History and Geography

The Industrial
Revolution: Changes
and Challenges
Reader

Spinning jenny

Worker protest

Factory

Child labor
Chapter 1
Effects of the Industrial
Revolution
The World Transformed Some of the
most important changes in all of human The Big Question
history began in Great Britain in the 1700s How would you
and early 1800s. describe working
conditions in the
early part of the
During those years, steam-powered engines and Industrial Revolution?
pumps began to replace animals and human muscle
power. Steam engines helped pump water out of coal
Vocabulary
mines. They helped grind grain into flour. They ran
loom, n. a machine
machines in factories that powered looms to weave
used to weave
threads into cloth cotton or woolen cloth.

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More and more, factories became a familiar sight across a landscape that had
once been largely agricultural.

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As the Industrial Revolution gained speed,
Vocabulary
factories sprang up in one city after another. These
Industrial
factories drew many workers from the countryside
Revolution, n. a
to the cities. Thousands of people who had lived period of history
according to the age-old rhythms of planting and during which the
use of machines
harvesting began to live according to the new to produce goods
rhythms of the modern factory. changed society and
the economy
By the late 1800s, the Industrial Revolution had
spread beyond Great Britain. It had spread across industrialization, n. a
shift to the widespread
the body of water called the English Channel use of machines and
to Europe and across the Atlantic Ocean to the factories to produce
United States. It had also begun to enter a new goods

phase of development. Great Britain had taken the

lead during the first phase of the Industrial Revolution, which featured steam
power, coal, and cotton manufacturing. During the second phase, which
featured steel, electricity, oil, and gas, the United States took the lead.

Like most great changes in human history, the Industrial Revolution has had
positive and negative results. Generally speaking, the Industrial Revolution
improved the lives of millions by making a great variety of goods more
affordable and more widely available. Most importantly though, the Industrial
Revolution provided new kinds of employment opportunities for people.

But industrialization has also had less desirable consequences. For instance,
it has led to great inequalities of wealth. Almost from the beginning, factory
owners and businessmen became very wealthy, while most workers toiled
away in factories and generally remained poor. The workers who lived
through the early phases of the Industrial Revolution had an especially
hard time. These workers worked long hours in dangerous circumstances.
They received low wages and had little or no legal protection. And,
industrialization has had a significant impact on our environment, too!

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Quite often, men, women, and children worked all day in factories for very little money.

Historians have many records of what it was like to live in Great Britain during
the early stages of the Industrial Revolution. We can read, for example, about
Patience Kershaw, a girl who worked in the coal mines near Manchester,
England, in the 1840s. Here is a part of her story.

Patience Kershaw Speaks Out

“When they ask you a question, Patience Kershaw, look them right in the eye
and tell the truth. That’s all they want, the truth. You are doing this for your
father, may he rest in peace. And for your sisters and your brothers. It is for
our family, Patience. We can’t go on like this.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Patience wanted to do just as her mother asked. But when she stood before
the gentlemen from London—a Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry—and
tried to answer their questions, she began to tremble. She worried that

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they would laugh at her ragged pants and jacket, and especially at her bare
feet. She wished she had a dress. Even though she had washed herself that
morning, she still felt dirty. Coal dust was caked around her eyes and in her
hair. Her hands were bruised and sore. She looked worn and old.

Lord Ashley himself asked her how old she was.

“Seventeen, sir.”

When he smiled and softly said he had a daughter just about her age,
Patience realized these men meant her no harm. Their questions about her
life and work in the coal mines were not meant to make fun of her, Lord
Ashley said. Patience took a deep breath.

She told them that her father had died in a mining accident. She was the
oldest of ten children. Her three sisters worked in the mill, but she and six
brothers worked in the mine. Her youngest brother was five.

“He works, too?”

“Yes, sir. We all work.”

‘’And school?”

“No, sir, I never went to school. I cannot read or write. None of us

Kershaws can.”

“Tell us about your work, Patience.”

“I go [into the mine] at five o’clock in the morning and come out at five in the
evening. I get my breakfast of porridge and milk first; I take my dinner with
me, a cake [a thick, oat cracker] and I eat as I go; I do not stop or rest any time.”

