The Laboring Classes

I found the section of The Laboring Classes interesting because it drew on some interesting things. The laboring class or manual workers, who worked in the mines, ports, factories, construction sites, workshops and farms of an industrializing Britain suffered the most and benefited least from the transformation of the Industrial Revolution. You would think during this time that they would have benefited more because the work they were doing helped the British aristocracy and middle classes reap rewards. The laboring classes, however, were shaped by rapid urbanization. By populations grew, and by 1851, a majority of Britain’s population lived in towns and cities. These cities were accompanied with overall bad conditions such as being overcrowded and smoky, with wholly inadequate sanitation, periodic epidemics, endless row houses and warehouses, few public services or open spaces, and inadequate and often polluted water supplies (Strayer 839). It was surprising to see how the rapid increase in population growth affected the crowded cities. Also, it was interesting to know that the life expectancy of a person in England was only 39.5 years, which is less than it had been some three centuries earlier. In addition, there was not much personal contact between the poor and rich industrial cities. Furthermore, this section also mentioned how in the nineteenth century, Britain’s industrialists favored girls and young unmarried women, as employees in the textile mills, for they were often willing to accept lower wages (Strayer 840). During this time there was a gendered hierarchy of labor emerging, as men where given jobs in supervisory and skilled positions, while women occupied the less “skilled” and lighter jobs that offered little opportunity for advancement.