199-540: The Roaring Twenties , sometimes stylized as Roaring '20s , refers to the 1920s decade in music and fashion, as it happened in Western society and Western culture . It was a period of economic prosperity with a distinctive cultural edge in the United States and Europe, particularly in major cities such as Berlin, Buenos Aires, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York City, Paris, and Sydney. In France,
398-510: A Western and an Eastern one, each with their own emperors, capitals, and governments, although ostensibly they still belonged to one formal Empire. The Western Roman Empire provinces eventually were replaced by Northern European Germanic ruled kingdoms in the 5th century due to civil wars, corruption, and devastating Germanic invasions from such tribes as the Huns , Goths , the Franks and
597-403: A 30% increase in output simply from changing over to electric motors. Electrification enabled modern mass production, as with Thomas Edison's iron ore processing plant (about 1893) that could process 20,000 tons of ore per day with two shifts, each of five men. At that time it was still common to handle bulk materials with shovels, wheelbarrows and small narrow-gauge rail cars, and for comparison,
796-445: A European boom as well. Some sectors stagnated , especially farming and coal mining. The US became the richest country in the world per capita and since the late-19th century had been the largest in total GDP. Its industry was based on mass production , and its society acculturated into consumerism . European economies , by contrast, had a more difficult post-war readjustment and did not begin to flourish until about 1924. At first,
995-450: A Midwestern town. He followed with Babbitt , about a middle-aged businessman who rebels against his dull life and family, only to realize that the younger generation is as hypocritical as his own. Lewis satirized religion with Elmer Gantry , which followed a con man who teams with an evangelist to sell religion to a small town. Other social critics included Sherwood Anderson , Edith Wharton , and H. L. Mencken . Anderson published
1194-643: A backbone "main" assembly line. A diagram of a typical mass-production factory looks more like the skeleton of a fish than a single line. Vertical integration is a business practice that involves gaining complete control over a product's production, from raw materials to final assembly. In the age of mass production, this caused shipping and trade problems in that shipping systems were unable to transport huge volumes of finished automobiles (in Henry Ford's case) without causing damage, and also government policies imposed trade barriers on finished units. Ford built
1393-461: A cabaret audience; the other an exchange between him and his mother. The "natural" sounds of the settings were also audible. The film's profits were proof enough to the film industry that the technology was worth investing in. In 1928, the film studios Famous Players–Lasky (later known as Paramount Pictures ), First National Pictures , Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , and Universal Studios signed an agreement with Electrical Research Products Inc. (ERPI) for
1592-585: A canal digger in previous decades typically handled five tons per 12-hour day. The biggest impact of early mass production was in manufacturing everyday items, such as at the Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company , which electrified its mason jar plant in Muncie, Indiana , U.S., around 1900. The new automated process used glass-blowing machines to replace 210 craftsman glass blowers and helpers. A small electric truck
1791-488: A collection of short stories titled Winesburg, Ohio , which studied the dynamics of a small town. Wharton mocked the fads of the new era through her novels, such as Twilight Sleep (1927). Mencken criticized narrow American tastes and culture in essays and articles. Art Deco was the style of design and architecture that marked the era. Originating in Europe, it spread to the rest of western Europe and North America towards
1990-403: A company to produce a larger quantity of one product at a lower cost than using traditional, non-linear methods. However, mass production is inflexible because it is difficult to alter a design or production process after a production line is implemented. Also, all products produced on one production line will be identical or very similar, and introducing variety to satisfy individual tastes
2189-472: A couple of hours, were highly successful: over 100,000 Nissen huts were produced during World War I alone, and they would go on to serve in other conflicts and inspire a number of similar designs. Following World War II, in the United States, William Levitt pioneered the building of standardized tract houses in 56 different locations around the country. These communities were dubbed Levittowns , and they were able to be constructed quickly and cheaply through
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#17327653570662388-582: A few films with live dialogue, though only in a few scenes. It finally released Lights of New York (1928), the first all-talking full-length feature film. The animated short film Dinner Time (1928) by the Van Beuren Studios was among the first animated sound films. It was followed a few months later by the animated short film Steamboat Willie (1928), the first sound film by the Walt Disney Animation Studios . It
2587-717: A half. Significant theological and ecclesiastical differences led Western Europeans to consider the Christians in the Byzantine Empire as heretics. In 1054 CE, when the church in Rome excommunicated the patriarch of Byzantium , the politico-religious division between the Western church and Eastern church culminated in the Great Schism or the East–West Schism . Even though friendly relations continued between
2786-593: A long-distance television signal over 438 miles (705 km) of telephone line between London and Glasgow; Baird transmitted the world's first long-distance television pictures to the Central Hotel at Glasgow Central Station. Baird then set up the Baird Television Development Company Ltd and in 1928 made the first transatlantic television transmission, from London to Hartsdale, New York and the first television programme for
2985-559: A major influence on the world today. Latin language has been the base from which Romance languages evolved and it has been the official language of the Catholic Church and all Catholic religious ceremonies all over Europe until 1967, as well as an or the official language of countries such as Italy and Poland (9th–18th centuries). In AD 395, a few decades before its Western collapse, the Roman Empire formally split into
3184-463: A multiple head milling machine that could simultaneously machine 15 engine blocks held on a single fixture. All of these machine tools were arranged systematically in the production flow and some had special carriages for rolling heavy items into machining position. Production of the Ford Model T used 32,000 machine tools. The process of prefabrication, wherein parts are created separately from
3383-529: A new form of entertainment that virtually ended the old vaudeville theatrical genre. Watching a film was cheap and accessible; crowds surged into new downtown movie palaces and neighborhood theaters. Since the early 1910s, lower-priced cinema successfully competed with vaudeville. Many vaudeville performers and other theatrical personalities were recruited by the film industry, lured by greater salaries and less arduous working conditions. The introduction of sound film , a.k.a. "the talkies" which did not surge until
3582-596: A platform for mass marketing . Its economic importance led to the mass culture that has dominated society since this period. During the " Golden Age of Radio ", radio programming was as varied as the television programming of the 21st century. The 1927 establishment of the Federal Radio Commission introduced a new era of regulation. In 1925, electrical recording , one of the greater advances in sound recording , became available with commercially issued gramophone records . The cinema boomed, producing
3781-619: A plea to the Pope in Rome to send military aid to restore the lost territories to Christian rule. The result was a series of western European military campaigns into the eastern Mediterranean, known as the Crusades. Unfortunately for the Byzantines, the crusaders (belonging to the members of nobility from France, German territories, the Low countries, England, Italy and Hungary) had no allegiance to
3980-693: A population of 100 million. From the time of Caesar (100–44 BC) to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, Rome dominated Southern Europe , the Mediterranean coast of Northern Africa and the Levant , including the ancient trade routes with population living outside. Ancient Rome has contributed greatly to the development of law, war, art, literature, architecture, technology and language in the Western world , and its history continues to have
4179-642: A projection constructs a false genealogy. A geographical concept of the West started to take shape in the 4th century CE when Constantine , the first Christian Roman emperor, divided the Roman Empire between the Greek East and Latin West . The East Roman Empire , later called the Byzantine Empire , continued for a millennium, while the West Roman Empire lasted for only about a century and
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#17327653570664378-519: A result, its political, legal , linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread throughout the Western world . In the aftermath of the Second World War , decolonizing efforts were employed by all Western powers under United Nations (ex- League of Nations ) international directives. Most of colonized nations received independence by 1960. Great Britain showed ongoing responsibility for the welfare of its former colonies as member states of
4577-737: A scramble for new markets for European industrial products and financial services in Africa, the Americas, Eastern Europe, and especially in Asia (Western powers exploited their advantages in China for example by the Opium Wars ). This resulted in the " New Imperialism ", which saw a shift in focus from trade and indirect rule to formal colonial control of vast overseas territories ruled as political extensions of their mother countries. The later years of
4776-485: A series of political developments in Asia in the last decades of the 14th century, which put an end to further European exploration of Asia: namely the new Ming rulers were found to be unreceptive of religious proselytism by European missionaries and merchants. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Turks consolidated control over the eastern Mediterranean , closing off key overland trade routes. The Portuguese spearheaded
4975-491: A smash box-office success. It was innovative for its use of sound. Produced with the Vitaphone system, most of the film does not contain live-recorded audio, relying on a score and effects. When the movie's star, Al Jolson , sings, however, the film shifts to sound recorded on the set, including both his musical performances and two scenes with ad-libbed speech—one of Jolson's character, Jakie Rabinowitz (Jack Robin), addressing
5174-513: A spindle cutting machine, which could produce multiple parts at the same time. Terry hired Silas Hoadley and Seth Thomas to work the Assembly line at the facilities. The Porter Contract was the first contract which called for mass production of clock movements in history. In 1815, Terry began mass-producing the first shelf clock. Chauncey Jerome , an apprentice of Eli Terry mass-produced up to 20,000 brass clocks annually in 1840 when he invented
