6.10 Causation in the Age of Industrialization

1. Example 1

   Writing a causation thesis

   Evaluate the most significant cause of the growth of socialist movements in Europe between 1830 and 1914. Write a thesis and one supporting paragraph.

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   1. 1Step 1: Make a defensible claim that ranks causes, not just a list: industrial working conditions mattered most, though expanded voting rights shaped how socialism grew.
   2. 2Step 2: Support the main cause with specific evidence: long factory hours, child labor and slum housing, documented by Engels in 1845.
   3. 3Step 3: Explain the mechanism: concentrating workers in factories and cities built class consciousness, which Marx turned into a theory.
   4. 4Step 4: Add a secondary cause to show complexity: as men won the vote (Britain 1867 and 1884, Germany's Reichstag elected by universal male suffrage from 1871), socialism grew through parties like the SPD.

   Answer: Thesis: The most significant cause of the growth of socialism between 1830 and 1914 was the harsh working and living conditions created by industrialization, although the expansion of voting rights shaped socialism into a movement of mass parties rather than revolution. Paragraph: Factory work brought thousands of laborers together under 12- to 14-hour days, child labor and crowded, disease-ridden housing, conditions Friedrich Engels documented in Manchester in 1845. Living and working side by side, workers developed a shared sense of grievance, which Marx and Engels turned into a theory of class struggle in the Communist Manifesto (1848). Yet as more men won the vote, socialists increasingly pursued power through elections; Germany's Social Democratic Party, despite Bismarck's Anti-Socialist Laws, became the largest party in the Reichstag by 1912.

2. Example 2

   Building a causal chain

   Trace a three-step causal chain from the growth of industrial cities to a specific government reform.

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   1. 1Step 1: Step 1, cause: rapid urban growth with no sewers or clean water.
   2. 2Step 2: Step 2, effect that becomes a cause: repeated cholera epidemics (1832, 1848–1849, 1854) and investigations like Chadwick's 1842 report.
   3. 3Step 3: Step 3, final effect: the Public Health Act of 1848 and, after the Great Stink of 1858, London's new sewer system.

   Answer: Rapid, unplanned growth of industrial cities left workers crowded into housing with polluted water and no sewers, which led to repeated cholera epidemics. Edwin Chadwick's 1842 report linked disease to filth, and these outbreaks pushed Parliament to pass the Public Health Act of 1848 and later to fund Joseph Bazalgette's London sewers.

Common mistakes

• !Listing causes without explaining how each one produced the effect. Every cause needs a “because” or “which led to.”
• !Giving only one cause and calling it complex. Complexity comes from weighing several causes or effects, or showing different effects on different groups.
• !Treating industrialization and the revolutions of 1848 as separate stories. Economic distress was a major trigger of 1848.

On the exam

• ✓Long essay prompts often ask about causes or effects of industrialization. Plan two or three body paragraphs, each built around one causal link with specific evidence.
• ✓When you weigh causes, say why one mattered more, for example because it came first or because the others depended on it.