Contents
- A painting: Iron Mill by Adolph Menzel, National Gallery Berlin. [PNG Image]
- “The Railway Network in Europe in 1840 and 1880”. [PNG Images]
- Maps: “Air and Rail Transport in Germany“. [PNG Images]
Curricular level
Grade 8 and 11 Gymnasium (Bavaria): 
- Politics, Society and Economy in Germany from 1850 to 1914.
- Life in the Emerging Industrial Society of the 19th Century.
Abstract
Big, contiguous congested areas developed along with growing industrial cities. The century witnessed a rapid growth of an enormous number of factories, especially in heavy industry and textile industry.
In order to produce as much as possible and to obtain as high sales of goods as possible, workers were needed in the factories. They often came from countryside to town, in hope of achieving a proper standard of living by working. The factories could assuredly nourish the population surplus, yet the worker had to in a way subject himself to the machine. The hard working day in the companies left hardly any space for the free development of workers. Moreover, the factory owners did not provide them with any care or protection. They did not have any protective clothing, breaks or holidays. At the beginning of industrialization, there was no coverage against illness or worker participation in the works council. Only over the years, did trade unions and work insurance develop. In order to distribute goods, a well-developed infrastructure with a comprehensive railway network as well as connections to sea ports was of high importance. The mobility within the cities was increased with the introduction of cable cars.
In order to guarantee transport services even beyond city boundaries, large cities and congested areas were first linked to the railway network. Thus, the time needed for the transportation of goods was shortened and the market for the produced goods was extended.
Conceptual Objectives
The students should be able to present the effects of urbanization on people’s lives and their working day in a logical way.
- The students should be able to present the link between urbanization and the expansion of all the European means of transport (train and ship) in its historical context.
- The students should be able to critically analyse the outcomes of the steady expansion of traffic routes until today and be able to name the effects this has had on humans and nature.
Methodological Objectives and Skills
- Analyzing and interpreting pictures
- Analyzing, interpreting and comparing maps
Suggestion of Activities
Introduction with a group discussion: What are the means of transport that can serve as an alternative to car, train and plane? What advantages and disadvantages does a constantly growing mobility have? And what are the consequences this has for humans, industry and nature? The teacher writes these questions on the blackboard. At first, the students work on the questions in pairs and take notes. This is followed by a group discussion, during which the teacher may write down some short notes on the blackboard.
A statement: “The human means nothing without machines” is put forward. Two columns with arguments for and against drawn on the board. The thesis is debated in the form of a discussion of the teacher with the students. The students should become aware of what would be missing from classroom and their daily life, if there were not any machines and of the fields of activity where humans do not need any machines.
Analysis of maps: Two maps presenting “railway networks” are compared, whereby one is a map of their home country and the other – a map of a European country of choice. These are distributed among the students, who should then write down the similarities and differences between the maps as well as locate the railway stations in a group discussion and, subsequently, write them down.
Historical retrospection: The students are divided in groups. They should find out together by what means they would have reached Berlin from their home village at the end of the 19th century and how much time they would have needed for this. Afterwards, the current possibilities of travelling the distance and their advantages and disadvantages should be debated in a group discussion.
As an introduction to source A, the following questions can be explored: “Why is child labour practised even today? In which countries is it particularly common? Why is there no child labour in Europe anymore?”. These questions should be answered in a form of discussion between the teacher and the students. The answers should be subsequently written down on the blackboard and in the notebooks, in the form of short notes. Furthermore, it can be discussed how the life of schoolchildren would look like today, if there child labour was still practised.
Suggestion of Evaluation
In order to check whether the subject matter has been effectively presented, one should follow the questions below:
- Are the students able to describe a picture or a map adequate to the subject matter and recognize differences?
- Are the pictures and maps which are shown critically questioned by the students, too?
- Are the students aware of the effects of urbanization and the closely-connected development of infrastructure on the life of people until today?
- Do the students perceive, among the positive accomplishments of industrialization, also its negative aspects?