“Twelve hours each day?”

“Yes, sir. I have to walk about a half-hour to get to work, so I am up early. And
home late, long after dark. I don’t mind in the summer, but it’s raw in the
winter, and the rain.”

“What clothes do you have?”

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“I [work] in the clothes I have now on.”

Lord Ashley looked at the other men,

especially the doctor. He frowned and wrote
something down in a large book that
was open on the table in front of him.

“Go on, Patience. We’re listening.”

“I am the only girl in the pit; there are

about twenty boys and fifteen men.
. . . Sometimes they beat me, if
I am not quick enough; they strike
me upon my back.” She looked
down at her feet and began to sob. Lord Ashley

“I would rather work in the mill than in the coal-pit.” She started to cry even
louder now.

“Thank you, Patience. You may go.”

Child Labor
When Patience Kershaw left the room, Lord Ashley spoke to the members of
the committee: “Imagine, gentlemen! This, in the year of our Lord 1842. Our
beloved Queen Victoria herself is just a few years older than this poor girl.
We must do something to prevent the sons and daughters of this nation from
the excess zeal of our industrialists. We must act in Parliament.”

Lord Ashley had summoned Patience Kershaw to testify about one of

the great problems created by the Industrial Revolution: the problem of
child labor. Thousands of children, many of them younger than you are,
worked in the mines and in the factories during the early stages of the
Industrial Revolution. They had to. Their parents needed every penny of
income to care for their large families, especially when they could not find
work themselves.

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The owners of factories and mines
actually preferred children over
adult laborers. Children worked
in small, cramped quarters. They
could and would be beaten if
they disobeyed. They often did
dangerous tasks that adults would
refuse to do. Above all, they were
easily replaced. There were always
more children looking for work.
Many orphanages gladly contracted
out their children to bring the
owners some profit. Families
that were sent to the poorhouse
because they could not pay their
rent or other bills often had no
choice but to send their children
to work. If the father of a family
lost his job or was injured or died, Children were employed in mines and in
factories. They could work in small, cramped
the mother and her children were places and were easily replaced. There were
desperate. They had to beg or work, no laws to protect working children at the
start of the Industrial Revolution.
and often did both.

Changes for Everyone

Gradually, reformers, or people who wanted to
Vocabulary
change things for the better in Great Britain and in
poorhouse, n. a place
other European countries, passed laws to protect where poor people
women and children from harsh and unsafe were sent to live if
they were unable to
working conditions. Inspectors traveled to factories
pay their bills
and mines; small children were required to attend
school at least two hours a day. These measures,

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when they were enforced, certainly helped. But working men were still at the
mercy of employers. Becoming ill or getting fired could happen at any time.
Horrible poverty and suffering could still befall whole towns and country
areas if prices fell. What kept the workers going was, at times, the promise of
a better life.

Many people looked to America as the place where that new life might begin.
People heard stories that there was gold in the streets, just waiting to be
picked up! This made many want to leave the lands where their families had
lived for centuries.

Still other workers in Great Britain and in Europe wanted to stay and improve
things at home. They wanted more sweeping reforms, even a revolution that
would free them from an economic system that
Vocabulary
seemed merciless. When they formed unions and
refused to work in such bad conditions, they were union, n. an
organization
sometimes arrested and sent to jail. Often, they formed by workers
would never work again. to win and protect
workers’ rights
The Industrialists
economy, n. the
Workers weren’t the only ones to complain. Many way a country
manages its money
factory and mine owners were unhappy, too. They and resources
believed that many of the laws introduced to to produce, buy,
and sell goods
protect the workers were unfair, and that working
and services
conditions were really not that bad. Many argued
that the government had no right to interfere in the free exchange of goods
and labor. The pay might be low, and the work at times dangerous, but no
one was actually forcing people to do it. After all, people chose to work in
factories or in mines.

