Manchester Dbq Essay

Manchester was one of the most major cities of Great Britain throughout the nineteenth century, a time fueled by revolution and change, especially in industry. However, these changes were majorily negative, which lead to a significant amount of public unrest. Illness was everywhere, excrement lined the streets, and social hierarchies had developed more than ever before. The effects the Industrial Revolution had on the growth and people of Manchester included the destruction of the physical and emotional well-being of the citizens as well as the further complication of a social hierarchy so previously complex that it became a plague in itself, comparable to those that swept away an enormous amount of the population of the city throughout the

Overcrowding was one of the most prominent problems in Manchester, evident in the creating of row houses and slender streets: “Imagine this multitude crowded together in narrow streets, the houses all built of brick and blackened with smoke”(Document 2). As Robert Southey wrote in his 1829 Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society, Manchester was incredibly destitute. However, the fact that Southey leaned towards being politically conservative and therefore unwelcoming to the liberal changes to society, there is potential for bias in his writing. Yet, this viewpoint aligns with that of Flora Tristan of Document 4, who agreed that the “physical suffering and moral degradation [of the working class]”(Document 4). The general welfare of the workers must have been unquestionably horrible if people of completely different points of view shared the same opinion. Another viewpoint was that of Alexis de Tocqueville, who supported abolitionist views and free trade, and was influenced by all sides of politics. A Frenchman, Tocqueville traveled to Manchester in the early nineteenth century. His reports on the state of the city entirely comply with those of Southey and Tristan in his publication of Journeys to England and Ireland, comparing the working population to a foul stream of human industry, as foul as the excrement lining the streets. Due to the lack of plumbing

Women and children’s work hours were reduced, leading to lower family wages. The high prices of bread at this time made the smaller household income a major issue, as the situation only got worse in the passing of the Corn Laws. The working class suffered the most in response to the Corn Laws. The aristocracy, however, benefitted from the power they now possessed of purchasing a good unavailable to the lower classes. This proves the complexity of the social hierarchy of the nineteenth century, a society defined by gradually blurring lines between several different levels of lower and middle classes. In response to becoming fused with peasantry, members of the middle class devoted their time to lavish displays of wealth and proper manners, from weekly dinner parties to unbelievably precise rules of etiquette. Another common practice of the middle class was looking down upon members of lower classes, especially the way in which workers drank so frequently. Document 4 shows Tristan’s ultimate heartache for those suffering with “an insufficiency of food and an excess of strong drink”(Document