5373-591: A system of process control which uses various instruments to measure variables such as temperature, pressure, volumetric and level, providing feedback. Bulk materials such as coal, ores, grains and wood chips are handled by belt, chain, slat, pneumatic or screw conveyors, bucket elevators and mobile equipment such as front-end loaders . Materials on pallets are handled with forklifts. Also used for handling heavy items like reels of paper, steel or machinery are electric overhead cranes , sometimes called bridge cranes because they span large factory bays. Mass production
5572-625: A system of ecclesiastical proscription or imprisonment, but without using torture, and seldom resorting to executions. This very profitable Central European Fourth Crusade had prompted the 14th century Renaissance (translated as 'Rebirth') of Italian city-states including the Papal States , on eve of the Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation (which established the Roman Inquisition to succeed
5771-401: A tremendous amount of useless handling and hauling. The belt and line shaft were also tremendously wasteful – so wasteful indeed that no factory could be really large, for even the longest line shaft was small according to modern requirements. Also high speed tools were impossible under the old conditions – neither the pulleys nor the belts could stand modern speeds. Without high speed tools and
5970-574: A trend and social statement, a breaking-off from the rigid Victorian way of life. These young, rebellious, middle-class women, labeled 'flappers' by older generations, did away with the corset and donned slinky knee-length dresses, which exposed their legs and arms. The hairstyle of the decade was a chin-length bob, which had several popular variations. Cosmetics, which until the 1920s were not typically accepted in American society because of their association with prostitution, became extremely popular. In
6169-457: A unique civilization, differentiating from others like Islam , giving rise to the concept of Western civilization. By the 15th century, Renaissance intellectuals solidified this concept, associating Western civilization not only with Christianity but also with the intellectual and political achievements of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Historians, such as Carroll Quigley in "The Evolution of Civilizations" , contend that Western civilization
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6368-505: A vast Middle Eastern area, when it ended. Conquest was enforced using the Roman legions and then through cultural assimilation by eventual recognition of some form of Roman citizenship's privileges. Nonetheless, despite its great legacy, a number of factors led to the eventual decline and ultimately fall of the Roman Empire . The Roman Empire succeeded the approximately 500-year-old Roman Republic ( c. 510–30 BC). In 350 years, from
6567-480: A very large amount of trees. In order to speed up such efforts, fast propagation of trees may be useful. Some automated machines have been produced to allow for fast (vegetative) plant propagation . Also, for some plants that help to sequester carbon (such as seagrass ), techniques have been developed to help speed up the process . Mass production benefited from the development of materials such as inexpensive steel, high strength steel and plastics. Machining of metals
6766-607: A worker work on a whole product from start to finish. The emergence of mass production allowed supply to outstrip demand in many markets, forcing companies to seek new ways to become more competitive . Mass production ties into the idea of overconsumption and the idea that we as humans consume too much. Mass production of fluid matter typically involves piping with centrifugal pumps or screw conveyors (augers) to transfer raw materials or partially complete products between vessels. Fluid flow processes such as oil refining and bulk materials such as wood chips and pulp are automated using
6965-656: Is Jikji , printed in Korea in the year 1377. Johannes Gutenberg , through his invention of the printing press and production of the Gutenberg Bible , introduced movable type to Europe. Through this introduction, mass production in the European publishing industry was made commonplace, leading to a democratization of knowledge , increased literacy and education, and the beginnings of modern science . French artillery engineer Jean-Baptiste de Gribeauval introduced
7164-405: Is capital-intensive and energy-intensive, for it uses a high proportion of machinery and energy in relation to workers. It is also usually automated while total expenditure per unit of product is decreased. However, the machinery that is needed to set up a mass production line (such as robots and machine presses ) is so expensive that in order to attain profits there must be some assurance that
7363-448: Is a reduction of non-productive effort of all types. In craft production , the craftsman must bustle about a shop, getting parts and assembling them. He must locate and use many tools many times for varying tasks. In mass production, each worker repeats one or a few related tasks that use the same tool to perform identical or near-identical operations on a stream of products. The exact tool and parts are always at hand, having been moved down
7562-736: Is a term to describe the ancient Roman society that conquered Central Italy assimilating the Italian Etruscan culture , growing from the Latium region since about the 8th century BC, to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea . In its 10-centuries territorial expansion, Roman civilization shifted from a small monarchy (753–509 BC), to a republic (509–27 BC), into an autocratic empire (27 BC – AD 476). Its Empire came to dominate Western, Central and Southeastern Europe, Northern Africa and, becoming an autocratic Empire
7761-799: Is also closely associated with Christianity , the dominant religion in the West, with roots in Greco - Roman and Jewish thought . Christian ethics , drawing from the ethical and moral principles of its historical roots in Judaism , has played a pivotal role in shaping the foundational framework of Western societies. Earlier civilizations, such as the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians , had also significantly influenced Western civilization through their advancements in writing, law codes, and societal structures. The convergence of Greek-Roman and Judeo-Christian influences in shaping Western civilization has led certain scholars to characterize it as emerging from
7960-646: Is credited with creating the modern university, the modern hospital system, scientific economics, and natural law (which would later influence the creation of international law ). European culture developed a complex range of philosophy, medieval scholasticism , mysticism and Christian and secular humanism , setting the stage for the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, which fundamentally altered religious and political life. Led by figures like Martin Luther , Protestantism challenged
8159-528: Is estimated to have first reached one billion in 1804. Also, the new philosophical movement later known as Romanticism originated, in the wake of the previous Age of Reason of the 1600s and the Enlightenment of 1700s. These are seen as fostering the 19th century Western world' s sustained economic development. Before the urbanization and industrialization of the 1800s, demand for oriental goods such as porcelain , silk , spices and tea remained
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8358-843: Is one of the three main production methods. The term mass production was popularized by a 1926 article in the Encyclopædia Britannica supplement that was written based on correspondence with Ford Motor Company . The New York Times used the term in the title of an article that appeared before the publication of the Britannica article. The idea of mass production is applied to many kinds of products: from fluids and particulates handled in bulk ( food , fuel , chemicals and mined minerals ), to clothing, textiles, parts and assemblies of parts ( household appliances and automobiles ). Some mass production techniques, such as standardized sizes and production lines, predate
8557-524: Is that while Taylor focused mostly on efficiency of the worker, Ford also substituted for labor by using machines, thoughtfully arranged, wherever possible. In 1807, Eli Terry was hired to produce 4,000 wooden movement clocks in the Porter Contract. At this time, the annual yield for wooden clocks did not exceed a few dozen on average. Terry developed a milling machine in 1795, in which he perfected Interchangeable parts . In 1807, Terry developed
8756-684: Is the time when the Huns (part of the ancient Eastern European tribes named barbarians by the Romans) from modern-day Hungary penetrated into the Dalmatian (modern-day Croatia ) region then originating in the following 150 years in the Roman Empire officially splitting in two halves. Also the time of the formal acceptance of Christianity as Empire's religious policy, when the Emperors began actively banning and fighting previous pagan religions . The Eastern Roman Empire included lands south-west of
8955-477: Is to be sought... only among those who are called Catholic or orthodox Christians, that is, guardians of truth and followers of right." Over time, the Western Christianity gradually identified with the "Catholic" label, and people of Western Europe gradually associated the "Orthodox" label with Eastern Christianity (although in some languages the "Catholic" label is not necessarily identified with
9154-601: Is where the idea of "the West" began to emerge. The Eastern Roman Empire , governed from Constantinople , is usually referred to as the Byzantine Empire after AD 476, the traditional date for the fall of the Roman Empire and beginning of the Early Middle Ages . The survival of the Eastern Roman Empire protected Roman legal and cultural traditions, combining them with Greek and Christian elements, for another thousand years. The name Byzantine Empire
9353-731: The ancient Western world was partly preserved during this period due to the survival of the Eastern Roman Empire and the introduction of the Catholic Church ; it was also greatly expanded by the Arab importation of both the Ancient Greco-Roman and new technology through the Arabs from India and China to Europe. Since the Renaissance, the West evolved beyond the influence of the ancient Greeks and Romans and
9552-471: The 15th to 20th centuries . This influence persists through the exportation of mass culture, a phenomenon often referred to as Westernization . There was debate among some in the 1960s as to whether Latin America as a whole is in a category of its own. Western culture , also known as Western civilization, European civilization, Occidental culture, or Western society, refers to the diverse culture of
9751-666: The Apollo Theater , swept dance halls from 1926 to 1927, replacing the Charleston in popularity. By 1927, the Lindy Hop , a dance based on Breakaway and Charleston and integrating elements of tap, became the dominant social dance . Developed in the Savoy Ballroom, it was set to stride piano ragtime jazz. The Lindy Hop later evolved into other Swing dances. These dances, nonetheless, never became mainstream, and
9950-521: The Atlantic slave trade between the 1490s and the 1800s, which also contributed to the development of African intertribal warfare and racist ideology. Before the abolition of its slave trade in 1807, the British Empire alone (which had started colonial efforts in 1578 , almost a century after Portuguese and Spanish empires) was responsible for the transportation of 3.5 million African slaves to
