The Industrial Revolution, while a period of significant technological and economic advancement, was characterized by appalling hygiene and sanitation conditions, leading to widespread disease, low life expectancy, and immense suffering for the working class.
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The Industrial Revolution was a period in history
where factory work was beginning to claim dominance
over the workforce, beginning in England,
and eventually spreading over the pond into America.
But lacking in regulation, oversight, and in some cases,
basic knowledge of disease and how it spread,
the lower class citizens and factory workers of this time
lived in literal squalor.
Today we're going to examine what hygiene was really
like during the Industrial Revolution.
But before we inhale some delightful industrial
pollutants, why don't you subscribe to Weird History,
and let us know what historical era
you would like to hear more about.
Now, pour yourself a big cup of sewage river water.
We're diving in.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
German writer Georg Weerth lovingly
described the air in Leeds as akin to swallowing
a pound of cayenne pepper, which one
should avoid unless it becomes a thing on the internet.
Then, do the cayenne pepper challenge immediately,
hashtag spicyspicy.
Leeds had it better than Weerth's hometown of Bradford,
however, a major factory town during the Industrial
Revolution, which he described as a literal hell,
saying, if anyone wants to feel how a poor sinner is tormented
in purgatory, let him travel to Bradford.
That saying was somehow excluded off the Bradford tour guide
brochure.
Weerth and his friends, Karl Marx--
yes, that Karl Marx--
and Friedrich Engels would hang out
and talk about what a dump of Bradford was.
And they might have been onto something,
since the life expectancy at the time in Bradford
was only 25 to 30 years old.
There weren't exactly a ton of boomers
to make fun of in those days.
Today, Brits can take comfort in having a long life expectancy.
UK men fall at a solid 79 years, while women
have a slightly longer expectancy at 83.
Women-- flawless victory.
However, back in the Industrial Revolution
before Purell and modern medicine,
it was significantly lower for the lowly laborers.
The middle class clocked out at an average age of 45.
English factory workers were lucky to make it
to 30 years old.
Laborers were exposed to a wide assortment
of toxins and disease at much higher rates than those
not working in poorly regulated factory conditions.
Factor in how easily disease was spread from person to person,
plus neglected water sources and general overpopulation,
the situation was ripe for widespread infections.
And boy, was there.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
It's easy to take for granted how
cholera-free most people live their lives in the modern age.
But during the Industrial Revolution,
it was decisively less easy.
Cholera was a real problem in 19th-century England,
with four separate cholera outbreaks
that would take the lives of almost 15,000 people in London
alone.
The disease, which was rather fatal during this time,
was easily spread due to poor water treatment management
in the UK.
There was nothing to guard against the sewage
water and the drinking water, two streams that
should very much never cross, from very much crossing.
Hence, the rapid rise of horrible diseases
through contaminated water.
They even gave his painful tummy disease a royal nickname,
referring to it as King Cholera, which sounds
like an '80s wrestler's name.
Cholera wasn't infecting the streets of the UK
alone, however.
Typhus and typhoid were running these streets as well.
Typhoid also spread through poorly treated water,
hung out in the county's well water,
and caused flu-like symptoms.
Typhus was spread through lice--
fun little bugs that loved a good group hang.
And the crowded tenements and shared living spaces
were basically typhus-smothered lice-Coachella.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
During and after the Industrial Revolution,
most of England's drinking water came
from rivers, which were often contaminated
with sewage and garbage.
Of course, sewage and garbage river water,
or what we today call Bud Light Lime,
should only be consumed sparingly, if at all.
In 1854, Dr. John Snow, who it should be noted,
knows nothing, hunted down a pump in London
that was responsible for a particularly
brutal outbreak of cholera that struck down 500 people
in only 10 days.
By mapping out the deaths, he was able to find and isolate
the pump.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
English cities were built around their factories,
and their houses were stacked on each other,
making space at the time extremely limited.
Couple that with the lack of modern plumbing
we often take for granted, and English streets
were literally full of crap.
Without toilets, the city chose to inexplicably toss
the citizens' human excrement casually into the streets.
Alternatively, some buildings built underground cesspools
for poop and pee to hang out.
But inevitably, those would overflow,
and toxic waste would spill out onto the streets,
like Philadelphia fans after the Eagles won the Super Bowl.
It hadn't yet occurred to the occupants of England
during the Industrial Revolution that dung in the street
might be gross and full of bacteria.
But the science hadn't caught up to their reality yet.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Despite the notably deteriorating conditions,
the UK sort of dragged its heels to pass
any meaningful legislation to end the health crisis caused
by lack of sanitation.
But it wasn't for the lack of anybody
bringing it to their attention.
In 1842, reformer Edwin Chadwick, British sanitation
advocate, released a report succinctly entitled,
"Report on the Sanitary Conditions of Laboring
Population of Great Britain."
In it, he argued that the living conditions of Britain's poorest
working class were extremely subpar,
and tied the relationship between living in squalor
and spreading disease.
This pitch, however convincing, went nowhere until 1848
with the passing of the first British public health pact.
In Chadwick's 1842 proposal, he presented the idea
of not living in squalor as a way
to save the government some change by knocking poor people
off of government assistance.
Many families at the time relied on government funds
and services after losing family members
to a myriad of infectious diseases.
To all who are watching this, please don't get any ideas.
It would take yet another cholera outbreak in 1848
before the government implemented the act which
included a framework for towns to have
medical doctors, proper sewage, trash
disposal, and clean drinking water-- in other words,
fully functioning safe cities.