These industrialists believed that the economy would balance, or take care
of itself naturally, if left alone. No one would supply or produce more goods
than could be sold at a fair price; and no one would want goods that were too

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expensive or undesirable. If the government interfered too much, it would
upset this balance, they argued. For example, if the government stepped
in to set conditions for workers’ safety or for the
quality or amount of goods being produced, the Vocabulary
employers’ profits would be affected. This, in free market, n. an
turn, would affect the price of the goods and the economic system
based on competition
wages paid to the worker. In the end, there would
between private
be no free market, and perhaps fewer jobs too! businesses, where the
Everyone would be worse off. In their minds, the government does not
control prices
factory owners were doing the right thing.

Industrialists argued that by being forced to make factories and mines safer and healthier
they would make less money and this could reduce workers’ wages. Generally though,
their main concern was keeping their profits as high as possible.

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Of course, many of these industrialists’ idea of a “free market” meant that they
should be free to make as much money as they could. They saw anyone who
argued to the contrary as an enemy of business. Because they were wealthy
and had great influence in society, these men often held political power or
could influence those who did. Thankfully, there were some outstanding
exceptions, such as the determined Lord Ashley. But for the most part, many
wealthy industrialists disliked those who sought to change things. They did
what they could to strengthen their grasp on their wealth and privilege, or at
least to stall any reforms. Meanwhile, the Patience Kershaws and her brothers
and sisters of the era suffered.

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Chapter 3
Moving Toward the
Industrial Age
New Ways of Farming If an English family
living in, say, the 1300s could travel forward The Big Question
in time to the 1700s, they would notice that In what ways did
many things were still the same. But some the inventions of the
Industrial Revolution
important changes were happening. impact people’s lives?

Before the Industrial Revolution, most people still

worked on the land, struggling to put enough food on their table to keep from
starving. Over the years, however, inventive people discovered new and more
efficient ways to do their work. And foods, not known before, were brought across
the Atlantic from the Americas. Potatoes grew well in moist, sandy English soil.
Corn grew well, too, but most farmers thought it was only fit for farm animals!
Most families probably never tasted chocolate; many never saw anyone smoking
tobacco. These were expensive items and were only sampled by the wealthy.

Oxen, cows, horses, sheep, goats, and pigs were larger now, thanks to better
feed and breeding practices. For many families, there was meat on the table
more than just once or twice a year. Better-fed people were healthier and even
noticeably taller than their ancestors. More sheep also meant more wool for
clothing and blankets.

More important than the availability of new crops were the many new tools and
farming techniques. New plows were stronger and heavier, and had metal blades.
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An improved diet meant that people were healthier and even lived longer.

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These plows allowed the plowman to loosen and turn
Vocabulary
over deeper, richer soil. Seedlings had better root
“draft animal,”
systems and were less likely to dry out if there was
(phrase) an animal
little rain. New methods of harnessing draft animals used for pulling
made better use of their strength. Larger oxen or heavy loads
horses pulled these heavier plows more efficiently. waterwheel, n. a
wheel that is turned
Agriculture was beginning to bring profits to the
by flowing water
lords and some of the most enterprising villagers. and used to power
Improved roads and newly dug canals made it machinery
easier for farmers to bring grain to the mill. Flour productivity, n. the
was more easily brought to markets in nearby rate at which goods
towns, too. Waterwheels were improved, so mills are made or work
is completed
could grind more flour. There was an enthusiasm
for change, especially if it meant increased
productivity and increased profit.

Waterwheels converted the power of flowing water into a form of energy that could power
machinery. Often mills were built beside rivers and streams for this reason.

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The Enclosure Movement
The English landscape began to change. Land where villagers had once
grown crops was taken over by gentry landlords and “enclosed”—fenced
in and turned into pasture for the sheep whose wool was in great demand
for cloth. Meadows and woods that lords and villagers had shared were also
enclosed. Previously the land was divided into many small plots. By the 1600s,
larger, more efficient farms were emerging.

