history

1 How did pollution affect London between 1700 and 1900?

The development of locomotives, and steamboats manufactured goods could now be sold around the globe. Families moved from the villages of their ancestors to new industrial towns and a new class of people emerged, workers who produced goods. The industrialist, the people who owned the factories, employed hundreds even thousands of people, and made enormous profits. A major concern was the growing numbers, the masses of the urban poor that arrived and settled in the city. While the industrial innovations brought wealth to some and jobs for others, it all came with a cost: pollution from coal powered factories turned the cities black. Lack of housing created the first urban slums. And the demand for more and more goods, and higher profits, brought the exploitation of workers, including children.

Victims ragged in agony, their muscles in continuous spasms. They could’ve died within hours. No one knew what was spreading the disease or how it could be stopped. After the outbreak ended, over 32 000 people had lost their lives. It was Britain’s first Cholera epidemic. The sewers were contaminating the water system and spreading the disease. At first they though it’s in the air but you could see how a cluster of people surrounding a water pump would have died quicker.

2 How did the spread of steam power and the factory system affect London between 1700 and 1900?

We can witness how London shifts from more of a manual labor society to one of the dominant manufacturers in power by the 1900’s. This increase in production brought about by the use of machines changed drastically how Londoner’s lived. A new machine replaced hand powered tools; they did the same work, only cheaper and ...

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...to rule the world. The British would be thought how to rule India before they were thought how to rule Britain, which underlines the priorities in London during the Empire.

It was the countries of the Empire that led to the creation of the Empire as for example it was the Indian cotton production that helped spur the British industrialization. It was cotton textiles that drove the early Industrial Revolution and the main reason England was so eager to produce cotton was that demand was incredibly high. It was Indian cotton which created the market, and then British manufacturers invested in machines, and imported Indian know-how to increase production so that they could then compete with India.

Some impressive pictures of the 19th century life in London I’ve came across and thought are worth sharing: