ABSTRACT
France felt the first effects of industrialization. The bourgeoisie that had helped overthrow the Old Regime in 1789 consolidated its position as French society’s dominant class, while the rapid growth of the urban population created a sense of social crisis. The new social patterns pioneered by France’s small bourgeois elite were held up as models for the lower classes, but few workers or peasants could hope to emulate them in real life. After 1840, socialist thinkers increasingly addressed themselves directly to the growing number of discontented workers in France’s cities, urging them to see themselves as victims of an industrial society that measured their worth in purely economic terms. Socialists were not the only ones to demand concrete improvements in the lives of the oppressed during the July Monarchy. While critics stressed the need for social reform, the July Monarchy’s ruling elites sought to create a new version of national memory that would unify the country.
