|
Living conditions during the Industrial Revolution varied from the splendour of the homes of the owners to the squalor of the lives of the workers. In The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 Friedrich Engels described backstreet sections of Manchester and other mill towns where people lived in crude shanties and shacks, some not being completely enclosed, some with dirt floors. These shantytowns had narrow walkways between irregularly shaped lots and dwellings. Sanitary facilities were nonexistent. These slum areas had extremely high population densities. It was common for groups of unrelated mill workers to share rooms in very low quality housing where eight to ten people may occupy a single room, which often had no furniture, with the occupants sleeping on a pile of straw or sawdust.[79] These homes would share toilet facilities, have open sewers and would be at risk of developing pathologies associated with persistent dampness. Disease was spread through a contaminated water supply. Conditions did improve during the 19th century as public health acts were introduced covering things such as sewage, hygiene and making some boundaries upon the construction of homes. Not everybody lived in homes like these. The Industrial Revolution created a larger middle class of professionals such as lawyers and doctors. Health conditions improved over the course of the 19th century because of better sanitation; the famines that troubled rural areas did not happen in industrial areas. However, urban people—especially small children—died due to diseases spreading through the cramped living conditions. Tuberculosis (spread in congested dwellings), lung diseases from the mines, cholera from polluted water and typhoid were also common. In the introduction of the 1892 edition of Engels (1844) he notes that most of the conditions he wrote about in 1844 had been greatly improved. |
About us|Jobs|Help|Disclaimer|Advertising services|Contact us|Sign in|Website map|Search|
GMT+8, 2015-9-11 22:11 , Processed in 0.928766 second(s), 16 queries .
