Why Were Towns and Cities so Unhealthy in the 19th Century?

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Michael Smith 9X1

Why Were Towns and Cities so Unhealthy in the 19th Century?

"A Perfect Wilderness of Foulness"

From the title of this essay, it is clear that during the 19th century towns and cities were very unhealthy places to be living in. Bad housing, stale and polluted water, poor irrigation, dirt and disease were just some of the factors that contributed to countless numbers of men, women and children dying, which in turn led to a dire epidemic of cholera.

During the 19th century the industrial revolution was in full bloom, and so hundreds of and hundreds of people moved into the towns and cities in order to find work. The huge rise in population caused an enormous need for affordable housing, there just was no where near enough space for all those people and so overcrowding in tiny spaces got out of control. This was where the problems began.

The houses were built incredibly close together, no room was spared, houses were built back to back, and much was the same for the space inside the houses. Many families would be sharing houses, rooms, and even beds. Disease was spread from person to person, family to family, and house to house extremely quickly. The houses were so cramped in fact that James Smith in 1845 doing a report on sanitary conditions in Leeds wrote this "by far the unhealthiest localities of Leeds are close squares of homes or yards as they are called." A yard is a space in between back to back housing, which is were the privies and in most cases a water pump. He then continued on to say, "The ashes, garbage and filth of all kinds are thrown from doors and windows of the houses upon the surface of the streets."
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It may be perceived that because the way in which the housing was built in the 19th century it would mean that all people would be able to afford to be housed, but unfortunately this was not the case. Many of the poorer families and workers at this time, in Leeds and many other towns and cities, were unable to earn enough to be able to afford to pay rent for a home. This left the only other alternative to living on the streets being crowding below ground in the cellars of the cramped, dirty and poorly ventilated ...

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