10149-743: The Black Sea and bordering on the Eastern Mediterranean and parts of the Adriatic Sea . This division into Eastern and Western Roman Empires was later reflected in the administration of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Greek Orthodox churches, with Rome and Constantinople debating over whether either city was the capital of Western religion . As the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic) churches spread their influence,
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#173276535706610348-533: The British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered 35,500,000 km (13,700,000 sq mi), 24% of the Earth's total land area. At its apex, the phrase " the empire on which the sun never sets " described the British Empire, because its expanse around the globe meant that the sun always shone on at least one of its territories. As
10547-543: The British —derived from colonization , and immigration of Europeans —factors that grounded such countries to the West. Depending on the context and the historical period in question, Russia was sometimes seen as a part of the West, and at other times juxtaposed with it. Running parallel to the rise of the United States as a great power and the development of communication–transportation technologies "shrinking"
10746-762: The Dalmatia , a region of interest to the maritime medieval Venetian Republic moneylenders and its rivals, such as the Republic of Genoa) rebelling against the Venetian economic domination. What followed dealt an irrevocable blow to the already weakened Byzantine Empire with the Crusader army's sack of Constantinople in April 1204, capital of the Greek Christian -controlled Byzantine Empire , described as one of
10945-620: The Ford River Rouge Complex with the idea of making the company's own iron and steel in the same large factory site where parts and car assembly took place. River Rouge also generated its own electricity. Upstream vertical integration, such as to raw materials, is away from leading technology toward mature, low-return industries. Most companies chose to focus on their core business rather than vertical integration. This included buying parts from outside suppliers, who could often produce them as cheaply or cheaper. Standard Oil ,
11144-821: The German Empire . At the close of the Spanish–American War in 1898 the Philippines , Puerto Rico , Guam and Cuba were ceded to the United States under the terms of the Treaty of Paris . The US quickly emerged as the new imperial power in East Asia and in the Pacific Ocean area . The Philippines continued to fight against colonial rule in the Philippine–American War . By 1913,
11343-407: The Hellenistic Jewish culture from which the earliest Christians and the Greek New Testament emerged. The eventual Christianization of Europe in late-antiquity would ensure that Christianity , particularly the Catholic Church , remained a dominant force in Western culture for many centuries to follow. Western culture continued to develop during the Middle Ages as reforms triggered by
11542-432: The Henry Ford Company which was rebranded as Cadillac and later was awarded the Dewar Trophy in 1908 for creating interchangeable mass-produced precision engine parts, Henry Ford downplayed the role of Taylorism in the development of mass production at his company. However, Ford management performed time studies and experiments to mechanize their factory processes, focusing on minimizing worker movements. The difference
11741-439: The Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia . Japan was involved primarily during the Meiji period (1868–1912), though earlier contacts with the Portuguese, Spaniards and Dutch were also present in the Japanese Empire 's recognition of the strategic importance of European nations. Traditional Japanese society became an industrial and militarist power like the Western British Empire and the French Third Republic , and similar to
11940-445: The Industrial Revolution by many centuries; however, it was not until the introduction of machine tools and techniques to produce interchangeable parts were developed in the mid-19th century that modern mass production was possible. Mass production involves making many copies of products, very quickly, using assembly line techniques to send partially complete products to workers who each work on an individual step, rather than having
12139-562: The Industrial Revolution , would produce powerful social transformations, political and economic institutions that have come to influence (or been imposed upon) most nations of the world today. Historians agree that the Industrial Revolution has been one of the most important events in history. The course of three centuries since Christopher Columbus' late 15th century's voyages, of deportation of slaves from Africa and British dominant northern- Atlantic location, later developed into modern-day United States of America , evolving from
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#173276535706612338-425: The Medieval Inquisition ). There followed the discovery of the American continent, and consequent dissolution of West Christendom as even a theoretical unitary political body, later resulting in the religious Eighty Years War (1568–1648) and Thirty Years War (1618–1648) between various Protestant and Catholic states of the Holy Roman Empire (and emergence of religiously diverse confessions ). In this context,
12537-626: The Mediterranean basin and Europe , and later circulated around the world predominantly through colonization and globalization . Historically, scholars have closely associated the idea of Western culture with the classical era of Greco-Roman antiquity . However, scholars also acknowledge that other ancient cultures, like Ancient Egypt , the Phoenician city-states , and several Near-Eastern cultures stimulated and fostered Western civilization. The Hellenistic period also promoted syncretism , blending Greek, Roman, and Jewish cultures. Major advances in literature, engineering, and science shaped
12736-423: The Middle Ages Western culture in fact entered other global-spanning cultures during the colonial 15th–20th centuries. Historically colonialism had been justified with the values of individualism and enlightenment . The concepts of a world of nation-states born by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, coupled with the ideologies of the Enlightenment, the coming of modernity , the Scientific Revolution and
12935-507: The New World , which today constitutes much of the "geographical" Western world. Starting from the late 1960s, certain parts of the Western world have become notable for their diversity due to immigration . The idea of "the West" over the course of time has evolved from a directional concept to a socio-political concept that had been temporalized and rendered as a concept of the future bestowed with notions of progress and modernity. The origins of Western civilization can be traced back to
13134-475: The Orient (from Latin oriens 'origin, sunrise, east'). The West is considered an evolving concept; made up of cultural, political, and economic synergy among diverse groups of people, and not a rigid region with fixed borders and members. Definitions of "Western world" vary according to context and perspectives. Some historians contend that a linear development of the West can be traced from Ancient Greece and Rome , while others argue that such
13333-523: The People's Republic of China , though this is disputed, since the People's Republic of China, as communist, had friendly relations—at certain times—with the Soviet bloc, and had a significant degree of importance in global geopolitics. Some Third World countries aligned themselves with either the US-led West or the Soviet-led Eastern bloc. A number of countries did not fit comfortably into this neat definition of partition, including Switzerland, Sweden, Austria, and Ireland , which chose to be neutral. Finland
13532-499: The Pope in Rome as the Holy Roman Empire (Latin Christian revival of the ancient Roman Empire, under perpetual Germanic rule from AD 962) inheriting ancient Roman Empire's prestige but offending the Eastern Roman Emperor in Constantinople, and leading to the Crusades and the East–West Schism. The crowning of the Emperor by the Pope led to the assumption that the highest power was the papal hierarchy , quintessential Roman Empire's spiritual heritage authority, establishing then, until
13731-413: The Portsmouth Block Mills in England to make ships' pulley blocks for the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars . It was achieved in 1803 by Marc Isambard Brunel in cooperation with Henry Maudslay under the management of Sir Samuel Bentham . The first unmistakable examples of manufacturing operations carefully designed to reduce production costs by specialized labour and the use of machines appeared in
13930-480: The Roman Empire , the destination of a massive influx of pagans (meaning "non-Christians" ) Bulgars and Slavs , an area where Catholic and Orthodox Christianity met, as well as the meeting point between Islam and Christianity. The Papal Inquisition was established in AD 1229 on a permanent basis, run largely by clergymen in Rome, and abolished six centuries later. Before AD 1100, the Catholic Church suppressed what they believed to be heresy, usually through
14129-409: The Vandals by their late expansion throughout Europe. The three-day Visigoths's AD 410 sack of Rome who had been raiding Greece not long before, a shocking time for Greco-Romans , was the first time after almost 800 years that Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy, and St. Jerome , living in Bethlehem at the time, wrote that "The City which had taken the whole world was itself taken." There followed
14328-643: The Venetian Arsenal produced nearly one ship every day in what was effectively the world's first factory , which at its height employed 16,000 people. The invention of movable type has allowed for documents such as books to be mass produced. The first movable type system was invented in China by Bi Sheng , during the reign of the Song dynasty , where it was used to, among other things, issue paper money . The oldest extant book produced using metal type
14527-471: The ancient Mediterranean world . Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome are generally considered to be the birthplaces of Western civilization—Greece having heavily influenced Rome—the former due to its impact on philosophy , democracy , science , aesthetics , as well as building designs and proportions and architecture ; the latter due to its influence on art , law , warfare , governance , republicanism , engineering and religion . Western Civilization
14726-781: The fall of the Byzantine Empire ), granting Portugal navigation, war and trade monopoly for any newly discovered lands, and competing Spanish navigators. It continued with the rise of the Dutch East India Company by the destabilizing Spanish discovery of the New World , and the creation and expansion of the English and French colonial empires, and others. Even after demands for self-determination from subject peoples within Western empires were met with decolonization , these institutions persisted. One specific example
14925-639: The medieval renaissances , the influence of the Islamic world via Al-Andalus and Sicily (including the transfer of technology from the East, and Latin translations of Arabic texts on science and philosophy by Greek and Hellenic-influenced Islamic philosophers), and the Italian Renaissance as Greek scholars fleeing the fall of Constantinople brought ancient Greek and Roman texts back to central and western Europe. Medieval Christianity
