Conditions Of The Industrial Manchester example essay topic

Working conditions of the industrial Manchester are well depicted by Friedrich Engels, son of a German manufacturer, working as his agent at a Manchester factory. Houses and buildings in the laboring district were known to be dirty, old, and tumble-down, as Friedrich Engels described. Of the irregular cramming together of dwellings in ways which defy all rational plan, of the tangle in which they are crowded literally one upon the other, it is impossible to convey an idea. [4] Homes rarely had stone or wooden floors or windows and doors that could fill the openings.

A horrible stench was released from these homes due to their filth. Families living in these houses often times were forced to sleep together in one room because of the overcrowding. Smoke from cotton mills enveloped the brick buildings of Manchester. In order to support the rate of industrial growth and keep the labor costs low, alternative skilled labor was needed for the industries. For many years children, some as young as four years old, were used as cola mines workers, spending the whole day crawling on all fours, pulling coal carts. The same was with young women who were involved into the coal mining industry.

There are numerous documented sources describing the conditions that women were involved in. The Parliamentary Papers document Women Miners In the English Coal Pits, issued in 1842, is one of the documents mentioned. According to the testimony of one of the women the conditions they had to work in where really inhuman and seem outrageous as for nowadays: I was married at 23, and went into a colliery when I was married. I used to weave when about 12 years old; can neither read nor write. I work for Andrew Knowles, of Little Bolton (Lancs), and make sometimes 7's a week, sometimes not so much. I am a drawer, and work from 6 in the morning to 6 at night.

Stop about an hour at noon to eat my dinner; have bread and butter for dinner; I get no drink. I have two children, but they are too young to work There are six women and about six boys and girls in the pit I work in; it is very hard work for a woman. The pit is very wet where I work, and the water comes over our clog-tops always, and I have seen it up to my thighs; it rains in at the roof terribly. My clothes are wet through almost all day long. I never was ill in my life, but when I was lying in. [5].

From all of the ills of the Industrial Revolution period sprang very positive reforms, which made life better for all. Wages increased; goods could be produced in greater quantities. This in turn, lowered the prices of these goods. Thanks to these measures, the standard of living improved for many. It can be summarized that in the period from 1750 to 1910 the lives of people had gone through a complete metamorphosis, from a farmer to a slum dweller working fourteen hours a day for next to nothing, to a citizen who was capable of earning a decent living, receiving an education and an assurance that there would be some hope for his old age and a better life for his children.

Bibliography

1. Leeds Woolen Workers Petition of 1786, web 2. Letter from Leeds Cloth Merchants, 1971, web 3.
Andrew Carnegie: The Gospel of Wealth, 1889, web 4.
Friedrich Engels: Industrial Manchester, 1844 web 5.
Parliamentary Papers: 1842, VoL XVI, pp.