Hygiene During the Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period in history where factory work was beginning to claim dominance over the workforce, beginning in England and eventually spreading over the pond into America. But lacking in regulation, oversight, and in some cases, basic knowledge of disease and how it spread, the lower class citizens and factory workers of this time lived in literal squalor. Today, we're going to examine what hygiene was really like during the Industrial Revolution. German writer Georg Wirth lovingly described the air in Leeds as akin to swallowing a pound of cayenne pepper, which one should avoid unless it becomes a thing on the internet. Then do the cayenne pepper challenge immediately. Hashtag spicy spicy. Leeds had it better than Reith's hometown of Bradford, however, a major factory town during the Industrial Revolution, which he described as a literal hell, saying, if anyone wants to feel how a poor sinner is tormented in purgatory, let him travel to Bradford. That saying was somehow excluded off the Bradford tour guide brochure. Reith and his friends Karl Marx, yes, that Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels would hang out and talk about what a dump Bradford was. And they might have been onto something since the life expectancy at the time in Bradford was only 25 to 30 years old. There weren't exactly a ton of boomers to make fun of in those days. Today, Brits can take comfort in having a long life expectancy. UK men fall at a solid 79 years, while women have a slightly longer expectancy at 83. Women, flawless victory. However, back in the Industrial Revolution before Purell and modern medicine, it was significantly lower for the lowly laborers. The middle class clocked out at an average age of 45. English factory workers were lucky to make it to 30 years old. Laborers were exposed to a wide assortment of toxins and disease at much higher rates than those not working in poorly regulated factory conditions. Factor in how easily disease was spread from person to person, plus neglected water sources and general overpopulation, the situation was ripe for widespread infections. And boy, was there. It's easy to take for granted how cholera-free most people lived their lives in the modern age, but during the Industrial Revolution, it was decisively less easy. Cholera was a real problem in 19th century England, with four separate cholera outbreaks that would take the lives of almost 15,000 people in London alone. The disease, which was rather fatal during this time, was easily spread due to poor water treatment management in the UK. There was nothing to guard against the sewage water and the drinking water, two streams that should very much never cross from very much crossing, hence the rapid rise of horrible diseases through contaminated water. They even gave this painful tummy disease a royal nickname, referring to it as King Cholera, which sounds like an 80s wrestler's name. Cholera wasn't infecting the streets of the UK alone, however. Typhus and typhoid were running these streets as well. Typhoid also spread through poorly treated water, hung out in the county's well water, and caused flu-like symptoms. Typhus was spread through lice, fun little bugs that loved a good group hang. And the crowded tenements and shared living spaces were basically typhus-smothered lice Coachella. During and after the Industrial Revolution, most of England's drinking water came from rivers, which were often contaminated with sewage and garbage. Of course, sewage and garbage river water, or what we today call Bud Light Lime, should only be consumed sparingly, if at all. In 1854, Dr. John Snow, who it should be noted, knows nothing, hunted down a pump in London that was responsible for a particularly brutal outbreak of cholera that struck down 500 people in only 10 days. By mapping out the deaths, he was able to find and isolate the pump. English cities were built around their factories, and their houses were stacked on each other, making space at the time extremely limited. Couple that with the lack of modern plumbing we often take for granted, and English streets were literally full of crap. Without toilets, the city chose to inexplicably toss the citizens' human excrement casually into the streets. Alternatively, some buildings built underground cesspools for poop and pee to hang out. But inevitably, those would overflow, and toxic waste would spill out onto the streets like Philadelphia fans after the Eagles won the Super Bowl. It hadn't yet occurred to the occupants of England during the Industrial Revolution that dung in the street might be gross and full of bacteria, but the science hadn't caught up to their reality yet. Despite the notably deteriorating conditions, the UK sort of dragged its heels to pass any meaningful legislation to end the health crisis caused by lack of sanitation, but it wasn't for the lack of anybody bringing it to their attention. In 1842, reformer Edwin Chadwick, British sanitation advocate, released a report succinctly entitled Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain. In it, he argued that the living conditions of Britain's poorest working class were extremely subpar and tied the relationship between living in squalor and spreading disease. This pitch, however convincing, went nowhere until 1848 with the passing of the first British Public Health Act. In Chadwick's 1842 proposal, he presented the idea of not living in squalor as a way to save the government some change by knocking poor people off of government assistance. Many families at the time relied on government funds and services after losing family members to a myriad of infectious diseases. To all who are watching this, please don't get any ideas. It would take yet another cholera outbreak in 1848 before the government implemented the act, which included a framework for towns to have medical doctors, proper sewage, trash disposal, and clean drinking water. In other words, fully functioning safe cities. With neither the money nor the oversight to administer these