15124-718: The sack of AD 455 lasting 14 days, this time conducted by the Vandals , retaining Rome's eternal spirit through the Holy See of Rome (the Latin Church ) for centuries to come. The ancient Barbarian tribes, often composed of well-trained Roman soldiers paid by Rome to guard the extensive borders, had become militarily sophisticated "Romanized barbarians", and mercilessly slaughtered the Romans conquering their Western territories while looting their possessions. The Roman Empire
15323-528: The telescope and acceptance of heliocentrism . 18th century scholars continued to refine Newton's theory of gravitation , notably Leonhard Euler , Pierre Louis Maupertuis , Alexis-Claude Clairaut , Jean Le Rond d'Alembert , Joseph-Louis Lagrange , Pierre-Simon de Laplace . Laplace's five-volume Treatise on Celestial Mechanics is one of the great works of 18th-century Newtonianism. Astronomy gained in prestige as new observatories were funded by governments and more powerful telescopes developed, leading to
15522-571: The 13th and 14th centuries, a number of European travelers, many of them Christian missionaries , had sought to cultivate trading with Asia and Africa . With the Crusades came the relative contraction of the Orthodox Byzantine 's large silk industry in favor of Catholic Western Europe and the rise of Western Papacy . The most famous of these merchant travelers pursuing East–west trade was Venetian Marco Polo . But these journeys had little permanent effect on east–west trade because of
15721-535: The 18th century in England. The Navy was in a state of expansion that required 100,000 pulley blocks to be manufactured a year. Bentham had already achieved remarkable efficiency at the docks by introducing power-driven machinery and reorganising the dockyard system. Brunel, a pioneering engineer, and Maudslay, a pioneer of machine tool technology who had developed the first industrially practical screw-cutting lathe in 1800 which standardized screw thread sizes for
15920-560: The 1920s developed in a different direction from that of Europe. In Europe, the 1920s were the era of expressionism and later surrealism . As Man Ray stated in 1920 after the publication of a unique issue of New York Dada : " Dada cannot live in New York". At the beginning of the decade, films were silent and colorless. In 1922, the first all-color feature, The Toll of the Sea , was released. In 1926, Warner Bros. released Don Juan ,
16119-600: The 1920s under the banner of the " Harlem Renaissance ". In 1921, the Black Swan Corporation was founded. At its height, it issued 10 recordings per month. All-African American musicals also started in 1921. In 1923, the Harlem Renaissance Basketball Club was founded by Bob Douglas . During the late-1920s, and especially in the 1930s, the basketball team became known as the best in the world. The first issue of Opportunity
16318-435: The 1920s with performers such as Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey . In the latter part of the decade, early forms of country music were pioneered by Jimmie Rodgers , The Carter Family , Uncle Dave Macon , Vernon Dalhart , and Charlie Poole . Dance clubs became enormously popular in the 1920s. Their popularity peaked in the late 1920s and reached into the early 1930s. Dance music came to dominate all forms of popular music by
16517-612: The 1920s, new magazines appealed to young German women with a sensuous image and advertisements for the appropriate clothes and accessories they would want to purchase. The glossy pages of Die Dame and Das Blatt der Hausfrau displayed the "Neue Frauen", "New Girl" – what Americans called the flapper . She was young and fashionable, financially independent, and was an eager consumer of the latest fashions. The magazines kept her up to date on styles, clothes, designers, arts, sports, and modern technology such as automobiles and telephones. Western world The Western world , also known as
16716-640: The 1920s, swing in the 1930s, bebop in the 1940s, cool jazz and hard bop in the 1950s, free jazz and fusion in the 1960s.... There is substantial agreement on the defining features of each style, the pantheon of great innovators, and the canon of recorded masterpieces." The pantheon of performers and singers from the 1920s include Louis Armstrong , Duke Ellington , Sidney Bechet , Jelly Roll Morton , Joe "King" Oliver , James P. Johnson , Fletcher Henderson , Frankie Trumbauer , Paul Whiteman , Roger Wolfe Kahn , Bix Beiderbecke , Adelaide Hall , and Bing Crosby . The development of urban and city blues also began in
16915-1035: The 1930s. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit , a character created by Disney before Mickey in 1927, was contracted by Universal for distribution purposes, and starred in a series of shorts between 1927 and 1928. Disney lost the rights to the character, but in 2006, regained the rights to Oswald. He was the first Disney character to be merchandised. The period had the emergence of box-office draws such as Mae Murray , Ramón Novarro , Rudolph Valentino , Buster Keaton , Harold Lloyd , Warner Baxter , Clara Bow , Louise Brooks , Baby Peggy , Bebe Daniels , Billie Dove , Dorothy Mackaill , Mary Astor , Nancy Carroll , Janet Gaynor , Charles Farrell , William Haines , Conrad Nagel , John Gilbert , Greta Garbo , Dolores del Río , Norma Talmadge , Colleen Moore , Nita Naldi , Leatrice Joy , John Barrymore , Norma Shearer , Joan Crawford , Anna May Wong , and Al Jolson . African American literary and artistic culture developed rapidly during
17114-663: The 19th century saw the transition from "informal imperialism" ( hegemony ) by military influence and economic dominance, to direct rule (a revival of colonial imperialism ) in the African continent and Middle East . During the socioeconomically optimistic and innovative decades of the Second Industrial Revolution between the 1870s and 1914, also known as the " Beautiful Era ", the established colonial powers in Asia (United Kingdom, France, Netherlands) added to their empires also vast expanses of territory in
17313-455: The 20th century's definition of mass production appeared in a 1926 Encyclopædia Britannica supplement. The article was written based on correspondence with Ford Motor Company and is sometimes credited as the first use of the term. Electrification of factories began very gradually in the 1890s after the introduction of a practical DC motor by Frank J. Sprague and accelerated after the AC motor
17512-696: The Americas, a third of all slaves transported across the Atlantic. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806 by the French Revolutionary Wars ; abolition of the Roman Catholic Inquisition followed. Due to the reach of these empires, Western institutions expanded throughout the world. This process of influence (and imposition) began with the voyages of discovery , colonization, conquest, and exploitation of Portugal enforced as well by papal bulls in 1450s (by
17711-588: The Atlantic Ocean. His aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis , was a custom-built, single engine, single-seat monoplane . It was designed by aeronautical engineer Donald A. Hall . In Britain, Amy Johnson (1903–1941) was the first woman to fly alone from Britain to Australia. Flying solo or with her husband, Jim Mollison, she set numerous long-distance records during the 1930s. The 1920s saw several inventors advance work on television, but programs did not reach
17910-567: The BBC. For decades biologists had been at work on the medicine that became penicillin. In 1928, Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming discovered a substance that killed a number of disease-causing bacteria. In 1929, he named the new substance penicillin . His publications were largely ignored at first, but it became a significant antibiotic in the 1930s. In 1930, Cecil George Paine, a pathologist at Sheffield Royal Infirmary , used penicillin to treat sycosis barbae , eruptions in beard follicles, but
18109-816: The Byzantine Emperor and established their own states in the conquered regions, including the heart of the Byzantine Empire . The Holy Roman Empire would dissolve on 6 August 1806, after the French Revolution and the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon . The decline of the Byzantine Empire (13th–15th centuries) began with the Latin Christian Fourth Crusade in AD 1202–04, considered to be one of
18308-483: The Commonwealth of Nations . But the end of Western colonial imperialism saw the rise of Western neocolonialism or economic imperialism. Multinational corporations came to offer "a dramatic refinement of the traditional business enterprise", through "issues as far ranging as national sovereignty, ownership of the means of production, environmental protection, consumerism, and policies toward organized labor." Though
18507-546: The Eastern European world such as the East and South Slavic peoples. Roman Catholic Western and Central Europe, as such, maintained a distinct identity particularly as it began to redevelop during the Renaissance. Even following the Protestant Reformation , Protestant Europe continued to see itself as more tied to Roman Catholic Europe than other parts of the perceived civilized world . Use of
18706-601: The Emperor's tomb is also believed to have been created through the use of standardized molds on an assembly line . In ancient Carthage , ships of war were mass-produced on a large scale at a moderate cost, allowing them to efficiently maintain their control of the Mediterranean . Many centuries later, the Republic of Venice would follow Carthage in producing ships with prefabricated parts on an assembly line:
18905-576: The European spice trade with Asia, who had journeyed overland to the Far East contributing to geographical knowledge of parts of the Asian continent. They are of enormous significance in Western history as they marked the beginning of the European exploration, colonization and exploitation of the American continents and their native inhabitants . The European colonization of the Americas led to
19104-647: The Human Mind (1794), from primitive society to agrarianism , the invention of writing, the later invention of the printing press and the advancement to "the Period when the Sciences and Philosophy threw off the Yoke of Authority". French writer Pierre Bayle denounced Spinoza as a pantheist (thereby accusing him of atheism ). Bayle's criticisms garnered much attention for Spinoza. The pantheism controversy in
19303-493: The Islamic world, due to the successful Second Agricultural , Commercial , Scientific , and Industrial revolutions (propellers of modern banking concepts). The West rose further with the 18th century's Age of Enlightenment and through the Age of Exploration 's expansion of peoples of Western and Central European empires, particularly the globe-spanning colonial empires of 18th and 19th centuries. Numerous times, this expansion
19502-608: The Protestant Reformation (1517) may be viewed as a schism within the Catholic Church . German monk Martin Luther , in the wake of precursors, broke with the pope and with the emperor by the Catholic Church's abusive commercialization of indulgences in the Late Medieval Period , backed by many of the German princes and helped by the development of the printing press , in an attempt to reform corruption within
19701-547: The Protestant Reformation, the civilization of Western Christendom . The earliest concept of Europe as a cultural sphere (instead of simple geographic term) is believed to have been formed by Alcuin of York during the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century, but was limited to the territories that practised Western Christianity at the time. The Latin Church of western and central Europe split with
