Urbanization Of 18th Century
Change
In Urban Society At the end
of the 18th century a revolution in energy and
industry began in England and
spread rapidly all around Europe later in the 19th
century, bringing about
dramatic and radical change. A significant impact of the
Industrial
Revolution was that on urban society. The population of towns grew
vastly
because economic advantage entailed that the new factories and offices
be
situated in the cities. The outlook of the city and urban life in general
were
profoundly modified and altered. Modern industry created factory owners
and
capitalists who strengthened the wealth and size of the middle class.
Beside the
expansion of the bourgeoisie, the age of industrialization saw the
emergence of
a new urban proletariat - the working class. The life of this
new group and its
relations with the middle class are controversial issues to
modern history. Some
believe that the Industrial Revolution "inevitably
caused much human
misery" and affliction. Other historians profess that
Industrialization
brought economic improvement for the laboring classes. Both
conclusions should
be qualified to a certain extent. Economic growth does not
mean more happiness.
Given the contemporary stories by people at that
time, life in the early urban
society seems to have been more somber than
historians are usually prow to
describe it. No generalities about natural law
or inevitable development can
blind us to the fact, that the progress in
which we believe has been won at the
expense of much injustice and wrong,
which was not inevitable. Still, I believe
that industry was a salvation from
a rapid population growth and immense
poverty. Furthermore, by the end of the
19th century the appearance of European
cities and life in them had evolved
and change for the better. Industrialization
was preceded and accompanied by
rapid population growth, which began in Europe
after 1720. People had serious
difficulty providing their subsistence by simply
growing their food. There
was widespread poverty and underemployment. Moreover,
the need for workers in
the city was huge. More and more factories were opening
their doors. The
result of this was a vast migration from the countryside to the
city where
peasants were already being employed. "The number of people
living in the
cities of 20000 or more in England and Wales jumped from 1.5
million in 1801
to 6.3 million by 1891" (Mckay, 762). With this mass exodus
from the
countryside, life in urban areas changed drastically.
Overcrowding
exacerbated by lack of sanitation and medical knowledge made
life in the city
quite hard and miserable. A description of Manchester in
1844, given by one of
the most passionate critics of the Industrial
Revolution, Friederich Engels,
conveys in great detail the deplorable outlook
of the city. "...the
confusion has only recently reached its height when
every scrap of space left by
the old way of building has been filled up or
patched over until not a foot of
land is left to be further occpupied"
(Engels 2). Lack of sanitation caused
people to live in such filth and scum
that is hard to imagine. "In dry
weather, a long string of the most
disgusting, blackish-green, slime pools are
left standing on this bank, from
depths of which bubbles of miasmatic gas
constantly arise and give forth a
stench unendurable even on the bridge forty or
fifty feet above the surface
of the stream" (Engels 2). The appalling
living conditions in the city during
the early stages of the Industrial
Revolution brought about two important
changes. By developing his famous germ
theory of disease, Louis Pasteur
brought about the so-called Bacterial
revolution and lead the road to taming
the ferocity of the death in urban areas
caused by unsanitary and overcrowded
living conditions. The theory that disease
was inflicted by microorganisms
completely revolutionized modern medicine and
brought about the important
health movement in the city. After 1870 sanitation
was a priority on the
agenda lists of city administration in most industrialized
European
countries. Urban planning and transportation after 1870
transformed
European cities into beautiful and enchanting places. Water
supply systems and
waste disposals construction were accompanied by the
building of boulevards,
townhalls, theaters, museums. The greatest innovation
in this area at the time
-the electric streetcar- immensely facilitated the
expansion of the city and
helped alleviate the problem of overcrowding. A
good example of urban planning
and transportation was the rebuilding of
Paris, which laid the foundations of
modern urbanism all around Europe. The
appearance of the city and the quality of
life in it greatly improved by the
end of the 19th century. But, living
conditions in the city during the
Industrial Revolution were pretty bad, a
factor that greatly contributed to
the bad plight of the working class at that
time. As urban civilization was
starting to prevail over rural life, changes in
the structure of the society
and in family life became inevitable. Urban society
became more diversified
while the classes lost a great part of their unity.