As this “enclosure movement” lumped together many small fields, the cost of
producing crops fell. Fewer farm workers were needed. With bigger harvests
and lower costs, the larger landlords reaped more profits and grew wealthier.
But many villagers found themselves without work. Some hired themselves
out as day laborers. Many rural families scraped together a modest living by
doing weaving in their cottages. Desperate for work, hundreds of thousands
of villagers had to leave the countryside, flocking to cities, to nearby mines,
or to the American colonies. Eventually, these displaced people, and certainly
their descendants, would become a large part of the labor force as the
Industrial Age took hold.

New Ways of Mining and Making Metal Tools

By 1700, timber and firewood were scarce in England, and coal became an
important source of energy. Coal could burn hot enough to soften iron. Iron
was used to make new, stronger farm tools. It could also be used for strong
bridges, and for machinery that would help dig canals and deepen harbors.
Many wealthy English landowners began investing some of their profits in
coal and iron mines.

Soon, the easy-to-mine coal and iron deposits

that were close to the surface of the ground were Vocabulary
used up. Miners dug shafts down underground shaft, n. a deep,
to follow the minerals wherever they could. Quite narrow tunnel that
gives access to a mine
often, these mines flooded with groundwater.

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Working underground in the mines was dangerous enough. But no one
could work in a flooded mine. Something needed to be done to pump
out the water. The power of steam was known to the ancient Greeks and
Romans. They knew that when boiling water was confined in a sealed pot
or drum, it could explode if the steam pressure was high enough. If, however,
the steam was allowed to escape through a hole or a small tube, it produced
a great force.

This is the principle behind a steam engine. By the early 1700s, several people
began to devise steam pumps powered by coal fires. The early steam pumps
were not very efficient. They were slow and too large to move around easily.
Then, an observant and resourceful Scotsman named James Watt decided to
improve on existing engines. The steam engine that Watt built in 1768 was
smaller, more powerful, and more moveable than older engines. It was useful
for pumping water out of mines. With improvements, by the 1780s Watt’s
engine also could run other machines through a system of gears, pulleys,
and belts.

The steam engine pumped water out of coal mines making it easier, safer, and quicker to
dig for coal.

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Eventually, even smaller and more powerful steam engines would pull carts or
wagons fitted onto rails. The first locomotive—Richard Trevithick’s Portable
Steam Engine—puffed along tracks in England in 1804. In the United States,
Robert Fulton improved on earlier versions of a steam engine to drive a boat.
In 1807, his Clermont steamed up the Hudson River from New York City to
Albany. Other inventors adapted steam engines to machines that harvested
wheat, spun thread, wove cloth, or lifted heavy hammers to forge iron.

Inventions and improvements could not be kept in one country. Anyone

determined and clever enough could try their hand. There was some luck
involved—and sometimes a great deal of fame and money for the successful
inventor. The Industrial
Revolution may have begun
slowly, with improvements
in growing crops. It really
took off, however, when
glowing coal melted iron ore
or converted water to steam.
With the production of iron,
there were railroads and
ships, bridges and barges,
looms and machines of all
kinds clanking and whirring,
doing the work that once
had been done by people Almost every aspect of daily life was affected by the
advancement of steam power. The fact that people
and animals. It was a new could travel more easily, transport goods longer
age—the Industrial Age. distances, and take advantage of new employment
opportunities, had a profound effect on the way
Modern times had begun. people lived.

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Chapter 4
From Farms to Factories
and Cities
Modern Urban Culture Today, we take
The Big Question
big cities for granted. Even if we don’t
live in one, we know what they are like. What developments
in the manufacturing
Millions of people live in cities. There
of cloth caused mass
are busy streets filled with traffic and migration to
noise almost all the time. There are industrial towns
shops, stores, restaurants, and theaters and cities?
in abundance—not to mention tall
buildings. And in some cities there are factories, too! But about
three hundred years ago, there were very few big cities. So
what led to the fairly rapid rise of the modern city?

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Three or four hundred years ago, most people could not have imagined
a city like New York City.

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More People Than Ever Before
Between 1100 and 1300, Europe’s population grew.
Vocabulary
Then, over the next two hundred years, it seems to
have declined. Although many people were born, plague, n. a highly
contagious, usually
more were dying. Warfare, shortages of food, and fatal, disease
disease were facts of life. During the plagues of the that affects large
numbers of people
1300s, as many as one third of all Europeans may
have died.