19900-490: The Roaring Twenties was marked by a general feeling of novelty associated with modernity and a break with tradition, through modern technology such as automobiles, moving pictures , and radio, bringing "modernity" to a large part of the population. Formal decorative frills were shed in favor of practicality in both daily life and architecture. At the same time, jazz and dancing rose in popularity, in opposition to
20099-413: The U.S.-sponsored dancing contests, where dancers invented, tried and competed with new moves. Professionals began to hone their skills in tap dance and other dances of the era throughout the stage circuit across the United States. With the advent of talking pictures (sound film), musicals became all the rage and film studios flooded the box office with extravagant and lavish musical films. The representative
20298-538: The US for general distribution was The Poor Millionaire , released by Biltmore Pictures in April 1930. Four other silent features, all low-budget Westerns , were also released in early 1930. The 1920s saw milestones in aviation that seized the world's attention. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh rose to fame with the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight . He took off from Roosevelt Field in New York and landed at Paris–Le Bourget Airport . It took Lindbergh 33.5 hours to cross
20497-471: The United States had just under 27,000,000 motor vehicles registered. Automobile parts were being manufactured in Ontario, near Detroit, Michigan. The automotive industry's influence on other segments of the economy were widespread, jump starting industries such as steel production, highway building, motels, service stations, car dealerships, and new housing outside the urban core. Ford opened factories around
20696-529: The West , primarily refers to various nations and states in the regions of Western Europe , Northern America , and Australasia ; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also constitute the West. The Western world likewise is called the Occident (from Latin occidens 'setting down, sunset, west') in contrast to the Eastern world known as
20895-466: The Western Church). This was in note of the fact that both Catholic and Orthodox were in use as ecclesiastical adjectives as early as the 2nd and 4th centuries respectively. Meanwhile, the extent of both Christendoms expanded, as Germanic peoples, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, Scandinavia, Finnic peoples, Baltic peoples, British Isles and the other non-Christian lands of the northwest were converted by
21094-782: The Western Church, while Eastern Slavic peoples, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Russian territories, Vlachs and Georgia were converted by the Eastern Orthodox Church . In 1071, the Byzantine army was defeated by the Muslim Turco-Persians of medieval Asia , resulting in the loss of most of Asia Minor . The situation was a serious threat to the future of the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire . The Emperor sent
21293-523: The Western World. The term "Western" encompasses the social norms , ethical values , traditional customs , belief systems , political systems , artifacts and technologies primarily rooted in European and Mediterranean histories. A broad concept, "Western culture" does not relate to a region with fixed members or geographical confines. It generally refers to the classical era cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome that expanded across
21492-476: The armories designing and building many of their own. Some of the methods employed were a system of gauges for checking dimensions of the various parts and jigs and fixtures for guiding the machine tools and properly holding and aligning the work pieces. This system came to be known as armory practice or the American system of manufacturing , which spread throughout New England aided by skilled mechanics from
21691-894: The armories who were instrumental in transferring the technology to the sewing machines manufacturers and other industries such as machine tools, harvesting machines and bicycles. Singer Manufacturing Co. , at one time the largest sewing machine manufacturer, did not achieve interchangeable parts until the late 1880s, around the same time Cyrus McCormick adopted modern manufacturing practices in making harvesting machines . During World War II , The United States mass-produced many vehicles and weapons , such as ships (i.e. Liberty Ships , Higgins boats ), aircraft (i.e. North American P-51 Mustang , Consolidated B-24 Liberator , Boeing B-29 Superfortress ), jeeps (i.e. Willys MB ), trucks, tanks (i.e. M4 Sherman ) and M2 Browning and M1919 Browning machine guns . Many vehicles, transported by ships have been shipped in parts and later assembled on-site. For
21890-504: The assembly line consecutively. The worker spends little or no time retrieving and/or preparing materials and tools, and so the time taken to manufacture a product using mass production is shorter than when using traditional methods. The probability of human error and variation is also reduced, as tasks are predominantly carried out by machinery; error in operating such machinery has more far-reaching consequences. A reduction in labour costs, as well as an increased rate of production, enables
22089-471: The authority of the Catholic Church and promoted ideas of individual freedom and religious reform , paving the way for modern notions of personal responsibility and governance. The geopolitical divisions in Europe that created a concept of East and West originated in the ancient tyrannical and imperialistic Graeco-Roman times. The Eastern Mediterranean was home to the highly urbanized cultures that had Greek as their common language (owing to
22288-429: The blocks to ensure alignment throughout the process. One of the many advantages of this new method was the increase in labour productivity due to the less labour-intensive requirements of managing the machinery. Richard Beamish, assistant to Brunel's son and engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel , wrote: So that ten men, by the aid of this machinery, can accomplish with uniformity, celerity and ease, what formerly required
22487-546: The box office. Other studios quickened the pace of their conversion to the new technology and started producing their own sound films and talking films. In February 1929, sixteen months after The Jazz Singer , Columbia Pictures became the eighth and last major studio to release a talking feature. In May 1929, Warner Bros. released On with the Show! (1929), the first all-color, all-talking feature film. Soon silent film production ceased. The last totally silent feature produced in
22686-407: The cheap 30-hour OG clock. The United States Department of War sponsored the development of interchangeable parts for guns produced at the arsenals at Springfield, Massachusetts and Harpers Ferry , Virginia (now West Virginia) in the early decades of the 19th century, finally achieving reliable interchangeability by about 1850. This period coincided with the development of machine tools , with
22885-466: The church. Both these religious wars ended with the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which enshrined the concept of the nation-state , and the principle of absolute national sovereignty in international law . As European influence spread across the globe, these Westphalian principles , especially the concept of sovereign states, became central to international law and to the prevailing world order. In
23084-558: The city of Constantinople (today's Istanbul ) in modern-day Turkey as the "New Rome" when he picked it as capital of his Empire (later called " Byzantine Empire " by modern historians) in AD 330. This internal conflict of legacies had possibly emerged since the assassination of Julius Caesar three centuries earlier, when Roman imperialism had just been born with the Roman Republic becoming "Roman Empire", but reached its zenith during 3rd century's many internal civil wars . This
23283-466: The conversion of production facilities and theaters for sound film. Initially, all ERPI-wired theaters were made Vitaphone-compatible; most were equipped to project Movietone reels as well. Also in 1928, Radio Corporation of America (RCA) marketed a new sound system, the RCA Photophone system. RCA offered the rights to its system to the subsidiary RKO Pictures . Warner Bros. continued releasing
23482-566: The dance hall" but had little impact. The most popular dances throughout the decade were the foxtrot , waltz , and American tango . From the early 1920s, however, a variety of eccentric novelty dances were developed. The first of these were the Breakaway and Charleston . Both were based on African American musical styles and beats, including the widely popular blues . The Charleston's popularity exploded after its feature in two 1922 Broadway shows. A brief Black Bottom craze, originating from
23681-752: The decade by unveiling On with the Show in 1929, the first all-color, all-talking feature film. Cartoon shorts were popular in movie theaters during this time. In the late 1920s, Walt Disney emerged. Mickey Mouse made his debut in Steamboat Willie on November 18, 1928, at the Colony Theater in New York City. Mickey was featured in more than 120 cartoon shorts, the Mickey Mouse Club , and other specials. This started Disney and led to creation of other characters going into
23880-416: The decade was known as the années folles ( ' crazy years ' ), emphasizing the era's social, artistic and cultural dynamism. Jazz blossomed, the flapper redefined the modern look for British and American women, and Art Deco peaked. The social and cultural features known as the Roaring Twenties began in leading metropolitan centers and spread widely in the aftermath of World War I . The spirit of
24079-470: The discovery of new planets, asteroids , nebulae and comets , and paving the way for improvements in navigation and cartography . Astronomy became the second most popular scientific profession, after medicine . A common metanarrative of the Enlightenment is the "secularization theory". Modernity, as understood within the framework, means a total break with the past. Innovation and science are
24278-507: The distance between both the Atlantic Ocean shores, the US became more prominently featured in the conceptualizations of the West. Between the eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, prominent countries in the West such as the United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand have been once envisioned as ethnocracies for Whites . Racism is cited as a contributing factor to European colonization of
24477-567: The drive to find oceanic routes that would provide cheaper and easier access to South and East Asian goods, by advancements in maritime technology such as the caravel ship introduced in the mid-1400s. The charting of oceanic routes between East and West began with the unprecedented voyages of Portuguese and Spanish sea captains. In 1492, European colonialism expanded across the globe with the exploring voyage of merchant, navigator, and Hispano-Italian colonizer Christopher Columbus . Such voyages were influenced by medieval European adventurers after
24676-457: The driving force behind European imperialism in Asia, and (with the important exception of British East India Company rule in India) the European stake in Asia remained confined largely to trading stations and strategic outposts necessary to protect trade. Industrialization , however, dramatically increased European demand for Asian raw materials; and the severe Long Depression of the 1870s provoked
