Homes During The Industrial Revolution

Introduction:

Whilst the Industrial Revolution was horrible, causing children to be treated poorly and abused, it made people realise laws needed to be put in place to change the lives of citizens for the better (children mostly). During the Industrial Revolution, not only were kids mistreated in workplaces, they also commonly had to live in cramped and unsanitary homes. It is easy to assume that people didn’t see kids as humans, but as labourers to do their work for them. As the Industrial Revolution continued, more people started realising that the way children were treated was not okay and wanted to make a change. This lead to laws and reforms being passed by the government which had a major impact on everyones lives and changed the way

Families would have to live with three or four other families, cramped into one small room. This was very uncomfortable for these families living together, however there wasn’t much they could do, as people who lived with these conditions tended to be quite poor and this was all they could afford. The homes that they lived in were often referred to as ‘back-to-back terraces’, because the homes were built extremely close and were connected to one another. The source shown is an accurate representation of how the houses were built, and as you can tell there is not much room for 3-4 families to live. Homes during the Industrial Revolution were extremely unsanitary and were not required to meet any specific expectations. They were built with cheap materials and usually didn’t have ventilation or windows. Most homes were also built with no running water and were very unsanitary, leading to sickness for many people who lived in these houses. The reason people built these houses was to make money. Considering all of the materials were cheap and there were no standards to meet, it was easy to make money and sell the homes to the less fortunate people who could not afford nicer homes. This was a major issue for people living in the Industrial Revolution, as these living conditions were barely enough to survive with and change needed to be made, hence later reforms

Children were mistreated and abused in the workplace, being hit and yelled at for making a minor mistake or even being too slow. They were expected to work difficult and long hours every day, and were also put in danger by the jobs they had (for example; mines, factories etc). Children as young as 6 years old were expected to work up to 14 hours a day which is exhausting and unnecessary for kids their age. Not to mention that children were extremely underpaid. They would do the same amount of labour as an adult would and only earn around 10% of an adults wage. Children would earn approximately $0.50 cents every day for hours of hard labour and work. This was all because the employers of factories and mines needed workers for cheap, and children were the next best option to