Social Classes:Paris in the 19th Century

Social Class Refers to the hierarchical distinctions

between individuals or groups in society. People having the same social or economic

status. Social class in Paris in the nineteenth

century determined how people lived, worked, interacted, traveled, and relaxed.

The wealth gap between rich and poor was very wide.

Social Classes

3 Distinct Groups:

Upper Middle Lower

Lifestyles of the Rich and Upper Class

The wealthy lived far from the crowded slums of the poor and rode through the city streets in horse drawn carriages while everyone else walked.

When city life became oppressive and unpleasant, the wealthy took journeys into the countryside while servants, tenant farmers, and sharecropping laborers worked to produce income for them and maintain their grand lifestyle.

Monet: Woman with a Parasol, 1886. Orsay

Dancing With the RichFor the upper class,

social behaviors, including dancing, were seriously scripted, strictly observed, and were often mocked and caricatured.

Ladies were instructed to refuse to dance with any gentleman with whom they were not already properly introduced.

Ladies would fill out dance cards (literally writing in the names of those gentlemen who had requested and been granted permission to dance).

Ladies were prohibited from attending balls or walking around the ballroom without escorts (prearranged, usually male acquaintances or mature women relatives). Gentlemen were instructed that no lady should be left unattended and alone at any time.

Their upper class lifestyle included theatre, opera, entertaining, feasting, and dancing, and required the constant acquisition and consumption of luxury goods; a family could spend the equivalent of at least $10,000 a year on meat alone. That’s almost $200 a week!

Upper class families living in cities generally bathed at least once a week; they were most likely to own large tubs in which the entire body could be immersed.

More Lifestyles of the Rich and Upper Class

Edgar Degas (1834-1917) Portrait of the Bellelli Family oil on canvas, frn06016

Middle Class Known as the bourgeoisie In 19th century Paris, the middle class generally

included the white collar occupations: bankers and money lenders, industrial entrepreneurs, doctors, dentists, engineers, architects, chemists, accountants, surveyors, managers, manufacturers, teachers, nurses, merchants and shopkeepers, bookkeepers, salesmen, and clerks.

James Tissot (1836-1902) Wives of the Artists (Opening of the Salon), Detail (Le Doyon Restaurant, Paris), oil on canvas, frn05098

That’s EntertainmentBy the mid-19th century,

theatre was very popular with the middle class.

Shows portrayed men and women of upper class and middle class breaking rules of sexual and social behavior.

Andre Victor Edward Devambez (1867-1943) Paris Concert Colonne oil on canvas, Paris, Musee d'Orsay,

art

Lifestyles of the Bonne BourgeoisieThe middle class Parisian lifestyle was

characterized by comfortable housing and lavish dining.

The average middle class family spent 25% of their income employing 10 or more servants.

Food consumed the largest portion of their annual budget.

Lower ClassDuring the 19th century, the lower, or working,

class developed from the groups of 18th century traditional rural peasants and laborers.

Upper lower class was made of highly skilled workers that earned the equivalent of $500 per year.

Powerless Poor Members of the working class did not generally

own property, were not well educated, and were largely excluded from the political process.

Most lower class workers earned enough to obtain decent housing, educate their children, and invest their surplus income.

However, they rarely rose into the middle class.

Edouard Bernard Debat-Ponsan (1847-1913) Gathering Grapes: Languedoc 1886, oil on canvas

Rural farmers were also among those of the lower class.

Death by Dung Poor families of six to a dozen people lived

in one-room apartments. Building courtyards filled with dung which was sold and transported to farmers for fertilizer.

Many rural families were accustomed to not bathing in the winter and only occasionally bathing in summer. Those who did bathe used low tubs filled with only a few inches of water.

Death of the Destitute Both male and female unskilled workers

tended to have higher mortality rates due to medical problems resulting from unsanitary working conditions, widespread alcohol abuse, alcohol related violence, working accidents, and urban crime.