Where did poor live in nineteenth century cities?

Answer 1

In New York poor people mostly lived in run down appartments that were way too crowded. A lot of times over 2,500 people lived in 1 block of these jam packed appartments. On the other hand, the rich mostly lived in big fancy mansions that could take a whole block.

A lot of people that lived in New York were origanaly from a different country.

The poor had to work a lot in order to pay rent, food, clothing and all other needs. The rich didn't have to work that much and mostly worked in fancy offices of millionaire buissnesses.

A lot of poor kids had to work instead of attending school. Children of rich parents had private tutors.

Factory conditions were horrible and people had long hours (I mean REALLY long - 14 hours long) and SUPER low pay checks (SUPER DUPER low pay - $0.20 a day [14 hours work]) vs. the rich who mostly had things like 6 hour days and ENORMUS pay checks

ADDITION: The person above has been misinformed. Workers were, on average around this time, payed $0.22 an hour, not a day. Although that seems like VERY VERY little, it was in fact, more then federal minimum wage today. When adjusted for inflation, $0.22 cents an hour comes out to about $5.62 an hour in 2008 dollars. For comparison, a loaf of bread costs (on average in the US) around $2.00 (guesstimate)in 2008. Where as in 1900 it would have cost $0.05. When adjusted for inflation, that comes out to about $1.28 in 2008 dollars. So although most of them were making only $5.62 (in 2008 dollars) an hour, some things were cheaper. That's not to say that most people weren't living in poverty. But to claim that 1900's America was a horrible deathly place where everyone was a begger is to go a little bit to far. Although most people were poor, a fair amount of them were doing much better then they had been in other countries. As a comparision, most of them were probably living like alot of the illegal immigrants are in the United States today. It sucks, but they live here because of what they had in their native countries was much much worse.

Don't let teachers misinform you, 1900s America wasn't THAT bad. As someone who has worked 14 hour days over and over while underage I can attest that there are far worse things. Most people were happy to be in this country in 1900. In a lot of ways, they had it better then us in 2009.

Answer 2

Conditions in early 19th century towns were dreadful. However there was one improvement. Gaslight was first used in 1807 in Pall Mall in London. Many towns introduced gas street light in the 1820s. However early 19th century towns were dirty, unsanitary and overcrowded. In the 18th century groups of men called Improvement Commissioners or Pavement Commissioners were formed. They had powers to pave, clean and sometimes to light streets (with oil lamps). However at that time England was divided into areas called parishes. Commissioners only had powers in certain parishes. As towns grew new houses were built in other parishes nearby. Unfortunately the commissioners had no authority in the new suburbs. In them streets were very often unpaved and they were not cleaned. Rubbish was not collected and it was allowed to accumulate in piles in the streets. Since most of it was organic when it turned black and sticky it was used as fertiliser. Furthermore in the early 19th century poor people often had cesspits, which were not emptied very often. Later in the century many people used earth closets. (A pail with a box containing granulated over it. When you pulled a lever clay covered the contents of the pail). In the early 19th century only wealthy people had flushing lavatories. However in the late 19th century they became common. In the early 19th century poor families often had to share toilets and on Sunday mornings queues formed. Given these horrid conditions it is not surprising that disease was common. Life expectancy in towns was low (significantly lower than in the countryside) and infant mortality was very high. British towns and cities suffered outbreaks of cholera in 1831-32 and in 1848-49. Fortunately the last outbreak at last spurred people into action. In the late 19th century most towns dug sewers and created piped water supplies, which made life much healthier.

Answer 3

In the 19th century, many of the poor lived in residential institutions called poorhouses. These were places that people could go to if they had no way to support themselves or their families. Sometimes people went their voluntarily while others were ordered there if they were caught begging on the streets.

Answer 4

They were all cramped together in small houses in small, dirty side roads. Each family lived in one room of the house and one family lived in the basement. There was one toilet shared between the whole street and the sewage systems were terrible, so the lower down in the house you were, the more likely you were to be flooded by sewage. Also, there was very little sanitation and very rarely was there anything in the town other than the factory or mine they worked in, one or two pubs and a church.

Answer 5

Your quality of life during the Victorian times depended on whether you were rich or poor.

1. Wealthy Victorians enjoyed a good and easy life
2. Poor Victorians had a rough and hard life, often ending up in the workhouse or early death.

Answer 6

It could keep factories out of their neighbourhoods.

Answer 7

Pretty sh*t tbh.