The term “culture” has many connotations.  In one incarnation, it gives a sense of improvement or refinement of oneself, often through education, immersion in the arts, or the attainment of a moral ideal.  In another form, culture can refer to the different ways that people perceive the world around them and act upon those perceptions.  In any case, culture generally refers to the intangible concepts that make up a society such as language, customs, and morals.  Culture can be very fluid, changing along with the people who define it, and nowhere was this more evident than in 19th-century Europe.  The most dramatic impact on 19th-century European culture came from the urbanization process, a byproduct of the Industrial Revolution.  With the influx of people from all over the country, and sometimes the world, cities became the epicenters of culture.  With the advent of new technologies such as the telegraph and the train that shrank the distances between countries, new ideas, customs, and morals could spread rapidly from place to place, evolving as they went.  As the 19th century progressed, so too did the culture.  Literature took off during this time period as social and educational reforms increased literacy, and numerous magazines and novels were written for the new working class.  Invariably, there were clashes between different cultures, especially between the different social classes and different ethnic groups.