After 1500, however, the population

began to grow again—although
at times unevenly due to wars and
outbreaks of diseases. We cannot be
sure why, but it probably had to do
with improved farming methods and
more food. It also might have been
because those who lived through
the plague years developed some
resistance to disease. And it might
have been due to improved hygiene,
or ways of keeping healthy and
preventing disease.

Then, around 1700, Europe entered

a phase of more rapid population
growth. For example, over the
next hundred years, Great Britain
increased its population from
five million to eight million. France
grew at about the same pace. Other In the 1700s, more and more people moved
European populations increased to towns and cities in search of jobs. The
towns and cities became crowded, and at
between 60 and 80 percent. times, unhealthy places to live.

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Europeans living in North America increased even more dramatically: from
an estimated 275,000 in 1700 to nearly four million in 1790. Native Americans,
however, tragically continued to decline in numbers, due to warfare and
exposure to diseases brought across the Atlantic Ocean by Europeans.

We don’t know exactly why the population of Europe began to grow quite
so rapidly in the early 1700s. Whatever the causes may have been, at the
same time, there were fewer jobs and therefore less work in the countryside.
As agriculture became mechanized and more efficient, fewer people were
needed for farming. The combination of more people and less need for
farm workers drove many people out of the villages and into the cities.
This massive migration from villages to cities is one of the most important
historical events of the last millennium. It accounts for the growth of the
modern industrial city.

It Started in England
Back in the year 1700, Patience Kershaw’s great-great-great-grandfather might
have gone from his village into the town of Manchester once or twice a year.
At the market, he could trade one of his pigs for a woolen blanket or maybe
an iron pot. At that time, Manchester was a rather large town, with about
ten thousand inhabitants. Just 150 years later, around the time Patience was
testifying to Lord Ashley’s commission, more than three hundred thousand
people lived and worked in Manchester.
Vocabulary
The city had grown wildly, absorbing nearby villages
migration, n. the act
and towns. It had become a hub of factories and of moving from one
commercial activities. Barges on a canal brought place to another to live
coal and iron to the city. In 1830, a railway linked
barge, n. a boat with
it with Liverpool, one of the busiest harbors on a flat bottom, usually
England’s Atlantic coast. From there, ships took used for carrying
goods
Manchester’s cloth to markets all around the world.

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Changes in Cloth
Manchester was actually
first known as a place
where fine woolen cloth
was woven. Later, it became
the production center for a
new kind of cloth, fustian
(/fus*chun/). Fustian was a
In the pre-industrial era, women often spun wool into
blend of linen and cotton thread at home, using a spinning wheel.

or wool. Fustian was sturdy and did not shrink as much as wool when it was
washed. Before the industrial era, cloth making—from spinning, to dyeing, to
weaving—was largely done by hand in the workers’ homes.

Traditionally, women were hired to spin wool or cotton to produce yarn or

thread. Men and women dyed the yarn or thread, but men were usually hired
to do the weaving. Because so much depended on people working in their
homes, the production of cloth was known as a cottage industry.

The Spinning Jenny

The Industrial Revolution changed all of this—not only for Manchester, but
for other places, too. In the 1730s, John Kay invented the flying shuttle, which
doubled the amount of cotton cloth that could be woven in any given day. The
problem now was producing enough thread to keep up with the weavers. This
led to the invention of a machine
known as a spinning jenny by
James Hargreaves. Instead of one
thread at a time, a jenny could
spin several at once. However,
this machine-spun thread was
weak and often broke, making
weaving a difficult process. James Hargreaves’s spinning jenny

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The mule dramatically increased the production of thread. The cloth industry moved out
of people’s homes and into factories. Now the challenge was to produce enough cotton to
send to the factories.

Then, in 1769, Richard Arkwright invented the water frame. It used water
power at first, then steam, to drive rollers that stretched the thread before
spinning it. This strengthened thread produced a tightly woven all-cotton
fabric. Problem solved! By the end of 1700s, Samuel Crompton combined
the jenny and the water frame into one large steam-driven machine, called
a mule. This increased thread production by ten times. Larger and larger
mules were built in special buildings, called factories. Cotton had also largely
replaced wool. The problem now was growing enough cotton to keep up
with the manufacturing process.

