In England, social observers noticed the rage for education early in the nineteenth century.  J. S. Mill found that every village around London had some sort of school, usually fee-paying, in which children were taught basic literacy and numeracy.  People were prepared to sacrifice for their children and Mill observed that many families subsisted on potatoes to be able to afford their school fees. 

In the United States a varied system of education had obtained since colonial times.  Most schools were fee-paying and most communities provided for the education of poor children through a combination of philanthropy, religious schools, or government subsidy.  But the poor felt humiliated by the necessity of declaring indigence in order to obtain a subsidized education.  By mid-century, the various tides of elite opinion combined to infect education with political agendas, principally anti-Catholicism.  When the Catholic Irish applied to enjoy the subsidies enjoyed by Protestant religious schools, the Protestant elites suddenly discovered the principle of the separation of church and state, and most states ended up with bigoted Blaine amendments to their constitution to forbid public subsidy of religious education.  The Catholic Irish responded by building their own school system within the Catholic Church while the Protestants developed the government school system that began by teaching a bland Protestantism and ended a century later with “values clarification.”  By the late nineteenth century in New York City, according to Jacob Riis in How the Other Half Lives, all parents sent their children to school as a matter of course unless they needed a child’s wages for food.

In France and Germany, on the other hand, the lower orders had no opportunity to choose an education for their children.  In the numeric ascent through various republics and empires the French school system became a political football between the religious conservatives and the secular republicans and used to indoctrinate children in the worldview of the party in power.  In Prussia, of course, universal education was organized by the government to provide educated soldiers for a revanchist Prussian army that would keep the French west of the Rhine.

Did the lower orders really seek out education for their children in the nineteenth century?  Did they make competent decisions in school selection?  Or did they need, even then, the assistance of experts and the intervention of government?  Or is education for their children too complex a subject for ordinary folk to be able to make the right decisions?  We shall examine these issues in Chapter 7.

For ordinary people the nineteenth century was a great age of mutual aid.  In England, the friendly society afforded the protections of death benefits and rudimentary life insurance to the respectable poor.  In the United States, a complex culture of fraternal organizations provided death benefits, widows’ assistance, life insurance, job referral networks, and a social gathering place.  Immigrant groups were quick to develop mutual aid organizations.  The Jews in the Lower East Side of New York had such a large network that social workers were unable to disentangle the extent of its web.  The Irish developed their own network centered upon the Catholic Church.

Today, the friendly society has dropped off the radar of British society, except for an occasional reference in some Labour Party politician’s speech when praising the joint contribution of friendly societies and trades unions to the progressive vision.  In the United States, the great ugly buildings of the fraternal organizations now echo with the activities of sub-tenants, the old meeting rooms converted into dance studios.  The Elks, the Masons, the Eagles, and the Moose: what was the point of them?  Fifty years to one hundred years ago, such a question would have been unnecessary.  Everyone belonged, and everyone understood.  The local lodge provided funeral benefits, life insurance, health benefits, “employment information, temporary lodging, and character references.” (Beito 2000 p8)

Since members were expected to help each other, to favor their brothers over others, it was important that members maintained a good character.  Many societies maintained specific sanctions against misconduct—such as expulsion for being a common drunkard—while benefits were more informal.  This made economic sense in an age when actuarial science and risk evaluation were still embryonic, and the rules and sanctions helped weed out—or straighten out—the poor risks.

By the peak of the fraternal movement in 1920, it was estimated that nearly 50 percent of working class males belonged to a fraternal lodge, participating in its menu of mutual aid.  Of course, Americans joined fraternal societies for a variety of reasons, from sick and death benefits to expanded social ties.  But most of all, the fraternal lodge represented a set of values.  Writes Beito:

Societies dedicated themselves to the advancement of mutualism, self-reliance, business training, thrift, leadership skills, self-government, self-control, and good moral character.  These values reflected a fraternal consensus that cut across such seemingly intractable divisions as race, gender, and income.

Nor was the boss necessarily the leader, and the employee the follower.  In the rotation of offices, the roles of leader and follower could often change, and the business owner might be an ordinary member when his employee served as Grand Master of the local lodge.

The story of the friendly society and fraternalism is now almost forgotten, its role and function replaced by the expert-inspired and expert-run welfare state.  But we shall attempt to revive its memory in Chapter 8.

For ordinary people the nineteenth century was a great age of religion.  While the elite in Europe and the United States experienced the death of God as their spiritual needs diverged from the gospel of Jesus Christ, ordinary people flocked to churches and responded in their millions to the preaching of modern prophets.  Contrary to received wisdom, the Revolutionary Americans were not all dour Puritans and dutiful churchgoers.  In 1776, only 17 percent of Americans were religious adherents.  But by 1850, the rate had doubled to 35 percent, and by 1890 it had increased further to 45 percent. (Finke 1992 p16)  The meaning of these numbers needs to be emphasized.  Over the seventy five years from 1776 to 1850, when the population of the United States increased from 3.9 million to 23.2 million, the proportion of people who belonged to a church climbed from one in six to one in three, in other words from 660,000 members to 8,100,000.  At exactly the period that the educated elite were beginning to experience the Death of God, churchgoing and religious belief began to climb sharply among ordinary people, both in relative and in absolute terms.  By the end of the century, in 1890, the proportion of Americans who were religious adherents had increased by over two and a half times.  In terms of actual church members, the numbers had increased from 660,000 to 28 million in a little over a hundred years.

| <<prev | 1 | (2) | 3 | 4 | 5 | next>> |

print view

Click for Chapter 6: Popular Religion in the Nineteenth Century

Your comments are welcome. Please e-mail to Christopher Chantrill at mailto:chrischantrill@gmail.com, and take the RMC test here.

©2005 Christopher Chantrill