<P> The population in French rural areas had risen rapidly, causing many peasants to seek a living in the cities . Many in the bourgeoisie feared and distanced themselves from the working poor . Many unskilled labourers toiled from 12 to 15 hours per day when they had work, living in squalid, disease - ridden slums . Traditional artisans felt the pressure of industrialization, having lost their guilds . Revolutionaries such as Karl Marx built up a following . </P> <P> The liberalisation of trade laws and the growth of factories had increased the gulf among master tradesmen, and journeymen and apprentices, whose numbers increased disproportionately by 93% from 1815 to 1848 in Germany . Significant proletarian unrest had occurred in Lyon in 1831 and 1834, and Prague in 1844 . Jonathan Sperber has suggested that in the period after 1825, poorer urban workers (particularly day labourers, factory workers and artisans) saw their purchasing power decline relatively steeply: urban meat consumption in Belgium, France and Germany stagnated or declined after 1830, despite growing populations . The economic crisis of 1847 increased urban unemployment: 10,000 Viennese factory workers were made redundant and 128 Hamburg firms went bankrupt over the course of 1847 . With the exception of the Netherlands, there was a strong correlation among the countries that were most deeply affected by the industrial shock of 1847 and those that underwent a revolution in 1848 . </P> <P> The situation in the German states was similar . Parts of Prussia were beginning to industrialize . During the decade of the 1840s, mechanized production in the textile industry brought about inexpensive clothing that undercut the handmade products of German tailors . Reforms ameliorated the most unpopular features of rural feudalism, but industrial workers remained dissatisfied with these and pressed for greater change . </P> <P> Urban workers had no choice but to spend half of their income on food, which consisted mostly of bread and potatoes . As a result of harvest failures, food prices soared and the demand for manufactured goods decreased, causing an increase in unemployment . During the revolution, to address the problem of unemployment, workshops were organized for men interested in construction work . Officials also set up workshops for women when they felt they were excluded . Artisans and unemployed workers destroyed industrial machines when they threatened to give employers more power over them . </P>

Define the term universal male suffrage and give examples of when it affected the revolution of 1848