The Cotton Gin

An American named Eli Whitney knew that cotton grew well in the American
South. But it wasn’t easy to separate the cotton seeds from the fibers. In 1793,
after studying the problem for just a few days, Whitney designed a simple
machine that worked beautifully. Cotton was pushed through a hopper into
contact with a revolving cylinder. Hundreds of wire hooks on the revolving
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cylinder strained out
the seeds. Turning in
the opposite direction,
another cylinder combed
or brushed the cotton
off the hooks and into a
bin. Whitney called his
machine the cotton gin.
The invention of the cotton gin meant the increased use
Gin was short for engine. of enslaved workers.

Whitney’s invention changed agriculture in the American South. Huge

cotton plantations developed, increasing demand for enslaved workers from
Africa to produce “white gold,” as cotton came to be known. The cotton gin
made plantation owners and cotton merchants rich beyond their dreams.

The producers of cotton in the American South had an even greater financial advantage—
their workers were enslaved and worked without receiving payment. The contribution
of enslaved workers to the industrial development of the United States cannot be
underestimated.

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And sadly, because growing cotton was big business, Whitney’s invention
made slavery in America much less likely to disappear. Now there was enough
cotton to keep the new factories—whether in Great Britain, or in the northern
United States—working at full capacity.

Factories Instead of Cottages

There wasn’t much difference between factories in Great Britain and those
in the northern United States. Manufacturing techniques were very valuable.
Workers had to swear not tell how the machinery worked. Spies tried to steal
the secrets or bribe workers into revealing them. Most factory owners cared
more for their profits than for their workers. To produce even more finished
cloth, factories kept running after dark, with laborers working in shifts, by
candle or lantern light.

Inside the factory, the owner and his overseers controlled the entire
production process. Workers were under constant supervision and at the
factory owner’s mercy. He could pay a low wage, because so many people
were looking for work. He would fire those who were uncooperative or
unproductive. Children were especially cheap labor. Because they were
small and quick, they could work in dangerous spots around the machinery.

And in Manchester, England, people soon said that the city was “steam mill
mad.” In 1830, it had ninety-nine cotton-spinning mills that worked from
dawn to dark, making cotton cloth that found its way all around the world.
Cloth made in a factory was superior in many ways, and it cost less than
cloth made the old-fashioned way. By 1850, there were only 50,000 hand
weavers in Britain, down from 250,000 just thirty years before. Parts of the
quiet British countryside seemed to change almost overnight into huge,
smoky, sooty, overcrowded cities.

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Mining Areas in Great Britain

Iron ore deposits N

Coal fields W E

Scotland

Glasgow
Edinburgh North Sea

Newcastle

England

Manchester Leeds

Irish Sea Liverpool

Ireland Sheffield

Birmingham
Wales

London
Cardiff Bristol
Portsmouth

Plymouth
English Channel

France

In the early 1800s, cities developed close to resources, such as coal and iron.
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Families of workers flocked to these cities by the
Vocabulary
thousands. All hoped for a chance to earn a living
sanitation, n. the
and be better able to feed and clothe themselves
system of keeping a
than they had been back in their villages and place clean and free
small towns. Before moving to cities, they may not of disease
have known or been concerned about housing slum, n. a crowded
shortages, poor sanitation, and scarce food. Once city neighborhood
in the city, however, there wasn’t much they could where buildings are
in bad condition;
do, except take work wherever they could find it. often used to refer
to areas where poor
Often, the owner of the factory or mine rented out people live
cheap slum housing. He might also control the
bank. He might even own the shops and taverns. nutrition, n. the
process of eating the
If the owner thought a worker was a troublemaker, right kinds of food to
he could see to it that no other factory would hire be healthy
anyone from that worker’s family.

An increase in population led to

the creation of police forces and
the building of more jails. More
law enforcement meant that
more people were picked up by
the police.

Life was hard for the working poor.

