Life and Work in the Industrial City

This report dated September 15, 1847 has been provided for the urban planning committees of various cities in England. My name is Jack Monahan, and as a mid-level city inspector I trust that you will use the information within to determine appropriate needs in urban planning for your municipalities. My report has been through as I have made use of all the sources available to me and have worked to guide you through my own analysis and critical thinking to a full description of the issues facing our city.

Positive isn't a word that is used a lot during the Industrial Revolution. But there is a lot of positives when looking at the big picture of what the Industrial Revolution brought to the world. When looking around in my visit to the city I noticed that the amount of people living on the streets is very low. In Doc B John Jones talks about how the cities were such a glorious place with not a lot of people living on the streets, everyone had jobs. Also W.C. Taylor noticed on her trip to a factory that the amount of accidents were low and with working in a factory people had enough money to feed their families. (Doc E) So in some peoples eyes the factory work was worth it for the money and in others eyes the life in a factory was a privilege not a punishment.

Negative is an understatement when talking about the life in factories during the Industrial Revolution. The people were living in pollution and filth, the rivers were even colored by the pollution in the rivers! (Doc A) When living in these conditions the workers had to do the same thing at work everyday! How boring. (Doc A) Also in these jobs were fires always starting and everywhere you would walk their would be smoke being breathed in, work was like a torture device. (Doc C) In these terrible conditions the children were made to work which made them starving, have distorted limbs, and age prematurely. (Doc D) I’m not sure these conditions are worth a pay check.

I think there was more of a negative effects on living conditions in the Industrial Revolution. The people would eat, sleep, breathe smoke. Out of my 5 sources 3 out of the 5 were negative towards the Industrial Revolution. All of the negative sources were about the same thing, how the smoke would ruin peoples lives. In Doc D caught my attention the most when the children would have distorted limbs and would age prematurely. Is this really what the Industrial Revolution wanted to happen? No so the IR was negative compared to what the creators thought it would turn out.