Did URBANIZATION make life better or worse for lower class people in the Industrial Revolution?

Artifact 1: Street Scene Engraving by Gustave Dore

Sourcing: 

Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré  was a French artist. 

Doré published this picture in a book called "London: A Pilgrimage." 

It every popular, but the book was disliked by many people. Some of these critics were concerned with the fact that Doré appeared to focus on the poverty that existed in some parts of London. Doré was accused by The Art Journal of "inventing rather than copying." 

The Westminster Review claimed that "Doré gives us sketches in which [he shows the worst part of society.]"

Artifact 2: Recreation in Cities

In the first sixty years or so of the Industrial Revolution, working-class people had little time or opportunity for recreation. Workers spent all the light of day at work and came home with little energy, space, or light to play sports or games. 

However, later in the Industrial Revolution recreation improved along with the rise of an emerging the middle class. Music halls sprouted up in big cities. Sports such as rugby and cricket became popular. Football became a professional sport in 1885.

By the end of the 19th century, cities had become the places with opportunities for sport and entertainment that they are today. 

Artifact 3: Life expectancy in cities

The densely packed and poorly constructed working-class neighborhoods in the cities contributed to the fast spread of disease.

Roads were muddy and lacked sidewalks. Houses were built touching each other, leaving no room for ventilation. Perhaps most importantly, homes lacked toilets and sewage systems, and as a result, drinking water sources, such as wells, were frequently contaminated with disease.

Diseases like cholera, tuberculosis, typhus, typhoid, and influenza ravaged through new industrial towns, especially in poor working-class neighborhoods. In 1849, 10,000 people died of cholera in three months in London alone.

Poor nutrition, disease, lack of sanitation, and harmful medical care in these urban areas had a devastating effect on the average life expectancy of British people in the first half of the 19th century. The Registrar General reported in 1841 that the average life expectancy in rural areas of England was 45 years of age but was only 37 in London and an alarming 26 in Liverpool (Haley). These are life-long averages that highlight a very high infant mortality rate; in the first half of the 19th century, 25 to 33% of children in England died before their 5th birthday.

Artifact 4: White Collar Jobs Lead to Retail Shops

New urban industries gradually required more of what we call today “white collar” jobs, such as business people, shopkeepers, bank clerks, insurance agents, merchants, accountants, managers, doctors, lawyers, and teachers. 

One piece of evidence of this emerging middle class was the rise of retail shops in England that increased from 300 in 1875 to 2,600 by 1890.

Artifact 5: Primary Source: Excerpt from The Conditions of the Working Class in England, 1844

Sourcing: An excerpt from Friedrich Engels, The Conditions of the Working Class in England in 1844. Engels grew up in Prussia (Germany) and was the son of a wealthy German cotton manufacturer. As a radical journalist and critic of industrialization, he sought to make the public aware of the poor conditions of workers and the negative effects of industrialization. His parents sent him to work in a factory in Manchester, England, hoping it would change his radical thoughts. It had the opposite effect.

"Right and left a multitude of covered passages lead from the main street into numerous courts, and he who turns in [down one of these passages] gets into a filth and disgusting grime, the equal of which is not to be found. … In one of these courts there stands directly at the entrance, at the end of the covered passage, a privy (toilet) without a door, so dirty that the inhabitants (people) can pass into and out of the court only by passing through foul pools of stagnant (stale) urine and excrement (poop). Below it on the river there are several tanneries (places where leather is made) which fill the whole neighborhood with the stench (bad smell) of animal putrefaction (rotting). Below Ducie Bridge the only entrance to most of the houses is by means of narrow, dirty stairs and over heaps of refuse (trash) and filth. The first court below Ducie Bridge, known as Allen's Court, was in such a state at the time of the cholera (a disease)  that the sanitary police (health inspector) ordered it evacuated (emptied), swept, and disinfected with [bleach]..."

Artifact 6: Demographic Changes 

In 1771, the sleepy town of Manchester, England had a population of 22,000. Over the next fifty years, Manchester’s population exploded and reached 180,000.

Many of the migrants were poor farmers from Ireland who were being evicted (kicked out) from their land by their English landlords. In the country-side they had nowhere to live and nowhere to go. 

In the cities of Liverpool and Manchester roughly 25 to 33 percent of the workers were Irish.