The Making of a Dominant Class
The mid-19th century witnessed the bourgeoisie reaching its zenith as the dominant social class across Europe and America. This ascendance represented the culmination of decades of economic transformation that had gradually shifted power from the old aristocratic elites to the new capitalist class. The Industrial Revolution had created unprecedented opportunities for wealth accumulation, while political revolutions had dismantled many of the legal barriers that had previously restricted social mobility.
This era saw the solidification of what we might call “bourgeois civilization” – a distinct set of values, lifestyles, and cultural markers that distinguished the middle classes from both the aristocracy above them and the working classes below. The bourgeoisie’s rise was not merely economic but cultural, as their values became the dominant values of society. Their homes became showcases of respectability, their manners the standard of propriety, and their worldview the lens through which progress was measured.
The period between 1848 and 1875 represented the golden age of bourgeois confidence. The revolutionary fears of 1848 had passed, while the challenges from organized labor and socialist movements that would emerge later in the century had not yet fully materialized. It was a time when the middle classes could enjoy their hard-won position with relatively few challenges to their authority or way of life.
The Theater of Bourgeois Life
The bourgeois home served as the central stage for displaying middle-class values and achievements. These domestic spaces were carefully curated to project an image of comfort, stability, and cultivated taste. As contemporary observers noted, every surface was covered, every object adorned – from the heavily draped windows to the elaborately framed paintings, from the upholstered furniture to the fringed textiles. This profusion of decorative elements served as visible proof of financial success and social standing.
The Christmas celebration emerged as the ultimate bourgeois domestic ritual, systematically developed to showcase this comfortable lifestyle. The Christmas dinner immortalized by Dickens, the German-inspired Christmas tree adopted by British royalty, and carols like “Silent Night” all served to emphasize the contrast between the harsh outside world and the warm, secure bourgeois interior. These traditions reinforced family bonds while simultaneously displaying the household’s material achievements.
Pianos became essential status symbols in respectable homes – large, expensive instruments that demonstrated both cultural aspirations and financial means. For those slightly lower on the social ladder, upright pianos offered a more affordable but still prestigious alternative. The presence of such instruments, along with carefully selected books, signaled not just wealth but cultivation, the perfect bourgeois combination of material and spiritual values.
The Contradictions of Bourgeois Morality
The bourgeoisie developed a complex relationship with morality, particularly regarding sexuality. On the surface, Victorian society maintained strict standards of sexual propriety, especially for women. The ideal bourgeois woman was portrayed as essentially spiritual, with her physicality downplayed or denied. Men’s clothing covered nearly all skin, while women’s fashions exaggerated secondary sexual characteristics through bustles and corsets that created dramatic silhouettes.
Yet beneath this facade of propriety lay considerable hypocrisy. As the scandal involving prominent preacher Henry Ward Beecher demonstrated, private behavior often contradicted public moralizing. The bourgeoisie maintained an elaborate system of double standards, particularly in Catholic countries where male infidelity was tacitly accepted while women were held to strict codes of chastity and fidelity.
This moral tension reflected deeper contradictions within bourgeois society. The same class that preached moderation and restraint was increasingly enjoying unprecedented material comforts. The virtues of thrift and hard work that had built bourgeois fortunes seemed less relevant to heirs living off accumulated wealth. The conflict between traditional bourgeois values and new opportunities for indulgence created psychological and social strains that would only intensify as the century progressed.
The Architecture of Bourgeois Power
The bourgeois family structure mirrored the hierarchical organization of bourgeois society at large. The home operated as a miniature kingdom with the father as undisputed ruler – “guardian, guide, judge” who made the family fortune grow. Beneath him came the “angel, mother, wife and mistress” whose role was to maintain domestic harmony without displaying too much independent thought or intelligence.
This domestic hierarchy extended downward through layers of servants, whose numbers and treatment served as important status markers. The shift from male to female domestic staff during this period meant that the typical bourgeois household became increasingly a pyramid of women beneath a single male authority figure. Servants lived under conditions of near-total dependence, their lives regulated down to the smallest details of dress and behavior.
The bourgeois family thus presented a paradox: it was fundamentally authoritarian in structure, contradicting the liberal, individualistic ideals that bourgeois society promoted in the public sphere. The home became a refuge from the competitive individualism of the marketplace, a carefully controlled environment where traditional hierarchies could be maintained even as they were being dismantled in the wider world.
Networks of Influence and Control
Beyond individual households, the bourgeoisie built extensive networks of familial and social connections that reinforced their collective power. Great industrial and banking dynasties – the Rothschilds, Krupps, and others – dominated economic life through interlocking family relationships. These networks provided capital, business opportunities, and managerial talent, creating formidable economic blocs.
Socially, the bourgeoisie distinguished itself through shared assumptions and behaviors rather than formal organization. They believed in competitive private enterprise, technological progress, representative government (within limits), and the civilizing power of both religion and culture. Their worldview increasingly incorporated Darwinian concepts of competition and natural selection, which seemed to justify their dominant position as the result of natural superiority.
The bourgeoisie exercised power less through direct political control than through cultural hegemony. Even conservative governments recognized that economic development required accommodating bourgeois interests and values. By the 1860s, bourgeois lifestyles had largely displaced aristocratic ones as the cultural ideal, even in societies where political power remained in traditional hands.
The Limits of Bourgeois Dominance
For all its confidence, the bourgeois world view contained significant tensions and contradictions. The same competitive individualism that fueled economic innovation threatened to undermine social stability. The lavish lifestyles of successful industrialists contradicted the puritanical virtues that were supposed to explain their success. Most importantly, the working classes showed increasing signs of rejecting their assigned role as obedient subordinates in the bourgeois social order.
The Paris Commune of 1871 would provide a traumatic demonstration that bourgeois dominance was not unchallengeable. Even before this, labor movements and socialist ideas were beginning to question the absolute rights of property owners. The bourgeoisie responded with a combination of repression and paternalism, blaming “outside agitators” for stirring up otherwise contented workers.
As the century progressed, the bourgeoisie would face growing challenges to its cultural and political hegemony. But during the golden age from 1848 to 1875, the middle classes could confidently view themselves as the natural leaders of society, the architects of progress, and the arbiters of morality. Their values shaped the era, leaving a legacy that would influence Western societies long after their direct political dominance had waned.
The bourgeois epoch created the modern world in its image – for better and worse. Its emphasis on individual achievement, its faith in progress, its cultural achievements, and its moral contradictions all continue to shape our societies today. Understanding this crucial period helps explain many of our contemporary values, tensions, and aspirations.