24875-514: The earliest reference to the term "Western world" was from 1586, found in the writings of William Warner . Countries that are considered to constitute the West vary according to perspective rather than their geographical location. Countries like Australia and New Zealand, located in the Eastern Hemisphere are included in modern definitions of the Western world, as these regions and others like them have been significantly influenced by
25074-661: The early 4th century, the central focus of power was on two separate imperial legacies within the Roman Empire: the older Aegean Sea Greek heritage (of Classical Greece ) in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the newer most successful Tyrrhenian Sea Latin heritage (of Ancient Latium and Tuscany ) in the Western Mediterranean. A turning point was Constantine the Great 's decision to establish
25273-449: The early years of suffrage, as can be seen by the large drop in voter turnout). Politicians responded by focusing more on issues of concern to women, especially peace, public health, education, and the status of children. On the whole, women voted much like men, except they were more interested in peace, even when it meant appeasement. The Lost Generation was composed of young people who came out of World War I disillusioned and cynical about
25472-823: The eastern Greek patriarchates in the Christian East–West Schism , also known as the "Great Schism", during the Gregorian Reforms (calling for a more central status of the Roman Catholic Church Institution), three months after Pope Leo IX 's death in April 1054. Following the 1054 Great Schism , both the Western Church and Eastern Church continued to consider themselves uniquely orthodox and catholic. Augustine wrote in On True Religion: "Religion
25671-469: The end of the decade of the 1920s, eliminated vaudeville's last major advantage and put it into sharp financial decline. The prestigious Orpheum Circuit , a chain of vaudeville and movie theaters, was absorbed by a new film studio. In 1923, inventor Lee de Forest at Phonofilm released a number of short films with sound. Meanwhile, inventor Theodore Case developed the Movietone sound system and sold
25870-476: The end of the decade, one in five workers were women. Interest in finding jobs, in the now ever-growing manufacturing sector of U.S. cities, became widespread among rural Americans. Many countries expanded women's voting rights, such as the United States, Canada, Great Britain, India, and various European countries in 1917–1921. This influenced many governments and elections by increasing the number of voters (but not doubling it, because many women did not vote during
26069-404: The end of wartime production caused a brief but deep recession, the post–World War I recession of 1919–1920 and a sharp deflationary recession or depression in 1920–1921. Quickly, however, the economies of the U.S. and Canada rebounded as returning soldiers re-entered the labor force and munitions factories were retooled to produce consumer goods. Mass production made technology affordable to
26268-456: The fashion industry, particularly in the realm of fibers and materials. The advent of synthetic fibers, such as polyester and nylon, revolutionized textile manufacturing by providing cost-effective alternatives to natural fibers. This shift enabled the rapid production of inexpensive clothing, contributing to the rise of fast fashion. This reliance on mass production has raised concerns about environmental sustainability and labor conditions, spurring
26467-407: The fashion trends for Europe and North America. The fashion for women was all about getting loose. Women wore dresses all day, every day. Day dresses had a drop waist, which was a sash or belt around the low waist or hip and a skirt that hung anywhere from the ankle on up to the knee, never above. Daywear had sleeves (long to mid-bicep) and a skirt that was straight, pleated, hank hem, or tired. Jewelry
26666-502: The finer steels which they brought about, there could be nothing of what we call modern industry. Mass production was popularized in the late 1910s and 1920s by Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company , which introduced electric motors to the then-well-known technique of chain or sequential production. Ford also bought or designed and built special purpose machine tools and fixtures such as multiple spindle drill presses that could drill every hole on one side of an engine block in one operation and
26865-507: The finished product, is at the core of all mass-produced construction. Early examples include movable structures reportedly utilized by Akbar the Great , and the chattel houses built by emancipated slaves on Barbados . The Nissen hut , first used by the British during World War I , married prefabrication and mass production in a way that suited the needs of the military. The simple structures, which cost little and could be erected in just
27064-424: The first feature with sound effects and music. In 1927, Warner released The Jazz Singer , the first sound feature to include limited talking sequences. The public went wild for sound films, and movie studios converted to sound almost overnight. In 1928, Warner released Lights of New York , the first all-talking feature film. In the same year, the first sound cartoon, Dinner Time , was released. Warner ended
27263-471: The first instance of the application of mass production techniques (though not necessarily the assembly-line method) to marine engineering. In filling an Admiralty order for 90 sets to his high-pressure and high-revolution horizontal trunk engine design, Penn produced them all in 90 days. He also used Whitworth Standard threads throughout. Prerequisites for the wide use of mass production were interchangeable parts , machine tools and power , especially in
27462-594: The first time which in turn allowed the application of interchangeable parts , collaborated on plans to manufacture block-making machinery. By 1805, the dockyard had been fully updated with the revolutionary, purpose-built machinery at a time when products were still built individually with different components. A total of 45 machines were required to perform 22 processes on the blocks, which could be made into one of three possible sizes. The machines were almost entirely made of metal thus improving their accuracy and durability. The machines would make markings and indentations on
27661-475: The form of electricity . Some of the organizational management concepts needed to create 20th-century mass production, such as scientific management , had been pioneered by other engineers (most of whom are not famous, but Frederick Winslow Taylor is one of the well-known ones), whose work would later be synthesized into fields such as industrial engineering , manufacturing engineering , operations research , and management consultancy . Although after leaving
27860-579: The good, representing the modern values of rationalism , while faith is ruled by superstition and traditionalism. Inspired by the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment embodied the ideals of improvement and progress. Descartes and Isaac Newton were regarded as exemplars of human intellectual achievement. Condorcet wrote about the progress of humanity in the Sketch of the Progress of
28059-496: The invention of machine tools the manufacture of precision parts, especially metal ones, was highly labour-intensive. Crossbows made with bronze parts were produced in China during the Warring States period . The Qin Emperor unified China at least in part by equipping large armies with these weapons, which were fitted with a sophisticated trigger mechanism made of interchangeable parts. The Terracotta Army guarding
28258-550: The late 18th century saw Gotthold Lessing attacked by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi over support for Spinoza's pantheism. Lessing was defended by Moses Mendelssohn , although Mendelssohn diverged from pantheism to follow Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in arguing that God and the world were not of the same substance (equivalency). Spinoza was excommunicated from the Dutch Sephardic community, but for Jews who sought out Jewish sources to guide their own path to secularism, Spinoza
28457-487: The late 1920s. Classical pieces, operettas, folk music, etc., were all transformed into popular dancing melodies to satiate the public craze for dancing. For example, many of the songs from the 1929 Technicolor musical operetta " The Rogue Song " (starring the Metropolitan Opera star Lawrence Tibbett ) were rearranged and released as dancing music and became popular dance club hits in 1929. Dance clubs across
28656-423: The leather belt and line shaft , for it eventually became possible to provide each tool with its own electric motor. This may seem only a detail of minor importance. In fact, modern industry could not be carried out with the belt and line shaft for a number of reasons. The motor enabled machinery to be arranged in the order of the work, and that alone has probably doubled the efficiency of industry, for it has cut out
28855-515: The legacies of Athens and Jerusalem , or Athens, Jerusalem and Rome . In ancient Greece and Rome, individuals identified primarily as subjects of states, city-states, or empires, rather than as members of Western civilization. The distinct identification of Western civilization began to crystallize with the rise of Christianity during the Late Roman Empire . In this period, peoples in Europe started to perceive themselves as part of
29054-455: The leveraging of economies of scale , as well as the specialization of construction tasks in a process akin to an assembly line. This era also saw the invention of the mobile home , a small prefabricated house that can be transported cheaply on a truck bed. In the modern industrialization of construction, mass production is often used for prefabrication of house components. Fabrics and Materials Mass production has significantly impacted
29253-529: The line between Eastern and Western Christianity was moving. Its movement was affected by the influence of the Byzantine empire and the fluctuating power and influence of the Catholic church in Rome. The geographic line of religious division approximately followed a line of cultural divide . In AD 800 under Charlemagne , the Early Medieval Franks established an empire that was recognized by
29452-793: The major oil company in the 19th century, was vertically integrated partly because there was no demand for unrefined crude oil, but kerosene and some other products were in great demand. The other reason was that Standard Oil monopolized the oil industry. The major oil companies were, and many still are, vertically integrated, from production to refining and with their own retail stations, although some sold off their retail operations. Some oil companies also have chemical divisions. Lumber and paper companies at one time owned most of their timber lands and sold some finished products such as corrugated boxes. The tendency has been to divest of timber lands to raise cash and to avoid property taxes. The economies of mass production come from several sources. The primary cause
29651-410: The mid-1920s. In the U.S., one of the more remarkable buildings featuring this style was constructed as the tallest building of the time: the Chrysler Building . The forms of Art Deco were pure and geometric, though the artists often drew inspiration from nature. In the beginning, lines were curved, though rectilinear designs would later become more and more popular. Painting in North America during
