Name: ________________________ Date: ______ Ms. Caggiano Global 10R

Great Britain Industrializes The pace of industrialization accelerated rapidly in Britain. For centuries, most Europeans had lived in rural areas. Skilled artisans made goods from start to finish. The system of working at or near home to make finished goods is known as the domestic system. With new developments and technologies, machines began to replace people. By the 1800s, people could earn higher wages in factories than on farms.

Domestic System Factory System

After 1800, the population shifted toward cities. This shift was caused by the growth of the factory system, where the manufacturing of goods was concentrated in a central location. Between 1800 and 1850, the number of European cities boasting more than 100,000 inhabitants rose from 22 to 47. Most of Europe’s urban areas at least doubled in population, some even quadrupled. This period was one of urbanization or city building and the movement of people to cities.

Manchester 1700s Manchester 1800s

Directions: Describe the changes that took place before and after industrialization in Great Britain in the box below. Make sure to include the factors that led Britain to industrialize as well.

Name: ________________________ Date: ______ Ms. Caggiano Global 10R

Urban Life during the Industrial Revolution Directions: With your group, you will be examining aspects of urban life during the Industrial Revolution. It is your job to describe the conditions AND how industrialization led to those developments.

Aspect of Life Description and How Industrialization led to the Development Population and Settlement Patterns

Pollution

Living Conditions

Working Class Families

Emerging Middle Class

Health

Population/Settlement Patterns

Britain’s capital, London, was the country’s most important city. It had a population of about one million people by 1800. During the 1800s, its population exploded, providing a vast labor pool and market for new industry. London became Europe’s largest city, with twice as many

people as its closest rival (Paris). Newer cities challenged London’s industrial leadership. Birmingham and Sheffield became iron-smelting centers. Leeds and Manchester dominated

textile manufacturing. Along with the port of Liverpool, Manchester formed the center of Britain’s bustling cotton industry. During the 1800s, Manchester experienced rapid growth from

around 45,000 in 1760 to 300,000 by 1850.

Population Density: Great Britain, 1801

Population Density: Great Britain, 1851

Living Conditions Friedrich Engels was a nineteenth century German political philosopher. After observing the situation of British factory laborers while managing a factory in Manchester, England, he wrote

his first major work, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. Below is an excerpt from his work:

. . . Every great town has one or more slum areas into which the working classes are packed.

Sometimes, of course, poverty is to be found hidden away in alleys close to the stately homes of the wealthy. Generally, however, the workers are segregated in separate districts where they struggle through life as best they can out of sight of the more fortunate classes of society. The slums of the English towns have much in common—the worst houses in a town being found in the worst districts. They are generally unplanned wildernesses of one- or two-storied terrace houses built of brick. Wherever possible these have cellars which are also used as dwellings. These little houses of three or four rooms and a kitchen are called cottages, and throughout

England, except for some parts of London, are where the working classes normally live. The streets themselves are usually unpaved and full of holes. They are filthy and strewn with

animal and vegetable refuse. Since they have neither gutters nor drains the refuse accumulates in stagnant, stinking puddles. Ventilation in the slums is inadequate owing to the hopelessly unplanned nature of these areas. A great many people live huddled together in a very small

area, and so it is easy to imagine the nature of the air in these workers’ quarters. However, in fine weather the streets are used for the drying of washing and clothes lines are stretched

across the streets from house to house and wet garments are hung out on them. . . .

Pollution

In July and August of 1858, hot weather combined with untreated human waste and industrial pollution to turn the Thames River in London into a disgusting body of water in an event known as “the Great Stink.” The increase in population in the city overwhelmed its sewage system, and

industries along the waterway dumped the byproducts of their production into the water. Though Londoners at the time believed that the foul stench coming from the river led to

epidemics, it was overcrowding and poor sanitation that led to outbreaks of disease like cholera. There was also inadequate drainage and waste removal. What open spaces there were also

tended to be filled with rubbish, and the air and water were polluted by factories and slaughterhouses. Garbage and all sorts of waste was thrown out onto the street.

The Industrial Revolution in Britain witnessed a dramatic increase in air pollutant emissions associated with the burning of coal. Such pollution gave rise to the dramatic smog episodes

known as "pea soupers", which became commonplace in many of Britain’s inner cities. In 1905, Dr. Des Voeux used the term smog to describe the conditions of sooty or smoky fogs. These

smogs were also known as "great stinking fogs". Smogs usually developed during periods of calm weather. Smoke particles trapped in the fog gave it a yellow or black color and these smogs often

settled over cities for many days. Wind speeds would be low at these times causing the smoke and fog to stagnate which led to increased pollution levels near ground level.

