As workers flocked to cities for employment and factories increasingly established themselves in cities, the population of industrial centers skyrocketed. London grew from 1 million to a 3 million monstrosity. New cities developed such as Leeds, Birminghamand Manchester in Britain, Lyonin France. In 1851, half of the population of England and Wales classified as urban (a historical first); in 1891, the percentage reached 72% as between 1801-1891 the number of urban dwellers (throughout the country) increased from 2.3 million to 19.8 million with London alone growing from one million in 1800 to 1.9 million in 1841 to 3.8 million in 1890 and over 4 million by 1901. Simply, the cities were becoming overcrowded with half of salaries being spent on rent and even causing the cemeteries to suffer from overcrowding
Figure 8: 19th Century Paris
The cities were not conducive to the health of the inhabitants. Little planning regulations existed that exacerbated the issues people faced. Families shared one or two rooms, making privacy non-existent. Bathrooms were limited to overcrowded houses.
Figure 9: Peabody Square Model Dwellings in Blackfriars Road
It was a harsh world took the lives of nearly 25% of all infants born during this period (those who died before their first birthday). The inner city rates were even higher, 300 deaths per thousand on average mainly due to the poverty, overall lack of care and dreadful housing situations. Children also died either through infanticide or through accident–drunken fathers or tired mothers who often shared a bed with the young, might roll-over on them at night, suffocating them.
Figure 10: Illustration depicting cramped and squalid housing conditions
One notorious street in London, Old Nichols Street, was dominated by working class families. A mother was out of work and her children, ages 7 and 9, played alongside a coffin that contained the body of her dead husband. In another house, 10 rooms held 90 people. At another house, one family shared a single room with six ducks with cows, geese and rabbits also being found on the road. A couple in their 60s continued to labor in their room while other walls well apart. A couple shared a room with their six children, all of whom were working to complete an order of boots.
Socialist and social researcher Beatrice Webb recalled: “the prevalence of incest in one room tenements. The fact that some of my workmates—young girls who were in no way mentally defective, who were on the contrary just as keen-witted and generous hearted as my own circle of friends-could chaff each other about having babies by their fathers and brothers, was a gruesome example of the effect of debased social environment on personal character and family life…the violation of little children was another not infrequent result…to put it bluntly, sexual promiscuity and even sexual perversion are almost unavoidable among men and women of average character and intelligence crowed into the one roomed tenements of slum areas.”
Indecent housing, flooded basements, overcrowding, overflowing cesspools, contaminated water supplies, poverty, and hunger allowed diseases like cholera, typhus, typhoid fever, diphtheria, rickets,tuberculosis and scarlet fever to thrive. Sewer systems did not exit-creating a new for one of history’s most interesting professions-the night soil men who emptied out the cesspools in peoples’ basements. However, soon the cities became so geographically expansive, getting human waste to farms was uneconomical. Sewer systems spread in size and scope , involving huge capital outlays, but often that only served to concentrate the waste. Within a generation fishing stopped on the Thames and then the backward flow (as a tidal river) was brought under control (so that the waste stopped flowing back and forth). Overall, cities still lacked access to clean water and remained dirty and dangerous places.
Additionally, pollution was rife so that smog dominated London like never before and grime was a feature of everyday life. In 1841 the life expectancy in London was 36 and in Manchester and Liverpool it was 26. The death rate was much higher in cities than in rural areas. In the 1830s and the 1840s the cholera epidemic swept through Europe. As a disease spread through the ingestion of contaminated food or water, the close proximity of people combined with the poor sources of water to run rampant.
Finally connections between poor city planning and the spread of disease were made. These outbreaks of disease pushed a need to better understand the spread of disease and middle-class reformers developed public health campaigns. After much debate over the cost and control, new sewage lines were installed. In Britain, a public health bill was finally passed in 1848. New homes had to be inspected to make sure they had proper drainage and dependable water supplies. Additionally, planners wanted to incorporate more green spaces. More parks were created and more grounds were designated for golf, cricket, and tennis clubs–leisure activities for the rich and upwardly mobile middle class.
Middle class neighborhoods were increasingly separated from lower class ones. European cities were often highly concentrated in the center because people had to walk so they had to live near where they worked and shopped. But with the development of the London Underground the Middle and upper classes were able to move outside of the city and commute. They were able to escape the pollution and filth of the city and lead to the rise of the commuting suburbs and also the quick geographical expansion of the cities outward. For example, in 1863 London, the first underground railway was completed connecting the railroad network at Paddington Station, and thus a hub for railroad counters, to Farringdon Street, near the Bank of England, and the financial center where many of the commuters worked. People could live further and further from their place of business, but for the poor this was not an option.