Overcrowding, bad sanitation,
pollution, and poor nutrition
became more of a problem. So too
did disease. When disease struck,
rich and poor alike were at risk.
The rich moved out of the city. The
poor were left behind, to work and During the Industrial Revolution, poor people
often lived in cramped housing with bad
endure their new life in the city. sanitation.

35
Chapter 7
Living in the
Industrial Era
Growing Gap Between Rich and Poor
As the Industrial Revolution spread, many The Big Question
people became very rich. Many more, What were the
however, stayed quite poor and lived in advantages and
disadvantages of the
misery. The gap between rich and poor industrial era?
grew at an alarming rate.

Stories about hard-hearted factory owners and struggling workers trying to

earn a living tell us just how hard these times were. No one described living and
working conditions more powerfully than the British writer Charles Dickens.

Charles Dickens
Dickens knew firsthand what it meant to be poor. Born in Portsmouth, England,
in 1812, Dickens lived comfortably enough until he was twelve. However, his
father’s bad management of the family’s finances
Vocabulary led to disaster. Because his father couldn’t pay the
“debtors’ prison,” family’s bills, Charles had to quit school and go to
(phrase) a jail for
people who could work in a factory. His father, mother, and younger
not pay money that brothers and sisters were all sent to debtors’ prison
they owed
until the family could pay their bills.

50
Charles Dickens experienced firsthand what it meant to be poor.
As a twelve-year-old, he had to go to work in a factory.
51
Young Charles wasn’t used to the rough, hard life of London’s streets. He was
stunned by what he saw every day and night. He spent the rest of his life writing
novels about the hardships of being poor, especially of being a poor child.

Dickens was a marvelous author. His stories are sometimes funny and sometimes
sad. Although they may exaggerate, or stretch, what he saw around him, they
are always sensitive and sympathetic to the suffering Dickens witnessed as a boy.

One of Dickens’s most vivid novels is Hard Times. It tells the story of rich and
poor people living in “Coketown,” a sooty, cramped industrial English city
where poor workers and their children were mistrusted and abused. It is
based on an actual English city of the 1850s.

Another of Dickens’s novels,

Oliver Twist, tells the story
of a young orphan forced
to live in London’s streets
among criminals and gangs.
Although Dickens made up
the characters, they, too, were
based on real life.

You may know Dickens’s most

famous story, A Christmas Carol.
It has a happy ending: poor
little Tiny Tim and his family
have a merry Christmas after
all, once stingy old Scrooge
learns how important it is
to share his wealth. Dickens
hoped his readers would learn
In the novel Oliver Twist, Oliver finds himself in the
this lesson—and not just at poorhouse. One of the most famous scenes in the
book is when Oliver, who is feeling very hungry,
Christmastime. asks for more food. This scene is shown here.

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Even people who didn’t read Charles Dickens’s stories could see them
performed as plays on the stage. Thanks in part to the writings of Dickens,
social reformers began working to improve living and working conditions
for the poor.

Benjamin Disraeli
One such reformer went on to become one
of the most important political leaders of the Vocabulary
1800s. Benjamin Disraeli (/dihz*ray*lee/) was prime minister,
n. the head of
twice elected prime minister of Great Britain. As
government in
the leader of the Conservative Party and Queen some countries
Victoria’s favorite politician, Disraeli helped pass
many laws that benefited the working classes.

As a young man, Disraeli wrote novels. Although not as popular a writer

as Dickens, Disraeli also brought attention to the poor in the Industrial
Revolution. His novel, Sybil, or The Two Nations, written in 1842, describes the
gap between the rich and poor. It was, he wrote, as though there were:

Two nations: between whom there is no [communication] and no

sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and
feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones or inhabitants of
different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a
different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed
by the same laws.

Disraeli worried about how the rich and poor would get along in such
a divided nation. He and many others at the time worried about violent
conflicts between rich and poor. Day-to-day stress was as much a product
of the Industrial Revolution as iron, cloth, and bustling business.

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Benjamin Disraeli (right) was a favorite of Britain’s Queen Victoria (seated).

