Industrial Revolution: 4. Artisans/Craftsmen, Romantic Poets, Realist Writers

As a group, you must create a written response to the following:

• Craft a DBQ response to the following question:
  • Is your family better off now in 1850, after the Industrial Revolution, than it was in 1750, before the Industrial Revolution? Respond with a thesis and three pieces of evidence from your research.

As a group, choose one of the following creative products:

1. Write a Romantic era poem criticizing industrialization OR a Realist story detailing the tragic lives of factory workers
2. Find three significant Romantic OR Realist paintings of the era and write at least three sentences (in your own words!) explaining its significance - make sure to include images (with title and artist) of the paintings you've chosen!

**Each group member will submit a Google Doc that has their written requirement on the first page and a link to their creative product on the second page to Canvas!**

You have been apprenticed to a master craftsman (making clocks, jewelry, glass, etc.) for several years, and are preparing to become a journeyman artisan. This means you can leave the master you have been working with since you were a child and finally branch out on your own and establish your own workshop.

Artisan/craftsman key terms:

-Guild system

-apprenticeship

-artisanal workshop (working conditions, etc.) 

Traditional artisans and craftsmen are dwindling as the hand-produced labor they used to perform is now mechanized. During this time, a new artistic movement known as Romanticism emerged to challenge the previous Enlightenment era’s emphasis on pure reason and logic. Romanticism focused instead on feeling and emotion, with an almost religious worship of nature as the ultimate expression of God’s creations. Romantic poets and writers rejected the transformation of man into machine, and focused instead on his individuality and godliness (similar to Renaissance humanism).

Romantic poet key terms/players:

-Lord Byron

-William Wordsworth

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

As the Industrial Revolution continues to take a toll on the working class and the poor, some artists and writers looked for beauty in their struggle for survival. Realism (sometimes called Naturalism), attempted to depict life realistically, unlike the Romantics who tended to exaggerate, speculate, or discuss the supernatural. Realists instead wrote of the everyday, focusing on the realistic (and often sympathetic) depiction of the lower classes. They celebrated what many today would consider boring or “basic”.

Realism key terms/players:

-Charles Dickens

-William Thackeray

-Gustave Flaubert