9.3 Social Effects and Reform

Notes

Industrialization raised production and eventually living standards, but early factory life was harsh.

• Urbanization: people moved to industrial cities like Manchester, which grew rapidly. Cities were crowded, polluted and full of disease such as cholera.
• Factory workers, including many women and children, often worked 12 to 16 hours a day in dangerous conditions for low pay.
• A new middle class of factory owners, merchants and professionals grew in wealth and influence.
• Workers formed labor unions to bargain for better pay and conditions. Some workers, called Luddites, smashed machines they blamed for lost jobs.
• Britain's Factory Act of 1833 limited child labor in textile mills. Reformers also pushed for public schools and sanitation.
• Reform movements: Britain abolished the slave trade (1807) and slavery in its empire (1833). Women campaigned for suffrage (the right to vote); New Zealand granted it nationally in 1893.