The Upper Class

Historians learn a great deal about an era by studying how people
furnished their homes, what they ate, where and how they traveled, when
and where they organized social events, and what games they played.
Of course, these things varied depending on a person’s wealth and social
standing—or class.

If you belonged to the landowning aristocracy, you would probably

have a lot of servants to cook and clean for you, and to take care of your
household’s needs. You would also probably hire someone to manage
your finances. You would therefore have a lot of leisure time, which you
might spend hunting on horseback, visiting neighbors, going to balls, or
traveling abroad.

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Members of the upper class had much more time for leisure activities than most other
people at this time in history.

If you were a successful capitalist, you would

Vocabulary
probably work very hard managing your affairs and
politics, n. the
would try to invest most of your profits to bring in
activities of
even more money. But there would probably be leaders running
enough left over to live comfortably and maybe go a government
into politics. Your money might not buy happiness,
but it could certainly buy you a life of luxury.

The Middle Class

If you were a member of the middle class—say, a shopkeeper—you had to
work regular hours. Even though you might have some servants, too, you
couldn’t do whatever you wanted to do as often as a rich person might.

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If you were a good, hardworking, and skillful lawyer or doctor with wealthy
patients, you might earn a comfortable living. If you had a shop or were a skilled
craftsperson, say, a clockmaker or a fine tailor, you had to serve your customers’
needs. You would be working with your hands but not under the same pressures
or hardships as some factory workers. You would probably be your own boss.
In your leisure time, you might be able to pursue a hobby or read. Unlike
poorer folk, you could afford the candles and the coal that would keep your
rooms lit and warm in the evenings.
When you could, you might travel by train to the coast or take long walks in
the country. Perhaps you would take an interest in the history of your town.
You might even become an amateur astronomer with a small telescope you
made yourself. You certainly would meet regularly with your friends in a
social club or at a local tavern or inn.

The Working Poor

Only about 20 percent of all the people in the 1800s were upper class or
middle class. What about the other 80 percent? How did they spend their
leisure time? Did they even have leisure time?
Certainly, the poor did not have much leisure time. The poorer you were, the
more you worried about putting food on the table and a roof over your head.
You had precious little time for amusements or distractions. And if you were
out of work with nothing to do, how could you afford anything, even the
barest necessities? Even if the state required children between the ages of
seven and fourteen to go to school, parents often were against it. They tried
to avoid any law that prevented their children from working. Poor families
needed whatever children could add to their pitiful income.
Despite the hardships suffered by the working poor, they did on occasion
find time to enjoy life. Music, card games, the circus, the zoo, fairs, and public
parks offered forms of relaxation and entertainment. Team sports—especially
soccer and rugby—became very popular in Britain. In America during this
time, baseball drew large crowds.
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There was a great contrast between the lives of the rich and the poor in Britain in the 1800s.

57
Churches and other places of worship offered a source of comfort and
companionship. Many people took comfort from their faith when life was
particularly difficult. A place of worship was often the focal point, or center,
for small communities.

Crime, Punishment, and Migration

Modern police forces as we know them date from this period. They
were created, in part, as a response to having such large populations
of people living in cities. With an increased population, and a larger
police force, crimes like begging, stealing, and drunkenness were more
commonly reported.

Sometimes poor workers packed up and went in search of a better life.

A worker might hear from a friend or a family member about work and
better conditions in another city or town. The biggest gamble was leaving
for another country, especially one far away from home and family. The
trip cost years of savings. There was no certainty of finding work, just
a vague promise in an advertisement or a rumor. And yet millions of
people migrated to foreign lands, especially to North America, during the
Industrial Revolution. Some of them might even have been your ancestors.

For some people, the world was changing a little too fast for their liking.
Most tried to find their place in the developing industrial world. But there
were those who fought against the age of the machine.

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For some people, the Industrial Revolution was a marvelous age. The wonders of the
Industrial Revolution were displayed in 1851, in the Crystal Palace, a British exhibition
hall in London, England, that looked like a giant greenhouse. It was built with cast-iron
supports and nearly three hundred thousand panes of glass.

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