29850-482: The middle class. The automotive industry , the film industry , the radio industry , and the chemical industry took off during the 1920s. Before World War I, cars were a luxury good . In the 1920s, mass-produced vehicles became commonplace in the U.S. and Canada. By 1927, the Ford Motor Company discontinued the Ford Model T after selling 15 million units of that model. It had been in continuous production from October 1908 to May 1927. The company planned to replace
30049-400: The millions. New car dealers were franchised by the car makers and became prime movers in the local business community. Tourism gained an enormous boost, with hotels, restaurants and curio shops proliferating. Electrification , having slowed during the war, progressed greatly as more of the US and Canada was added to the electrical grid . Industries switched from coal power to electricity. At
30248-472: The mood of World War I. As such, the period often is referred to as the Jazz Age . The 1920s saw the large-scale development and use of automobiles, telephones, films, radio, and electrical appliances in the lives of millions in the Western world. Aviation soon became a business due to its rapid growth. Nations saw rapid industrial and economic growth, accelerated consumer demand, and introduced significant new trends in lifestyle and culture. The media, funded by
30447-404: The most important events, solidifying the schism between the Christian churches of Greek Byzantine Rite and Latin Roman Rite . An anti-Western riot in 1182 broke out in Constantinople targeting Latins. The extremely wealthy (after previous Crusades ) Venetians in particular made a successful attempt to maintain control over the coast of Catholic present-day Croatia (specifically
30646-414: The most popular form of music for youth. Historian Kathy J. Ogren wrote that, by the 1920s, jazz had become the "dominant influence on America's popular music generally" Scott DeVeaux argues that a standard history of jazz has emerged such that: "After an obligatory nod to African origins and ragtime antecedents, the music is shown to move through a succession of styles or periods: New Orleans jazz up through
30845-413: The most profitable and disgraceful sacks of a city in history. This paved the way for Muslim conquests in present-day Turkey and the Balkans in the coming centuries (only a handful of the Crusaders followed to the stated destination thereafter, the Holy Land ). The geographical identity of the Balkans is historically known as a crossroads of cultures, a juncture between the Latin and Greek bodies of
31044-498: The nation was fascinated with its great metropolitan centers that contained about 15% of the population. The cities of New York and Chicago vied in building skyscrapers, and New York pulled ahead with its Empire State Building . The basic pattern of the modern white-collar job was set during the late-19th century, but it now became the norm for life in large and medium-sized cities. Typewriters, filing cabinets, and telephones, brought many unmarried women into clerical jobs. In Canada, by
31243-457: The need for greater ethical and sustainable practices within the fashion industry. Mass production systems for items made of numerous parts are usually organized into assembly lines . The assemblies pass by on a conveyor, or if they are heavy, hung from an overhead crane or monorail. In a factory for a complex product, rather than one assembly line, there may be many auxiliary assembly lines feeding sub-assemblies (i.e. car engines or seats) to
31442-440: The new industry of mass-market advertising driving consumer demand, focused on celebrities, especially sports heroes and movie stars, as cities rooted for their home teams and filled the new palatial cinemas and gigantic sports stadiums. In many countries, women won the right to vote . Wall Street invested heavily in Germany under the 1924 Dawes Plan , named after banker and later 30th Vice President Charles G. Dawes . The money
31641-423: The official language of the empire. The inhabitants called themselves Romans because the term "Roman" was meant to signify all Christians . The Pope crowned Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans of the newly established Holy Roman Empire , and the West began thinking in terms of Western Latins living in the old Western Empire, and Eastern Greeks (those inside the Roman remnant of the old Eastern Empire). In
31840-580: The old model with a newer one, the Ford Model A . The decision was a reaction to competition. Due to the commercial success of the Model T, Ford had dominated the automotive market from the mid-1910s to the early-1920s. In the mid-1920s, Ford's dominance eroded as its competitors had caught up with Ford's mass production system. They began to surpass Ford in some areas, offering models with more powerful engines, new convenience features, and styling. Only about 300,000 vehicles were registered in 1918 in all of Canada, but by 1929, there were 1.9 million. By 1929,
32039-452: The older empire of Alexander the Great and of the Hellenistic successors ), whereas the West was much more rural in its character and more readily adopted Latin as its common language. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the medieval times (or Middle Ages ), Western and Central Europe were substantially cut off from the East where Byzantine Greek culture and Eastern Christianity became founding influences in
32238-441: The ongoing energy transition , many wind turbine components and solar panels are being mass-produced. Wind turbines and solar panels are being used in respectively wind farms and solar farms . In addition, in the ongoing climate change mitigation , large-scale carbon sequestration (through reforestation , blue carbon restoration , etc) has been proposed. Some projects (such as the Trillion Tree Campaign ) involve planting
32437-403: The only valid method of arriving at truth". Its precursors were John Milton and Baruch Spinoza . Meeting Galileo in 1638 left an enduring impact on John Milton and influenced Milton's great work Areopagitica , where he warns that, without free speech , inquisitorial forces will impose "an undeserved thraldom upon learning". The achievements of the 17th century included the invention of
32636-431: The overt colonial era had passed, Western nations, as comparatively rich, well-armed, and culturally powerful states, wielded a large degree of influence throughout the world, and with little or no sense of responsibility toward the peoples impacted by its multinational corporations in their exploitation of minerals and markets. The dictum of Alfred Thayer Mahan is shown to have lasting relevance, that whoever controls
32835-881: The overwhelming majority of people in Western Europe and the U.S. continued to dance the foxtrot, waltz, and tango throughout the decade. The dance craze had a large influence on popular music. Large numbers of recordings labeled as foxtrot, tango, and waltz were produced and gave rise to a generation of performers who became famous as recording artists or radio artists. Top vocalists included Nick Lucas , Adelaide Hall , Scrappy Lambert , Frank Munn, Lewis James , Chester Gaylord , Gene Austin , James Melton , Franklyn Baur , Johnny Marvin, Annette Hanshaw , Helen Kane , Vaughn De Leath , and Ruth Etting . Leading dance orchestra leaders included Bob Haring , Harry Horlick , Louis Katzman, Leo Reisman , Victor Arden , Phil Ohman , George Olsen , Ted Lewis , Abe Lyman , Ben Selvin , Nat Shilkret , Fred Waring , and Paul Whiteman . Paris set
33034-479: The product against the plans or the other parts as it is being formed, there were jigs ready at hand to ensure that the part was made to fit this set-up. It had already been checked that the finished part would be to specifications to fit all the other finished parts—and it would be made more quickly, with no time spent on finishing the parts to fit one another. Later, once computerized control came about (for example, CNC ), jigs were obviated, but it remained true that
33233-421: The product will be successful. One of the descriptions of mass production is that "the skill is built into the tool", which means that the worker using the tool may not need the skill. For example, in the 19th or early 20th century, this could be expressed as "the craftsmanship is in the workbench itself" (not the training of the worker). Rather than having a skilled worker measure every dimension of each part of
33432-519: The public until the eve of World War II, and few people saw any television before the mid 1940s. In July 1928, John Logie Baird demonstrated the world's first color transmission, using scanning discs at the transmitting and receiving ends with three spirals of apertures, each spiral with a filter of a different primary color; and three light sources at the receiving end, with a commutator to alternate their illumination. That same year he also demonstrated stereoscopic television. In 1927, Baird transmitted
33631-433: The ratification of the Constitution of the United States by thirteen States on the North American East Coast before end of the 18th century. In the early-19th century, the systematic urbanization process (migration from villages in search of jobs in manufacturing centers) had begun, and the concentration of labor into factories led to the rise in the population of the towns. World population had been rising as well. It
33830-420: The rights to the film studio, Fox Film . In 1926, the Vitaphone sound system was introduced. The feature film Don Juan (1926) was the first feature-length film to use the Vitaphone sound system with a synchronized musical score and sound effects, though it had no spoken dialogue. The film was released by the film studio Warner Bros. In October 1927, the sound film The Jazz Singer (1927) turned out to be
34029-510: The same time, new power plants were constructed. In America, electricity production almost quadrupled. Telephone lines also were being strung across the continent. Indoor plumbing was installed for the first time in many homes, made possible due to modern sewer systems . Urbanization reached a milestone in the 1920 census, the results of which showed that slightly more Americans lived in urban areas, towns, and cities, populated by 2,500 or more people, than in small towns or rural areas. However,
34228-406: The seas controls the world. Eric Voegelin described the 18th-century as one where "the sentiment grows that one age has come to its close and that a new age of Western civilization is about to be born". According to Voeglin the Enlightenment (also called the Age of Reason ) represents the "atrophy of Christian transcendental experiences and [seeks] to enthrone the Newtonian method of science as
34427-418: The skill (or knowledge) was built into the tool (or process, or documentation) rather than residing in the worker's head. This is the specialized capital required for mass production; each workbench and set of tools (or each CNC cell, or each fractionating column ) is different (fine-tuned to its task). Standardized parts and sizes and factory production techniques were developed in pre-industrial times; before
34626-444: The standardization of cannon design in the late 18th century. He streamlined production and management of cannonballs and cannons by limiting them to only three calibers, and he improved their effectiveness by requiring more spherical ammunition. Redesigning these weapons to use interchangeable wheels, screws, and axles simplified mass production and repair. In the Industrial Revolution , simple mass production techniques were used at
34825-508: The successful and deadliest war with the Phoenicians began in 218 BC to the rule of Emperor Hadrian by AD 117, ancient Rome expanded up to twenty-five times its area. The same time passed before its fall in AD 476. Rome had expanded long before the empire reached its zenith with the conquest of Dacia in AD 106 (modern-day Romania ) under Emperor Trajan. During its territorial peak, the Roman Empire controlled about 5,000,000 square kilometres (1,900,000 sq mi) of land surface and had
