The trends of the previous decade continued into this one, as new empires, imperialism and militarism rose in Europe and Asia. The United States was recovering from the American Civil War, though the Reconstruction era introduced its own legacies of bitterness and racial segregation in the country. Germanyunified as a nation in 1871 and became the German Empire. Changing social conditions led workforces to cooperate in the form of labor unions in order to demand better pay and working conditions, with strikes occurring worldwide in the later part of the decade and continuing until World War I. The decade was also a period of significant technological advancement; the phonograph, telephone, and electric light bulb were all invented during the 1870s, though it would take several more decades before they became household items.
The last living person from this decade, Jeanne Calment, died in 1997.
Third Anglo-Ashanti War, also known as the "First Ashanti Expedition" (1873–1874), ended with the destruction of the royal palace at Kumasi and the signing of the Treaty of Fomena, which secured British trading rights in the area
Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, and Alfred Sisley organized the Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs ("Cooperative and Anonymous Association of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers") for the purpose of exhibiting their artworks independently. Members of the association, which soon included Paul Cézanne, Berthe Morisot, and Edgar Degas, were expected to forswear participation in the Salon. The organizers invited a number of other progressive artists to join them in their inaugural exhibition, including the slightly older Eugène Boudin, whose example had first persuaded Monet to take up plein air painting years before.[3] Another painter who greatly influenced Monet and his friends, Johan Jongkind, declined to participate, as did Manet. In total, thirty artists participated in their first exhibition, held in April 1874 at the studio of the photographer Nadar. The group soon became known as the Impressionists.[4]
Jeanne Calment, born 1875, would eventually become the longest-living human being with a verified lifespan. She lived until 1997, aged 122. She still holds the record as of April 2023.
