Urban Versus Rural Poverty

Urban poverty is bad ... rural poverty is worse ... importing cheap wheat & wool destroys traditional agriculture in the 1880s ... those living in the country are FORCED to migrate to the city ... by 1901 men working on farms drops by 1/3

Farms in southern England ... they join work gangs led by a task-master
women give children opium so they will not make noise as they work in the fields




The working class was continually shut out of the political process ... education opportunity = slim

Those of children and children's children's of European immigrants look with suspicion on those that say ...

• do not get a college education when it is in your grasp
• do not vote
• voting is a choice of the "lesser of two evils"

... some may not know why they resist these notions so strongly ... but I would suggest a portion of it stems from this timeframe

there is NO DESIRE to make a return to a living standard worse than the serfs under folks that wear a cloak of Christianity

~ from the notes of Lady Victorian Historian

Victorian Women Worked Long and Hard

Employment

Many men & women saw their jobs taken over by the factory system ... so they moved out of the country to the cities to continue to work. There was a steady stream of migration from the country to the towns and cities.

1820-1870: northeast USA transitioned from agrarian to industrial culture ... this shift from mercantile centers to manufacturing centers prepared the way for urban life

Census Data

1790 = 5% of all Americans lived in urban center

1860 = 15% Americans in cities (35 urban areas had populations over 25,000)

Wealthy Women
...As one might expect did not work, except for mistresses of wealthy men. I dunno where the myth got started that women did not work for gainful employment ... Reality is we would have worked ... and worked LONG and HARD ...

Female Occupations
authors, journalists, inventors, teachers, domestic service, mill work, factories, foul smelling breweries, dressmaking / needlework / shirt-makers / underclothing trades (which took 2nd place to men in these trades); milliners, hatters, glovers, hosiers, straw bonnet makers, collar-makers, tailors, patten-makers and shoe-makers, boot-makers, lapidaries, embroiderers, lace-makers and lace-joiners, gaiter-makers, furriers, curriers, feather-workers, running pawn shops and other shops, etc.

Girl Apprentices
Girls were apprenticed out (if you ever have the opportunity to read the Agatha Christie's Miss Marple series, you will see the Victorian Miss Marple continuing to teach young girls how to work so they can provide for themselves in the world); girl apprentices could be in workshops or by individuals in modest homes or by the extremely wealthy.




Long Hours and Hard Labour

Working hours were long and pay was low for women like it was for men. In 1862 a female journalist warned ... ‘All who are wise will avoid this profession, because such numbers crowd into it, that the competition drives the payment down to a point below that at which life can be sustained.’ [See: Boucherett, J., (1862) On the Choice of a Business] During an 1834 tailors' strike ... women flooded in to meet the demand.

I'll come back later and address how preachers in the Chicago area demanded that employers give women a decent working wage so they would not have to resort to prostitution in order to provide for their families.

~ from the notes of Lady Victorian Historian

Population Statistics in England in the Victorian Era

Population Increase


When Queen Victoria
1st on throne: 2 million (England)

Victoria's death: 6.5 million (England)



Dramatic transition from land ownership to city living... There were some good things happening, but there was also a huge cost to human dignity.

In 1800, Some research indicates that approx. 1/3 of the working class brides were pregnant when they married. With this increase in population, many were finding it difficult to find ways to earn $$$.


Civic Involvement

England = Reform Bill of 1832 extended voting to middle classes; parliament representation more fair. It was a time of massive unemployment, desperate poverty, and rioting, and the legislation of England & USA reflect these trends.

~ from the notes of Lady Victorian Historian

Victorian Woes

From Lady Victorian Historian

Queen Victoria
Life Span: 1819-1901
Reigned: 1837-1901

Edward VII
Life Span: 1841-1910
Reigned: 1901-1910


Unemployment
The skilled and unskilled were all looking for work. Wages were so low they were barely above subsistence level.

Child Labor
Moms and dads were working hard to get food on the table, have clothes on their backs, and a roof over their heads. Children had to work. Hours were long, jobs were dangerous, and the environment was difficult at best ... and ALL for a VERY low wage.

Housing Shortages
Folks needed to live close to where they worked. Housing become scarce simply due to the number of people AND it was very expensive. Slum housing was prevalent. [Read: The Victorian Underworld by Kellow Chesney.] That's why folks of my grandparents' generation were confused as to why folks were complaining about government housing in the Detroit metro-area. To them this housing was FANTASTIC which only goes to illustrate how bad things had become.

Overcrowding & Poor Sanitary Conditions
Many families opted to live in the same apartment together in order to save $$$$ and to survive. Many families did not have separate living accommodations. On 24 September 1849, Morning Chronicle journalist Henry Mayhew described a London street had drains and sewers emptying into it. Stagnant pools were there which he decided as having ‘the colour of strong green tea’ and THIS was the only water they those living on that street had to drink. The big cities in the USA were no different. Mayhew reported, As we gazed in horror at it, we saw drains and sewers emptying their filthy contents into it; we saw a whole tier of doorless privies in the open road, common to men and women built over it; we heard bucket after bucket of filth splash into it.

Homeless Children
Orphanages were overcrowded. There were simply not enough places to keep homeless children. Subsequently, they lived on the streets surviving by any means they could.



... and these are just a FEW of the moral problems from the Victorian Era

How did some of the smug folks deal with it intellectually?

The problem of poverty was the fault of the poor because they spent money on gambling, drinking, and drugs ... that may have been true for a certain percentage of individuals ... but most definitely NOT for all ... otherwise the Horatio Alger rags-to-riches stories would not have been so popular ... folks needed to know they at least had a chance

God put those individuals in that place ... they had no right to get out of it ... they needed to accept those things ... they were in sin because they were not content



Check out the 1848 hymn by Cecil Frances Alexander ...

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high and lowly,
And order’d their estate

ALL of these things are indicative of immorality.

~ notes from Lady Victorian Historian