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The period from the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century was characterized by significant political, economic, and social changes in Great Britain. The progress of the textile industry provoked new opportunities for the population to improve their lives and define new manufacturing standards. In England, many cities underwent considerable shifts, leading to a new distribution of wealth and labor, international relationships, and hierarchies. According to many historians and researchers, the industrial revolution opened the door to the Victorian Age, also known as the Golden Age, and the British were able to discover a new level of life and workforce quality (Albay 181; Mokyr 232).
Among many writers, the works by Friederich Engels deserve much attention because he used not only well-known facts but personal observations and interpretations. Instead of the glory and success of industrialization, Engels focused on its dark side and the price the population had to pay. “Industrial Manchester” is an excerpt from Engels’s book The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 that describes the working people’s neighborhoods and the effects of industrialization that most people preferred to neglect.
The essence of the Industrial Revolution was to change the current state of affairs and use available resources for personal and national improvements. Many British cities were at the heart of industrialization because farmers were eager to leave rural areas and find new opportunities in richer and bigger regions (Albay 182). Manchester was one of the places where revolutionary ideas were well developed and integrated into each sphere of human life (Gallardo-Albarrán and de Jong). Engels made a decision to visit it in 1842 for professional purposes. This German philosopher spent about two years in that city to gather public opinions, investigate the quarters, and create a book The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844.
The chosen reading contains its excerpt with special attention to Manchester, its geographical location, and the details that fulfilled industrial life. Its idea is to describe the current chaos and try to find some explanations of why such a cherished revolution brought “a filth and disgusting grime” to Manchester’s streets (Engels). It seems that instead of expected fascination and admiration, Engels faced frustration about serious environmental damage, bad living conditions, and poor health.
The purpose of this excerpt is to introduce Industrial Manchester in the way most citizens see it regularly. Although it is possible to enjoy its ability to support many rural immigrants, Engels did not want to identify only positive emotions and concentrated on industrial dust and emotional damage. The author was not afraid to identify a threat of “defiance of all considerations of cleanliness, ventilation, and health” (Engels).
As well as Karl Marx, Engels was cautious about the current elements of the industrial mutation that could bring enforced destruction and social control by labor (Das). He wrote the book at the end of the 1880, almost 40 years after he visited the country. However, most of his observations and impressions were alive on those pages. He used description as the method of gathering and sharing information. However, he did not limit his writing to subjective or objective descriptions and added strong figurative elements. There were “equally ill-built, ill-kept labyrinth of dwellings” and “slime pools” in the neighborhood, but people preferred not to notice them (Engels). Such approaches provoke the most unexpected feelings in the reader, questioning the worth of industrialization.
The success of the book and the particular excerpt is closely related to the background of the author and his involvement in interpreting and examining the historical changes in the world. Friederich Engels was a well-known German philosopher and political theorist who described societal transformations during the first serious industrial revolution (Das). Some historians admitted that the Industrial Revolution depended on materials and resources people had to use to achieve their progressive purposes (Mokyr 232).
Engels did not follow the same way but focused on the conditions under which people had to live, including long working hours, child labor, and bad health characteristics (Gallardo-Albarrán and de Jong). Although Engels’s audience included all people interested in scientific socialism, his main reader was Karl Marx, who positively accepted the book and supported their collaboration in the future. Engels described housing changes, deteriorated environments, and health threats relying on his observations and evaluations (Albay 182). His goal was not to underline his fascination with industrialization but to show that much work had to be done to achieve successful revolutionary outcomes.
A careful reading of the offered primary source allows for evaluating its significance and comparing the historical reality of the current events. There were no specific characters in this work, except Manchester, with its “row of old-fashioned houses” and “old barrack-like factory buildings” (Engels). His story was not about the elite who enjoyed industrial progress but about common working people who faced the most challenging industrial consequences. Engels offered evidence like “pavement lay underneath could not be seen but only felt, here and there, with the feet” or “the irregular cramming together of dwellings in ways which defy all rational plan.” His description was not a result of his imagination but a reaction to what a foreigner could find on the streets of industrialized England.
The Industrial Revolution was not a single-day event that had a particular goal and a specific outcome. It was a long-lasting process that consisted of multiple steps, evaluations, and changes that people could not control all the time. Therefore, Engels’s observations contradicted the opinions of other historians who were impressed by the “spirit of democratization” in terms of “law, religion, freedom and equality” (Albay 181). Mokyr underlined appropriate income distributions that made it possible for the middle class to buy “high-quality goods” (237). Such contradicting arguments and descriptions might be challenging for a modern reader. Still, Engels’s methods and experience are associated with a high level of trust and understanding because he did not embellish the truth of the Industrial Revolution.
The works of Friederich Engels are usually characterized by poignant approaches and clarity of style and facts. Instead of hiding the truth about the most momentous events in Great Britain, the author was eager to describe the horror of the environment that was hard to ignore in Industrial Manchester. Despite a successful geographical location and the progress of the textile industry, the citizens of Manchester were not ready to enjoy their opportunities. They had to solve the burning problems of poor health, hygiene, cleanliness, and never-disappearing inequality. Engels’s “Industrial Manchester, 1844” contains a provocative description of the events that challenged the working class. His industrial epoch was not as bright as other historians expected it, and it was necessary to prepare the population for a new line of events to get rid of that hell on earth.
Works Cited
Albay, Neslihan Gunaydin. “Changes in the Quality of Life in the Victorian Empire.” American Journal of Educational Research, vol. 9, no. 4, 2021, pp. 180-187.
Das, Arnab. “Industrial Revolution 4.0: Ghosts of Disruption Past, Present and Future.” Invesco Investment, 2018. Web.
Engels, Friederich. “Industrial Manchester, 1844.” Modern History Sourcebook, edited by Paul Halsall, Internet History Sourcebooks Project, 1997. Fordham University. Web.
Gallardo-Albarrán, Daniel, and Herman de Jong. “Optimism or Pessimism? A Composite View on English Living Standards During the Industrial Revolution.” European Review of Economic History, vol. 25, no. 1, 2021. Oxford Academic. Web.
Mokyr, Joel. “‘The Holy Land of Industrialism’: Rethinking the Industrial Revolution.” Journal of the British Academy, vol. 9, 2021, pp. 223-247.
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