The late 1800s saw the beginning of what the French call the Belle Epoque, or ‘beautiful era’. France and its people began to enjoy the benefits of industrialization and modernization: cheap resources, technological developments, new inventions like the telegraph, automobile and mass-produced consumer goods. Living standards improved generally, though France, like its fellow European nations, was still plagued by class disparity and poverty.
The Belle Epoque was also accompanied by a cultural boom, with new artistic movements and entertainment forms like cinema, cabaret and the infamous can-can.
French workplaces and communities were fertile ground for socialists and other radicals, many of whom enjoyed considerable support. By the early 1900s, France had one of the most left-wing governments in Europe: a progressive mix of centrists and socialists. It passed laws guaranteeing freedom of religion and the complete separation of church and state; government funding of churches was abolished and all religious buildings were nationalized.
A series of laws decreed free and compulsory education for all French children, both boys and girls. The government also introduced a progressive income tax, with higher rates for higher earners – a radical innovation for its time.
These amazing photos from fymbremont that show what life of France looked like in the 1900s.
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| Avenue du Bois-de-Boulogne, Paris, circa 1900 |
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| Beach huts, Deauville, circa 1900 |
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| Homage to H.B. de Saussure, Chamonix, circa 1900 |
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| Hotel omnibus, circa 1900 |
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| Le Mont-Saint-Michel, circa 1900 |
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