19th Century Ideologies

Our essential question for this lesson was: What were the major political ideologies of the 19th century and how did they influence social and political action? The ideologies were conservatism, liberalism, and nationalism. In groups, we had to come up with definitions in our own words of what we thought each ideology was. Then we had to write a sentence for each one. After we defined each ideology, we got into new groups and were assigned with an ideology to read about. There were two groups per ideology. Each group read a passage on their ideology and answered the essential question based on the passage. Then we made one minute presentations and went head-to-head to see who could explain their ideology best.
Our group made a ChatterPix video on Videolicious about conservatism. Our presentation helps explain conservatism and how different groups felt about it. Edmund Burke, the "father of conservatism", believed in tradition and keeping with the monarchy and social hierarchy. He knew that a revolution would cause chaos and anarchy. Some peasants also believed in his ideas, as the French Revolution tore them apart. They knew that the monarchy was the only thing preventing utter destruction of their lives. Conservatives opposed reform and innovation, which was why the French Revolution was so disastrous for them.
Liberals believed in individual liberty for everyone (with the exception of women and the poor). They opposed conservatism because they believed certain traditions got in the way of their liberty. Consequently, they supported innovation and reforms. They were big believers in "God-given natural rights", especially John Locke (The Second Treatise of Government) and Adam Smith, author of Wealth of Nations, who came up with the idea of the "invisible hand". Nationalists believed that countries were unified, natural entities with cultural, language, and boundary similarities. They were firm supporters of unifying nations and expelling foreign rulers. Germany ended up fulfilling this dream when they unified their principalities and kicked Napoleon out.