regulations, however, it was mostly meaningless words on paper. It was ultimately up to local jurisdictions to impose the act in their cities. But there was nothing to necessarily compel them to do so, assuming that people getting cholera all the time wasn't enough. If you remember our Black Plague videos, it was widely accepted that disease was spread through miasma, or bad smells. Understandable for the Middle Ages, but a little less acceptable for 19th century England. But that didn't stop them from subscribing to the miasma theory. Rather than go to the source of the foul odors, doctors focused on the odors themselves. Even our friend Chadwick, who wrote some of the most important reports and legislation about sanitation, was a big believer in, it's the smells that are the real problem. Under his watch, refuse was dumped into the Thames River to curb the odors plaguing London. It backfired in epic, unfortunate fashion. After centuries of using the river as a waste dump, one particularly hot summer created what was known as the Great Stink of 1858, or the 1800s version of Smash Mouth's All Star. Not one to sit back and take it while another disease is crowned king, smallpox also made a run for the crown, with a fun little comeback during the Industrial Revolution. Laborers in large cities were unaware that a vaccine for the virus was successfully created in 1796 by Dr. Edward Jenner, and the medical community just sort of let them stay in the dark, doing little to advocate for vaccinations to a vulnerable community. With that in mind, the cramped life of a middle class worker of this era was catnip for smallpox, and the disease spread like wildfire in the packed industrial apartment complexes, sort of like mono does today in college dorms. Child workers, already a pretty upsetting phrase, were exposed to hazardous materials while at work as children. Child labor was a common practice in England during the Industrial Revolution. Unfortunately, with kids working up to 10 to 14 hours a day, it's safe to assume it involved more labor than sitting at a desk watching YouTube while pretending to work. And this doesn't count. This is educational, people. Working at this age led to an excess of health and physical developmental issues. And without hygienic or medical standards, children's safety was regularly disregarded by factory managers. Accidents were commonplace, as would most likely be the case with children working in unsafe working conditions. Some examples of jobs that poorly paid their children employees were rat catching, a dream job, working coal mines, sounds easy and safe, and cleaning factory machines in places hard to reach for a full-sized man, sometimes with the machine still running. It wasn't until 1901 that Britain enabled a law that made it illegal for any child under 12 years old to work in a British factory, which still feels depressingly too young. Being a woman in history has always been a gas, but during the Industrial Revolution, it was especially fun. Prostitution was a fairly common way for working class women to make that coin, and business during this era was booming. With the population climbing, the cost of living rising, and not a lot of choices for a regular 9 to 5 stable job, becoming a lady of the night was becoming increasingly popular. Since these lovely, hardworking women had no access to health care or contraception, syphilis saw an opportunity to live its best life and thrive in the streets of England. And England was very uncool about it all. Sex workers were judged by high class members of society, who definitely would never pay for sex themselves, obviously. The mere existence of sex workers was thought of as a disease itself that should be purged from society, as if these hoity-toity Brits were contributing anything more important. The Contagious Diseases Act of 1864 allowed police officers to specifically target women believed to be street workers and force them into medical tests that, if positive, would force the woman into confinement for months in order to heal. Men were not required to undergo such tests, despite also being sex workers themselves. Fortunately, thanks in large part to a grassroots campaign by Josephine Butler, founder of the Ladies National Association, the public was wise enough to see through this malarkey, and the act was overturned. During the Industrial Revolution, arsenic was having a real moment. This red hot ingredient was the sriracha of its time, found in everything from food and drink to wallpaper and clothing. It was even used as medicine, presumably when the cure for the illness was a slow and painful death. Why was this horribly toxic substance widely used for everyday general use, like baking powder? Well, people of the time just didn't know any better. They didn't have the advances in toxicology we now have, and arsenic was surprisingly cheap, making it a valuable ingredient in household products. Arsenic is a common byproduct of burning mineral ores and coal, so factory workers had the distinction of being doubly exposed. You working children, so lucky. Workers lacked proper protection, worked in poorly ventilated conditions in unregulated factories. So it was impossible not to be directly exposed to arsenic. For a country that sounded desperately in need of less people, 18th and 19th century England were not big fans of preventing pregnancies, with most contraceptives unavailable to most sexually active people. Condoms did exist, but weren't easily accessible as, say, a gas station or, in a pinch, your neighbor. Just like they teach you in Alabama's public schools, abstinence was the best way to avoid unwanted babies. Childbirth was a dicey medical procedure for women at this time, too, with the maternal mortality rates at an estimated 7.5 per 1,000 women from 1750 to 1800. With so many people and not a lot of space, conditions were favorable for more slums and poor sanitary living conditions, leading to more disease. And with condoms being impossible to get for some, venereal diseases were having a real moment. Take a moment to thank Durex and Purell.