physicians increasingly applied the scientific method learned during the seventeenth century to their practices. For a good brief overview of eighteenth-century medicine, go to History of Medicine: The Enlightenment. Who was William Harvey? Why does he symbolize the influence of the scientific revolution on medical knowledge in the seventeenth century? List other physicians and their contribution to the field of medicine in the eighteenth century.
  
  
• Assess the overall impact of the Enlightenment on medicine in the eighteenth century. How much did medical knowledge improve? (Be sure to review pages 607-610 in McKay, A History of World Societies [Fifth Edition].) Were doctors more effective at treating their patients' illnesses or injuries by the end of the century? How did this improvement (or lack of improvement) affect the ordinary person in Europe?
  
  

Activity Six:

• Many members of the educated elite turned their attention toward the plight of the less fortunate during the eighteenth century. For example, read Jonathan Swift's essay, "A Modest Proposal." Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels, often used satire to criticize certain social attitudes and practices in his society. In this piece, he attacked attitudes toward children. Review page 602 in McKay, A History of World Societies (Fifth Edition). What practices did Swift criticize?
  
  
• Now take the virtual tour of The New Child: British Art and the Origins of Modern Childhood, 1730 -1830. According to this museum exhibit, did eighteenth-century British parents change their child-rearing practices? Did these changes address the concerns raised by Swift and other social critics? Did societies' perception of children change as a result?
  
  

Activity Seven:

• Another social critic was William Hogarth. Go to Birth of William Hogarth. Like Swift, Hogarth was critical of British society, but unlike Swift, he expressed himself visually. View some of his artwork at Selected Hogarth Prints, An Emblematical Print on the South Sea Scene, and The Four Times of Day Plate IV, Night. What aspects of English society does he attack in these images? Who does he blame for these problems? What insights do these prints offer us into the life of ordinary British people?
  
  

Activity Eight:

• One reformer who addressed the problems that Swift and Hogarth described was John Wesley. An Anglican minister, Wesley reflected a broad religious movement called Pietism that emerged in Europe in the eighteenth century. Read both the general and advanced definition of Pietism. Then analyze how Pietism, in many ways, was a rejection of the mechanistic view of the universe explored in the web activities for Chapter 18, "Toward a New World-View in the West," Activity Two.
  
  
• On the other hand, Pietism embodied the optimism of the Enlightenment in that subscibers to this brand of Christianity truly believed in reforming their society. Go to John Wesley: On-line Exhibition, Methodism, and Sources for Women's Studies in the Methodist Archives. To whom did John Wesley and his followers address their mission? What traditions did they challenge in Britain? What impact did they have on women and the poor?
  
  

Activity Nine:

• After completing Activities One through Eight, explain how the Enlightenment affected the common people of Europe during the eighteenth century. Did it help improve or hinder their lives? Did it have little impact? What other developments shaped the lives of Europeans during this time period?