The Industrial Revolution brought major changes to most societies. These changes began in Great Britain and the United States before spreading to other parts of the world. For that reason, this article focuses just on those two countries. Later, we will take a more global view.

In particular, this article focuses on the rise of reformers as a response to industrialization. Consider the situation in the early 1900s. Wealthy factory owners and the emerging middle class often lived in nice houses. They were able to buy the new goods being pumped out by factories. However, most of the workers who made those goods earned barely enough to survive and lived in crowded and unsafe housing.¹

Some people were very concerned about the problems and injustices industrialization created. In the United States and Great Britain, citizens pressured their governments to reform (improve) society. They wanted the government to help the poor, fix unsafe and unhygienic work and housing conditions, and end child labor.

In the United States and Great Britain, reformers were inspired by a new form of Christianity, called evangelical Christianity. Evangelical Christianity inspired the idea that people could change their own lives, and 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, which inspired a wave of social activism. 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. However, 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. An important American group that mixed anti-slavery and women’s rights activism was the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, led by Mott and the women of a leading African American family— Charlotte, Harriet, Sarah, and Margaretta Forten.

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. Approximately 200 women and 40 men met and 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, and progress was equally slow in most other parts of the world.

Labor reforms

Poor working conditions and extremely low wages were two major social problems created by industrialization. They led to the formation of a new labor movement. This movement was dedicated to improving the situation of industrial workers.

Women were active 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. When she was a child, Newman started working at a New York City garment factory called the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. She later became a union organizer and actively campaigned for worker safety. In 1911 the Triangle Shirtwaist factory burst into flames. The fire was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city. It resulted in the deaths of 146 garment workers, many of whom were friends of Newman’s. The tragic fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards. To make sure these standards were met, the state of New York established the Factory Investigation Commission (FIC). Its job was to inspect shops and factories and ensure they were safe. Newman became one of the FIC’s first inspectors.

This period also saw the growth of unions that fought for better working conditions for factory workers. However, it was not only the workers themselves who were pushing for labor reforms. Crusading journalists pushed for reform as well. Some wrote articles exposing the problems that existed in American factories. In his book “The Jungle” (1906), author Upton Sinclair revealed the horrible conditions Chicago meatpackers faced. Workers toiled for long hours in cold, cramped, and dangerous conditions. They lost limbs, were sickened by dangerous chemicals, and came down with various diseases. Sinclair’s powerful book did not immediately lead to new labor laws, as he had hoped it would. However, public outcry did lead to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act in 1906.

Housing

Journalists also played an important role in exposing poor housing conditions. Many workers lived in so-called tenements. These were crowded and cheaply made buildings in which large families often shared tiny apartments. Tenements were very unhealthy because they were extremely crowded and typically had few toilets.

Journalist and photographer Jacob Riis wrote about the terrible conditions in New York City’s tenements. His book, “How the Other Half Lives” (1890), described how as many as 12 adults slept in a room that was only 13 feet across. The infant death rate in these tenements was as high as 1 in 10, Riis revealed. Tenements were very unsanitary (unhealthy). Most did not provide clean drinking water. Toilets were rare and there was no good way to dispose of waste. After Riis published his reports which included photographs of tenements and factories, the city conducted studies of tenements. In 1901, city officials passed the Tenement House Law, which 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 after a physician named Stephen Smith became concerned about the unclean living environments in New York City. He studied the overflowing toilets, streets littered with horse manure, and unhygienic slaughterhouses. His studies led to the creation of the Public Health Act. This new law made governments responsible for clean drinking water, regulation of public sewage, and prevention of disease.

Education

Reformers were also concerned that working children were not receiving a proper education. Many children worked in factories instead of attending school. Due to workers’ low wages, 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 pushed their governments for changes, and their efforts paid off. In 1832, the British Parliament set up a commission to investigate child labor in factories. As a result, the government passed the Factory Act of 1833. It set limits on how many hours per day children could work and limited the type of work they could do. In the 1880s the British government 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 restricting 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, and agitated for women’s rights. They improved public health and made cities cleaner through the introduction of sewer and clean water systems.

These reforms in the United States and Britain influenced reform movements in other parts of 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.