The Industrial Revolution brought major changes to most of the world. These changes began in Great Britain and the United States. For that reason, this article focuses on just those two countries. Later, we will look at the world as a whole.

In particular, this article focuses on responses to the problems that industrialization created. Consider the situation in the early 1900s. Rich factory owners and the members of a growing middle class lived in nice houses. They filled their homes with the new goods being turned out by factories. But most of the workers who made those goods struggled to survive. Workers were paid very poorly. They lived in crowded and unsafe housing.¹

Some people in both the United States and Britain were very worried about these problems. They pushed their governments to reform (improve) society. These people were known as reformers. They wanted their governments to help struggling workers. They demanded that unsafe work and housing conditions be fixed. They called for an end to child labor. They wanted higher standards for cleanliness.

In the United States and Great Britain, reformers were inspired by a new form of Christianity. It was called evangelical Christianity. Evangelical Christianity encouraged the idea that people could change their own lives. This influenced many reformers to change society themselves. However, not everyone was inspired by evangelical Christianity. Some were inspired by the Enlightenment. Enlightenment focused on liberty, equal rights, and the separation of church and state.

Women’s rights

Women were very active in reform movements. Many were influenced by the renewed interest in Christianity. For example, many women participated in the movement to abolish slavery. That movement was based on new evangelical Christian ideas about the equality of all people before God. Yet, women were often not allowed to engage in public debates or speak at anti-slavery conventions. Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were denied the right to speak at the 1840 anti-slavery convention in London. So they decided to form a society to fight for the rights of women.

Many of the same biblical passages that women used to argue against slavery could also be used to support the equality of women. In 1848, the first American convention focused on women’s rights was held in Seneca Falls, New York. Here, women and men adopted the “Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments.” This declaration called for political and economic rights for women. However, it would take 70 more years for women to gain the right to vote in the United States. Progress toward women’s suffrage was equally slow in most other parts of the world.

Labor reforms

Poor working conditions and very low wages were two major problems created by industrialization. They led to a labor movement. This movement set out to improve the situation of industrial workers.

Many women took part in the labor movement. Women have a long history of participating in reform movements, including the movement to end slavery. These women were also inspired by evangelical beliefs. Pauline Newman is one well-known example. Newman worked at a New York City garment factory called the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. She began working there when she was a child. She later became a union organizer and fought for greater worker safety.

In 1911 the Triangle Shirtwaist factory burst into flames. The fire was the deadliest industrial accident in the city’s history. It resulted in the deaths of 146 workers. Many were friends of Newman’s. This terrible fire led to new laws requiring improved factory safety. To make sure these laws were followed, the state of New York created the Factory Investigation Commission (FIC). Its job was to inspect shops and factories. Newman became one of the FIC’s first inspectors.

During this period, workers’ unions grew larger and stronger. They fought for better working conditions for factory workers.

But it was not only the workers themselves that were pushing for labor reforms. Journalists and other writers pushed for reform as well. Some wrote about the problems that existed in American factories. Writer Upton Sinclair revealed the terrible conditions in Chicago meatpacking plants. His book about the plants, “The Jungle” (1906), was widely read. It described how workers were forced to spend long hours in cold, cramped, and dangerous conditions. Workers lost arms and legs. They were sickened by dangerous chemicals. They came down with various diseases. Sinclair’s shocking book did not lead to new labor laws, as he had hoped it would. However, it did help to bring about the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. Both became law in 1906.

Housing

Journalists also played an important role in exposing poor housing conditions. Many workers lived in tenement buildings. These were crowded and cheaply made buildings in which large families often shared tiny apartments. Tenements were very unhealthy. Most were dirty and had few toilets.

Journalist and photographer Jacob Riis wrote about the awful conditions in New York City’s tenements. His book, “How the Other Half Lives” (1890), shocked many readers. It described how as many as 12 adults slept in a room that was only 13 feet across. Tenements were not just crowded. They were also very unsanitary (unclean and unhealthy). Most did not provide clean drinking water. Toilets were rare and there was no good way to get rid of waste. These conditions were terrible for children. As many as 1 in 10 babies living in tenements died.

Riis’s work led the New York City government to do its own studies of tenements. In 1901, city officials passed the Tenement House Law. This set higher standards for safety and sanitation in the tenements.

Public health

Reformers also worried about public health. One of the first health reforms made was building sewers and clean water systems in Britain. In London, more than 10,000 people died each year of a disease called cholera. Cholera can be spread through unclean water. Joseph Bazalgette figured out how to build a sewer system to keep the water clean.

Public health reforms spread to the United States as well. A physician named Stephen Smith was worried about unclean living environments in New York City. He studied the overflowing toilets, streets with horse manure, and dirty slaughterhouses. His studies led to the Public Health Act. This new law made governments responsible for clean drinking water, care of public sewage, and prevention of disease.

Education

Reformers were also worried that working children were not receiving an education. Many children worked in factories instead of attending school. Because workers’ wages were so low, a single worker could not earn enough to pay for a family’s food and rent. Instead, the entire family had to work. This included small children. Reformers set out to make sure children would not be overworked and would be able to go to school.

The efforts of these reformers paid off. In 1833, the British government passed the Factory Act. It set limits on how many hours a day children could work. It also limited the type of work they could do. In the 1880s Britain made education mandatory (required) for all children ages 5 to 10. Around the same time, the United States established free elementary education in every state. However, the United States did not pass a national law limiting child labor until 1916.

Reformers won other important victories for workers, such as the eight-hour workday. They also pushed for change in other important areas. They fought to end slavery. They worked hard for women’s rights. They improved public health and made cities cleaner through the introduction of sewer and clean water systems.

The reform movements we have discussed began in the United States and Britain. However, they influenced reform movements around the world. They also laid the groundwork for later twentieth-century social justice movements, such as the civil rights and feminist movements.

1 Reform movements around the world did not always start for the same reasons. Also, in some countries, reform began later than in the United States and Britain. In part this was because these countries were slower to industrialize.