Group Five

This excerpt from The Conditions of the Working Class in England was written by Friedrich Engels after he visited an English industrial city in 1844:

Every great town has one or more slum areas where the workers struggle through life as best they can out of sigh of the more fortunate classes of society.  The slums…are generally unplanned wildernesses of one-or-two-storied houses.  Wherever possible these have cellars which are also used as dwellings.  The streets are usually unpaved, full of holes, filthy and strewn (filled) with refuse (garbage).  Since they have neither gutters nor drains, the refuse accumulates (builds up) in stagnant (still), stinking puddles.  The view of Manchester [England] is quite typical.  The main river is narrow, coal-black and full of stinking filth and rubbish, which it deposits on its bank…One walks along a very rough path on the riverbank to reach a chaotic group of little, one-story, one-room cabins.  …In front of the doors, filth, and garbage abounded…

Photograph of a slum neighborhood

An example of an industrial era home

An urban slum near factories in 19th century Britain