The Silent Highwayman Death rows on the Thames, claiming the lives of victims who have not paid to have the river

cleaned up, during the Great Stink by The Punch Magazine.

Working Class Families

The Industrial Revolution completely transformed the role of the family. In traditional, agricultural society, families worked together as a unit of production, tending to fields, knitting sweaters, or tending to the fire. Women could parent and also play a role in producing food or

goods needed for the household. Work and play time were flexible and interwoven. Industrialization changed all that. The same specialization of labor that occurred in factories

occurred in the lives of working-class families, and this broke up the family economy. Work and home life became sharply separated. Men earned money for their families. Women took care of

the home and saw their economic role decline. While many factory workers were initially women, most of them were young women who would quit working when they married. In stark contrast to the various changing tasks that a farmer performed in pre-industrial society, factory

workers typically completed repetitive and monotonous tasks for 10 to 14 hours each day. Industrial working-class families, though not working together, did serve an economic

purpose of raising money to support each other. Children often worked to earn some income for the family.

Emerging Middle Class

Gradually, a middle class did emerge in industrial cities, mostly toward the end of the 19th century. Until then, there had been primarily two major classes in society: aristocrats (nobles) born into their lives of wealth and privilege, and low-income commoners born in the working classes. New urban industries gradually required more of what today is called “white collar”

jobs, such as business people, shopkeepers, bank clerks, insurance agents, merchants, accountants, managers, doctors, lawyers, and teachers. Middle-class people tended to have monthly or yearly salaries rather than hourly wages. One piece of evidence of this emerging

middle class was the rise of retail shops in England that increased from 300 shops in 1875 to 2,600 by 1890. Another mark of distinction of the middle class was their ability to hire servants

to cook and clean their homes from time to time. Not surprisingly, from 1851 to 1871, the number of domestic servants increased from 900,000 to 1.4 million in England.

In this new middle class, families became a sanctuary from stressful industrial life.

Home remained separate from work and took on the role of emotional support, where women of the house created a moral and spiritual safe harbor away from the rough industrial world

outside. Most middle-class women were discouraged from working outside the home. They could afford to send their children to school (remember, schools used to be entirely private until

around the 1900s). As children became more of an economic burden, and better health care decreased infant mortality, middle-class women gave birth to fewer children.

Charles Booth (1840-1916) was a successful businessman and member of the middle class in England during the 19th century. He was concerned about social problems in London and undertook a project to map where people of different economic classes lived in the city. The section of map to the left is one of the products of his work.

Key

Lowest class. Vicious, semi-criminal.

Very poor, casual. Chronic want.

Poor. 10s (shillings). to 21s. a week for a moderate family.

Mixed. Some comfortable, others poor.

Fairly comfortable. Good ordinary earnings.

Middle class. Well-to-do.

Upper-middle and Upper classes. Wealthy.

Health

The terrible working environments created new occupational hazards, such as lung disease and bone deformities. In addition to health hazards related to working conditions, disease accounted

for many deaths in industrial cities during the Industrial Revolution. With a chronic lack of hygiene, little knowledge of sanitary care and no knowledge as to what caused diseases (let alone

cure them), diseases such as cholera, typhoid and typhus could be devastating. As the cities became more populated, so the problem got worse.

Cholera spread quickly which was caused by contaminated water. The cause was due to the fact

that there was sewage was coming into contact with drinking water and contaminating it. As many people used river water as a latrine and their source of drinking water, the disease spread

quickly. In London, there was a 50% death rate of those who caught it. The disease usually affected those in a city’s poorer areas, though the rich did not escape this disease. Smallpox made a major re-occurrence due to the overcrowded tenements of the cities were a perfect breeding ground for smallpox. Typhoid and typhus were as feared as cholera. Both were

common in the Industrial Revolution. Typhoid was caused by infected water whereas typhus was carried by lice. Both were found in abundance in industrial cities.

The greatest killer in the cities was tuberculosis (TB). The disease caused a wasting of the body with the lungs being attacked. The lungs attempt to defend themselves by producing what are

called tubercles. The disease causes these tubercles to become yellow and spongy and coughing fits causes them to be spat out by the sufferer. TB affected those who had been poorly fed and

were under nourished. It also affected those who lived in dirty and damp homes. TB can be spread by a person breathing in the exhaled sputum of someone who already has the disease. In the overcrowded tenements of the industrial cities, one infected person could spread the disease

very easily. Though accurate records are difficult to acquire, it is believed that TB killed one-third of all those who died in Britain between 1800 and 1850.