Economic
specialization produced many new social groups. It created a vast range
of
jobs, skills and earnings, which intermingled with one another creating
new
subclasses. Thus the very rich and the very poor were separated by the
vast
space occupied by these new strata. Urban society resembled the society
from the
age of agriculture and aristocracy by one thing. The economic gap
between rich
and poor remained enormous and income distribution stayed highly
unequal with
one fifth of society receiving more than the remaining four
fifths. With the
emergence of the factory owners and industrial capitalists,
he relations between
the middle and the working class changed. But did the
new industrial middle
class ruthlessly exploit the workers? I believe that at
the begging this was
certainly the case. People were coming to the city as
"family units"
and as such worked in the factories. "In the early years some
very young
kids were employed solely to keep the family together" (Mckay
718). The
conditions of work were appalling. An excerpt from Parliamentary
Papers in
England named "Evidence Before the Sadler Committee", mirrors
the
quite dark side of life in the factories. In this testimony several
people who
worked at factories in different industries and towns in England
draw a vivid
picture of the factory reality. Both children and grownups were
made to work
fourteen to sixteen hours a day with only an hour brake and a
salary that was
hardly intended to compensate the tremendous load of work.
Children were
"strapped" "severely" if they lagged and deteriorated
their
work. The sight of the workers reflected their sad plight. "Any man
...must
acknowledge, that an uglier set of men and women, of boys and girls,
taking them
in the mass it would be impossible to imagine...Their complexion
is sallow...
Their sature low...Their limbs slender and playing badly and
ungracefully...
Great numbers of girls and women walking lamely or
awkwardly, with raised chests
and spinal flexures" (Gaskell, 1). Miserable
life and poverty allowed
people few recreational outlets and money to spend.
For this reason a process of
corruption and degradation of morals spread
among working class people. An
illustration of this is the proliferation of
prostitution at the time. The
continuing distance between rich and poor made
for every kind of debauchery and
sexual exploitation. Important factor in the
degradation of morals that spread
through urban society and the working
classes in particular was the diminishing
role that religion played in daily
live. Urban society became more secular and
more and more people started to
regard the church as conservative institution
that defended social order and
custom. As a result of this illegitimacy and
sexual experimentation before
marriage triumphed during the 19th century.
Women's actively entering the
labor force was a new development spurred by the
Industrial Revolution.
In the preindustrial world women did leave home at an
early age in search for
work but their opportunities were limited. The service
in another family's
household was by far the most common. The employment of
girls and women in
factories had an important effect on their stereotypic role
of household
carers. It weaned them away from home and the domestic tasks.
"Shut up from
morning till night, except when they are sent home for their
meals, these
girls are ignorant of and unhandy at every domestic
employment"
("Observations on the Loss of Woolen Spinning,
1794"). However, the
plight of the urban working class changed as the
growth of modern cities
approached the end of the 19th century. The average real
income raised
substantially. The practice of employing children from an early
age was
abandoned. Less and less women were working in sweated
industries.
Instead men were the primary wage earners while women stayed
at home taking care
of the household and the children. The early practice of
hiring entire families
in the factory disappeared. Family life became more
stable, as mercenary
marriages were substituted by romantic love. Sex roles
in urban society became
highly distinct. The most distressing changes brought
to urban society
-overcrowding, lack of urban planning, unsanitary
conditions, unemployment and
poverty -were eventually offset by the
compensation and remedy of economic
growth. Urban society not only change for
the better. This change was a
remarkable step for humanity. For one thing,
the city promoted diversity and
creativity. It was the uncontested home of
new ideologies, ideas, movements,
crucial scientific discoveries, customs,
fashions, developments in art
and
literature.
Bibliography
Gaskell, P. "The Physical
Deterioration of the textile Workers." 27
Sept. 1997. 23 April. 2000.
www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook.html Engels,
Friederich. "Industrial
Manchester,1844." 27 Sept. 1997. 23 April.
2000.
www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook.html "Observations on the Loss
of Woolen
Spinning,1794." 27 Sept. 1997. 23 April. 2000.
www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook.html
"Evidence Given Before the Sadler
Committee." 27 Sept. 1997. 23 April.
2000.
www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook.html McKay P., Buckler, Hill.
"History
of Western Society." 3th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1987.
630-631