*The rapid changes in people's lifestyle in the 19th century—how they worked, where they lived, and the relationships between the individual, the community, and the state—led many people to question those changes and to try to reform old and new problems they saw.

*Many of the most important issues derived from a new-found social mobility.  Farmers and skilled craftsmen found their status (and income) declining, while many members of the middle class found themselves rising in the world, and more people were able to join the lower middle class (clerks and office workers in factories, for example).  In many countries both the rising middle class and the oppressed working class clamoured for a voice in government—for an expansion of the franchise.  In the UK this was ultimately successful, and democracy grew stronger by the decade.  In most of the rest of Europe democracy saw few gains and many setbacks.

*Fearing an uprising by the Irish, who felt crushed by laws against Roman Catholics, the Duke of Wellington, leader of the usually conservative Tories in Parliament, oversaw the passage of the Catholic Relief Act of 1829.  Catholics had gotten the right to vote in the late 1700s, and the Act of 1829 allowed Catholics to hold seats in Parliament (but it also created stricter voting requirements, so that a man had to own ten pounds worth of property to vote—it had been two pounds before).  As Catholics (in some ways) got more power, some Englishmen wanted to give more votes to Protestants to help counterbalance things.

*By 1831 pressure for reform in England had grown so great that a Whig majority was elected to Parliament.  Their first efforts at reform were stopped by the House of Lords, but protests and riots erupted in England with such violence that some leaders feared a revolution would result, and the next year Parliament passed the Reform Act of 1832. 

*The Reform Act of 1832 allowed a wider franchise (although there were still property requirements to vote, which excluded many of the urban working poor), began a system of voter registration, and got rid of many of the 'rotten boroughs,' places that were once cities of importance (and thus entitled to between one and four MPs in addition to the two each county got) but that by the 1830s had shrunk in size and importance—Old Sarum had eleven voters in 1831 but elected two MPs.  Still, many problems remained.

*Following the Reform Act, many reformers who wanted more change drew up the People's Charter of 1838.  The people who went on to support its proposals were called Chartists.  Their main demands were suffrage for all men of age 21 and over, equal-sized electoral districts, secret ballots, an end to property qualifications for MPs, pay for MPs, and annual elections for Parliament.  Petitions with over a million signatures were presented to Parliament on two separate occasions, and political violence occurred from time to time for over a decade.  The movement did not seem to succeed, as its revolts were crushed and its efforts at creating a national assembly fell apart. By 1848 the movement had largely subsided.  However, five of its six points would be enacted within 80 years of the Charter's creation; only annual elections to Parliament failed to be made mandatory (or to become traditional).  Women, though, did not get to vote until later (some women over age 30 could vote in 1918; women could vote on an equal basis with men in 1928).

*Another success of reformers, particularly the Whigs, was the repeal of the Corn Laws, which lowered tariffs on imported grain, thus lowering the cost of grain (and thus bread) in the UK.  This was great for the working class in the cities, but bad for farmers and landowners.  The Corn Laws were supported by the Tories (mostly landowners and farmers) and opposed by the Whigs, who overturned them in 1848.

*Other reforms took place in this idealistic age:  the slave trade was outlawed in 1807 and slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833 (although slave owners were partially compensated for the loss of their property). Serfdom ended for good in Austria-Hungary in 1848 and in Russia in 1861, although in both places freed serfs often had few resources or options—although quite a few moved to cities and joined the proletariat, the unskilled working class with nothing to sell but their labour--and nothing to lose but their chains.

*The death penalty, although not abolished, was made less common.  In the early 1800s, over 200 crimes carried the death penalty; by the 1850s, only serious crimes like murder, piracy, treason, and arson did.  Transportation to penal colonies replaced capital punishment in many cases.  Public hanging ended in 1868.  Imprisonment for debt was abolished in 1869.

*Many working class men eventually organised into labour unions, which could bargain as a group and strike to demand better conditions.  They also provided support for their members during troubled time—many organised life insurance, loans, and other services.  They were often distrusted as socialistic and sometimes outlawed or crushed violently.

*Pressure from socialists and from philanthropic groups eventually led to workplace reforms.  Women and children were barred from certain dangerous jobs (like mining) and eventually children were barred from almost all jobs—partly for their safety and well-being, partly so they could not undercut the wages paid to men. Other workplace safety laws were implemented, and food and drug safety laws were put into place.  Eventually working days were shortened to 10 and then 8 hours.  In the late 1800s Prussia began offering pensions to elderly citizens, and the idea spread to the UK, other European countries, and eventually to the USA.

*Reformers also wanted to improve education.  One aspect of this was the Sunday School movement.  Since many people worked 6 days a week in the early 1800s, they had no other time for formal education.  Consequently, many churches offered basic education in reading (particularly Bible reading), basic mathematics, and other elementary education.  By the 1870s and 1880s public education was available and mandatory for children from ages 6-12 (although some continued attending church schools or 'public schools').  In Germany the Kindergarten movement began in 1840, encouraging very young children to learn to play together and become accustomed to the school environment.  All these moves towards greater education were based both on a desire to help individuals and a desire to keep the nation competitive with other countries around the world.  Sports in school were encouraged as well, because these taught teamwork and built strong, healthy young men who could go forth to subdue the rest of the world should war ever arise again.

*All these reforms took place, at least in the UK, alongside the solidification of the two party system.  By the 1860s the Tories had become the Conservative Party under the leadership of Benjamin Disraeli and the Whigs had become the Liberal Party under the guidance of William Gladstone.  At various times each party extended the vote to whichever part of society they thought would vote for them, until by 1918 the majority of British adults could vote.  The growing power of socialism in the late 19th and early 20th century led to the rise of a third political party, the Labour Party, which went from being an obscure party at the dawn of the 20th Century to one of the two main parties (displacing the Liberals) by the 1920s.

*The power of the monarchy was also reduced during the 1800s (although Queen Victoria was a great symbol of Britain and of her orderly but sober and straitlaced age--1837-1901) and the House of Lords lost a great deal of its power in 1911, so that by the early 20th century the UK was a parliamentary democracy. 

*Prussia also developed the Reichstag, but it was less democratic than the British Parliament, as votes were divided up among social classes based on wealth (not unlike the Estates-General of 1789), Russia sometimes called the Duma, France experimented with Kingdoms, Republics, and Empires, and the USA had (despite a Civil War) a stable Republic.