Over crowded areas began to become a problem because, people where looking for new jobs at the factories the cities started to build. The wages of a farm worker were very low and there were less jobs working on farms because of the invention and use of new machines such as threshers. Also thousands of new workers were needed to work machines in mills and foundries and the
factory owners built houses for them. London, like most cities, was not prepared for this great increase in people. People crowded into already crowded houses. Rooms were rented to whole families or perhaps several families. If there wasn’t any rooms to stay in people would find a tenement house.
Polluted areas where such a problem because Chimneys, bridges and factory smoke blocked out most of the light in the towns. A layer of dirty smoke often covered the streets like a blanket. This came from the factories that used steam to power their machines. The steam was made by burning coal to heat water. Burning coal produces a lot of dirty, black smoke.
Many factory workers were children. They worked long hours and were often treated badly by the overseers. Sometimes the children started work as young as four or five years old. A young child could not earn much, but even a few pence would be enough to buy food. The mill owners often took in orphans to their workhouses, they lived at the mill and were worked as hard as possible. They spent most of their working hours at the machines with little time for fresh air or exercise. Even part of Sunday was spent cleaning machines. There were some serious accidents, some children were scalped when their hair was caught in the machine, hands were crushed and some children were killed when they went to sleep and fell into the machine.
In conclusion the industrialization had many problems, such as; more crowded cities, more polluted areas, and child labor are increased at an alarming rate. Luckily it got better and wasn’t so filthy and chaotic. They enforced child labor laws as well.