With neither the money nor the oversight
to administer these regulations, however, it
was mostly meaningless words on paper.
It was ultimately up to local jurisdictions
to impose the act in their cities.
But there was nothing to necessarily compel
them to do so, assuming that people getting cholera
all the time wasn't enough.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
If you remember our Black Plague videos,
it was widely accepted that disease was spread
through miasma, or bad smells.
Understandable for the Middle Ages, but a little less
acceptable for 19th-century England.
But that didn't stop them from subscribing
to the miasma theory.
Rather than go to the source of the foul odors,
doctors focused on the odors themselves.
Even our friend Chadwick, who wrote
some of the most important reports in legislation
about sanitation, was a big believer in "it's
the smells that are the real problem."
Under his watch, refuse was dumped into the Thames River
to curb the odors plaguing London.
It backfired in epic, unfortunate fashion.
After centuries of using the river as a waste dump,
one particularly hot summer created
what was known as the Great Stink of 1858,
or the 1800's version of Smashmouth's "All Star."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Not one to sit back and take it while another disease is
crowned King, smallpox also made a run
for the crown with a fun little comeback
during the Industrial Revolution.
Laborers in large cities were unaware
that a vaccine for the virus was successfully created in 1796
by Dr. Edward Jenner.
And the medical community just sort of let
them stay in the dark, doing little to advocate
for vaccinations to a vulnerable community.
With that in mind, the cramped life
of a middle-class worker of this era was catnip for smallpox.
And the disease spread like wildfire
in the packed industrial apartment
complexes, sort of like mono does today in college dorms.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Child workers, already a pretty upsetting phrase,
were exposed to hazardous materials
while at work as children.
Child labor was a common practice in England
during the Industrial Revolution.
Unfortunately, with kids working up to 10 to 14 hours a day,
it's safe to assume it involved more labor than sitting
at a desk watching YouTube while pretending to work.
And this doesn't count.
This is educational, people.
Working at this age led to an excess of health and physical
developmental issues.
And without hygienic or medical standards,
children's safety was regularly disregarded
by factory managers.
Accidents were commonplace, as would most likely
be the case with children working in unsafe working
conditions.
Some examples of jobs that poorly paid their children
employees were rat-catching, a dream job; working coal mines--
sounds easy and safe; and cleaning factory machines
in places hard to reach for a full-sized man,
sometimes with the machine still running.
It wasn't until 1901 that Britain
enabled a law that made it illegal for any child under 12
years old to work in a British factory, which still
feels depressingly too young.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Being a woman in history has always been a gas.
But during the Industrial Revolution
it was especially fun.
Prostitution was a fairly common way
for working class women to make that coin.
And business during this era was booming.
With the population climbing, the cost of living
rising, and not a lot of choices for a regular 9 to 5
stable job, becoming a lady of the night
was becoming increasingly popular.
Since these lovely hard-working women
had no access to health care or contraception,
syphilis saw an opportunity to live its best life
and thrive in the streets of England.
And England was very uncool about it all.
Sex workers were judged by high class members of society
who definitely would never pay for sex themselves, obviously.
The mere existence of sex workers
was thought of as a disease itself
that should be purged from society, as
if these hoity-toity Brits were contributing
anything more important.
The Contagious Diseases Act of 1864
allowed police officers to specifically target
women believed to be street workers,
and force them into medical tests that, if positive,
would force the woman into confinement for months
in order to heal.
Men were not required to undergo such tests,
despite also being sex workers themselves.
Fortunately, thanks in large part to a grassroots campaign
by Josephine Butler, founder of the Ladies National
Association, the public was wise enough
to see through this malarkey, and the act was overturned.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
During the Industrial Revolution,
arsenic was having a real moment.
This red-hot ingredient was the Sriracha
of its time, found in everything from food and drink
to wallpaper and clothing.
It was even used as medicine, presumably when
the cure for the illness was a slow and painful death.
Why was this horribly toxic substance
widely used for everyday general use, like baking powder?
Well, people of the time just didn't know any better.
They didn't have the advances in toxicology we now have,
and arsenic was surprisingly cheap,
making it a valuable ingredient in household products.
Arsenic is a common byproduct of burning mineral ores and coal,
so factory workers had the distinction
of being doubly exposed.
You working children-- so lucky.
Workers lacked proper protection,
worked in poorly ventilated conditions
in unregulated factories, so it was
impossible not to be directly exposed to arsenic.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
For a country that sounded desperately
in need of less people, 18th and 19th-century England
were not big fans of preventing pregnancies,
with most contraceptives unavailable to most
sexually active people.
Condoms did exist, but weren't easily
accessible as, say, a gas station or, in a pinch,
your neighbor.
Just like they teach you in Alabama's public schools,
abstinence was the best way to avoid unwanted babies.
Childbirth was a dicey medical procedure for women
at this time, too, with the maternal mortality
rates at an estimated 7.5 per 1,000 women, from 1750 to 1800.
With so many people and not a lot of space,
conditions were favorable for more slums
and poor sanitary living conditions,
leading to more disease.
And with condoms being impossible to get for some,
venereal diseases were having a real moment.
Take a moment to thank Durex and Purell.
So what do you think of the Industrial Revolution, [COUGHS]
or [COUGHS].
Let us know in the comments below.
And while you're at it, check out
some of these other fine videos from our Weird History.
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