35024-771: The term West as a specific cultural and geopolitical term developed over the course of the Age of Exploration as Europe spread its culture to other parts of the world. Roman Catholics were the first major religious group to immigrate to the New World , as settlers in the colonies of Spain and Portugal (and later, France ) belonged to that faith. English and Dutch colonies, on the other hand, tended to be more religiously diverse. Settlers to these colonies included Anglicans , Dutch Calvinists , English Puritans and other nonconformists , English Catholics , Scottish Presbyterians , French Huguenots , German and Swedish Lutherans , as well as Quakers , Mennonites , Amish , and Moravians . Ancient Rome (6th century BC – AD 476)
35223-467: The then-occupied and presently independent Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) and Warsaw Pact countries like Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, East Germany (now united with Germany), and Czechoslovakia (now split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia). The Third World consisted of countries, many of which were unaligned with either , and important members included India, Yugoslavia , Finland ( Finlandization ) and Switzerland ( Swiss Neutrality ); some include
35422-401: The trendy venues, and were well covered by the gossip columns of the London tabloids. As the average American in the 1920s became more enamored of wealth and everyday luxuries, some began satirizing the hypocrisy and greed they observed. Of these social critics, Sinclair Lewis was the most popular. His popular 1920 novel Main Street satirized the dull and ignorant lives of the residents of
35621-420: The two parts of the Christendom for some time, the crusades made the schism definitive with hostility. The West during these crusades tried to capture trade routes to the East and failed, it instead discovered the Americas . In the aftermath of European colonization of the Americas , an idea of the "Western" world, as an inheritor of Latin Christendom emerged. According to the Oxford English dictionary ,
35820-513: The uncertain labour of one hundred and ten. By 1808, annual production from the 45 machines had reached 130,000 blocks and some of the equipment was still in operation as late as the mid-twentieth century. Mass production techniques were also used to rather limited extent to make clocks and watches, and to make small arms, though parts were usually non-interchangeable. Though produced on a very small scale, Crimean War gunboat engines designed and assembled by John Penn of Greenwich are recorded as
36019-421: The world and proved a strong competitor in most markets for its low-cost, easy-maintenance vehicles. General Motors , to a lesser degree, followed. European competitors avoided the low-price market and concentrated on more expensive vehicles for upscale consumers. Radio became the first mass broadcasting medium . Radios were expensive, but their mode of entertainment proved revolutionary. Radio advertising became
36218-477: The world. The term usually refers specifically to American literary notables who lived in Paris at the time. Famous members included Ernest Hemingway , F. Scott Fitzgerald , and Gertrude Stein who wrote novels and short stories criticizing the materialism they perceived to be rampant during this era. In the United Kingdom, the bright young things were young aristocrats and socialites who threw fancy dress parties, went on elaborate treasure hunts, were seen in all
36417-448: Was a decade of economic growth and widespread prosperity, driven by recovery from wartime devastation and deferred spending, a boom in construction, and the rapid growth of consumer goods such as automobiles and electricity in North America and Europe and a few other developed countries such as Australia. The economy of the United States, successfully transitioned from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy, boomed and provided loans for
36616-427: Was accompanied by Catholic missionaries , who attempted to proselytize Christianity. In the modern era, Western culture has undergone further transformation through the Renaissance , Ages of Discovery and Enlightenment , and the Industrial and Scientific Revolutions . The widespread influence of Western culture extended globally through imperialism , colonialism , and Christianization by Western powers from
36815-418: Was as important as Voltaire and Kant. During the Cold War , a new definition emerged. Earth was divided into three "worlds". The First World , analogous in this context to what was called the West , was composed of NATO members and other countries aligned with the United States. The Second World was the Eastern bloc in the Soviet sphere of influence , including the Soviet Union (15 republics including
37014-510: Was born around AD 500, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire , leaving a vacuum for new ideas to flourish that were impossible in Classical societies. In either view, between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Renaissance, the West (or those regions that would later become the heartland of the culturally "western sphere") experienced a period of decline, and then readaptation, reorientation and considerable renewed material, technological and political development. Classical culture of
37213-667: Was developed by Galileo Ferraris , Nikola Tesla and Westinghouse , Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky and others. Electrification of factories was fastest between 1900 and 1930, aided by the establishment of electric utilities with central stations and the lowering of electricity prices from 1914 to 1917. Electric motors were several times more efficient than small steam engines because central station generation were more efficient than small steam engines and because line shafts and belts had high friction losses. Electric motors also allowed more flexibility in manufacturing and required less maintenance than line shafts and belts. Many factories saw
37412-415: Was first used centuries later, after the Byzantine Empire ended. The dissolution of the Western half, nominally ended in AD 476, but in truth a long process that ended by the rise of Catholic Gaul (modern-day France ) ruling from around the year AD 800, left only the Eastern Roman Empire alive. The Eastern half continued to think of itself as the Eastern Roman Empire until AD 610–800, when Latin ceased to be
37611-605: Was greatly enhanced with high-speed steel and later very hard materials such as tungsten carbide for cutting edges. Fabrication using steel components was aided by the development of electric welding and stamped steel parts, both which appeared in industry in about 1890. Plastics such as polyethylene , polystyrene and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) can be easily formed into shapes by extrusion , blow molding or injection molding , resulting in very low cost manufacture of consumer products, plastic piping, containers and parts. An influential article that helped to frame and popularize
37810-489: Was in the United States' sphere of influence. Spain did not join the NATO until 1982, seven years after the death of the authoritarian Franco . Mass production Mass production , also known as flow production , series production , series manufacture , or continuous production , is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines . Together with job production and batch production , it
38009-414: Was less conspicuous. Hair was often bobbed, giving a boyish look. For men in white collar jobs, business suits were the day to day attire. Striped, plaid, or windowpane suits came in dark gray, blue, and brown in the winter and ivory, white, tan, and pastels in the summer. Shirts were white and neckties were essential. Immortalized in movies and magazine covers, young women's fashions of the 1920s set both
38208-436: Was published. The African American playwright Willis Richardson debuted his play The Chip Woman's Fortune at the Frazee Theatre (also known as the Wallacks theatre ). Notable African American authors such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston began to achieve a level of national public recognition during the 1920s. The 1920s brought new styles of music into the mainstream of culture in avant-garde cities. Jazz became
38407-411: Was the first commercially successful animated short film and introduced the character Mickey Mouse . Steamboat Willie was the first cartoon to feature a fully post-produced soundtrack, which distinguished it from earlier sound cartoons. It became the most popular cartoon of its day. For much of 1928, Warner Bros. was the only studio to release talking features . It profited from its innovative films at
38606-414: Was the musical Gold Diggers of Broadway , which became the highest-grossing film of the decade. Harlem played a key role in the development of dance styles. Several entertainment venues attracted people of all races. The Cotton Club featured black performers and catered to a white clientele, while the Savoy Ballroom catered to a mostly black clientele. Some religious moralists preached against "Satan in
38805-407: Was the requirement that post-colonial societies were made to form nation-states (in the Western tradition), which often created arbitrary boundaries and borders that did not necessarily represent a whole nation, people, or culture (as in much of Africa), and are often the cause of international conflicts and friction even to this day. Although not part of Western colonization process proper, following
39004-418: Was under the Soviet Union's military sphere of influence (see FCMA treaty ) but remained neutral and was not communist, nor was it a member of the Warsaw Pact or Comecon but a member of the EFTA since 1986, and was west of the Iron Curtain . In 1955, when Austria again became a fully independent republic, it did so under the condition that it remain neutral; but as a country to the west of the Iron Curtain, it
39203-721: Was unsuccessful. Moving to ophthalmia neonatorum , a gonococcal infection in infants, he achieved the first recorded cure with penicillin, on November 25, 1930. He then cured four additional patients (one adult and three infants) of eye infections, but failed to cure a fifth. The automobile's dominance led to a new psychology celebrating mobility. Cars and trucks needed road construction, new bridges, and regular highway maintenance, largely funded by local and state government through taxes on gasoline. Farmers were early adopters as they used their pickups to haul people, supplies and animals. New industries were spun off—to make tires and glass and refine fuel, and to service and repair cars and trucks by
39402-434: Was used indirectly to pay reparations to countries that also had to pay off their war debts to Washington. While by the middle of the decade prosperity was widespread, with the second half of the decade known, especially in Germany, as the " Golden Twenties ", the decade was coming fast to an end. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 ended the era, as the Great Depression brought years of hardship worldwide. The Roaring Twenties
39601-430: Was used to handle 150 dozen bottles at a time where previously a hand truck would carry six dozen. Electric mixers replaced men with shovels handling sand and other ingredients that were fed into the glass furnace. An electric overhead crane replaced 36 day laborers for moving heavy loads across the factory. According to Henry Ford : The provision of a whole new system of electric generation emancipated industry from
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