Discussion 8

While Europe's "great men" plotted grand schemes to

pursue their

political and intellectual ambitions during the crisis

of the Old Regime,

French Revolution, and Napoleonic wars, obscure

British inventors designed

machines whose impact would dwarf their efforts.

They industrialized textile

making by using machines and new power sources to

accomplish a task formerly

done by human and animal power. They began what

has been called by some the

Industrial Revolution.

The huge increase in productivity made possible by

using machines can be

shown in the amount of raw cotton Britain imported

in 1760 and 1850. In 1760

the British imported a bit over 1000 tons; in 1850 the

number had risen to

over 222,000 tons. The story behind the growth of

the textile industry is one

of a continual "catch-up" game between the spinners

and weavers to respond to

a growing market. After the 1707 Act of Union with

Scotland, Britain possessed

an expanding population with a larger per capita

income than that of any other

European state. The population growth stemmed

from a gradual decline in death

rates and an increase in the birth rate. ^14 It

provided more customers and

workers.

[Footnote 14: J. D. Chambers, "Enclosures and the

Labour Supply in the

Industrial Revolution," Economic History Review, 2nd

series, V, 1953, pp.

318-343, as cited in David Landes, The Unbound

Prometheus: Technological

Change and Industrial Development in Western

Europe from 1750 to the Present

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p.

115.]

The Revolution In Making Cloth

Practical people seeing the need for greater output

solved the practical

problems of production. In the many steps from the

raw cotton to the finished

cloth, there were bottlenecksprimarily in making

yarn and weaving the strands

together. In 1733, John Kay (1704-1764), a spinner

and mechanic, patented the

first of the great machines - the flying shuttle. This

device made it possible

for one person to weave wide bolts of cloth by using

a spring mechanism that

sent the shuttle across the loom. This invention

upset the balance between the

weavers of cloth and the spinners of yarn: ten

spinners were required to

produce enough yarn needed by one weaver. James

Hargreaves (d. 1778), a weaver

and carpenter, eliminated that problem in 1764 with

his spinning jenny, a

mechanical spinning wheel that allowed the spinners

to keep up with the

weavers.

Five years later, a barber named Richard Arkwright

(1732-1792) built the

water frame that made it possible to spin many

threads into yarn at the same

time. Ten years after that Samuel Crompton (1753-

1827), a spinner, combined

the spinning jenny and water frame into the water

mule, which, with some

variations, is used today. By this time the makers of

yarn were outpacing the

weavers, but in 1785 Edmund Cartwright (1743-1823)

invented the power loom

that mechanized the weaving process. In two

generations what had once been a

home-based craft became an industry.

The appetite of the new machines outran the supply

of cotton. Since most

of the material came from the United States, the

demand exceeded the

capability of the slave-based southern economy to fill

the supply. The best

worker could not prepare more than five or six

pounds of cotton a day because

of the problems of the seeds. American inventor Eli

Whitney (1765-1825), among

others, devised the cotton gin, a machine that

enabled a worker to clean more

than fifty times as much cotton a day. This device

coincidentally played a

major role in the perpetuation of slavery in the

United States.

Finally, the textile industry became so large that it

outgrew the

possibilities of its power source: water power. Steam

came to drive the

machines of industrializing Britain. In the first part of

the eighteenth

century a mechanic, Thomas Newcomen (1663-1729),

made an "atmospheric engine"

in which a piston was raised by injected steam. As

the steam condensed, the

piston returned to its original position. Newcomen's

unwieldy and inefficient

device was put to use pumping water out of mines.

James Watt (1736-1819), a

builder of scientific instruments at the University of

Glasgow, perfected

Newcomen's invention. Watt's steam engine also was

first used to pump water

out of mines. It saved the large amounts of energy

lost by the Newcomen engine

and led to an increase in coal productivity. After 1785

it was also used to

make cloth and drive ships and locomotives. The

application of steam to

weaving made it possible to expand the use of cloth-

making machines to new

areas, and after 1815 hand looms began to disappear

from commercial textile

making, replaced by the undoubted superiority of the

cloth-making machines.

These inventors made their contributions in response

to the need to solve

a particular problem. Their machines and the new

power sources expanded

productivity and transformed society in ways never

before dreamed of. The

transition from a rural agrarian to an urban lifestyle

merits applying the

term revolutionary to the process of industrialization.

The steps in

increasing textile production were repeated and

continue to be repeated in

other goods as well. The liberation from the

productive limitation of human

and animal power to satisfy essentially unlimited

demand is the great gift of

industrialization.

Britain's Dominance

Industrialization began in Britain in the eighteenth

century for a number

of reasons. Neither the richest nor the most populous

country in western

Europe, it did, nevertheless, possess at virtually all

levels of society a

hard-working, inventive, risk-taking private sector

that received strong

support from the government. Industrialization could

not begin and grow

without individual business owners who took a

chance on something new. The

British kept this close tie between private initiative

and creative

governmental support throughout the eighteenth

and nineteenth centuries.

Thanks to early governmental support of road

improvements and canal

construction, Britain had a better transportation

network than any other

country in Europe. The British also had mastery of

the seas, excellent ports,

and a large merchant fleet. They enjoyed the

advantage of living safely on

their island, away from the carnage of war, even

during the Napoleonic wars.

The chance to industrialize in stable conditions gave

them the opportunity to

profit from war contracts between 1792 and 1815.

They developed their

industrial capacity without fear of battle damage or

loss of life.

Probably the most important factor was the relative

flexibility of the

British social and political systems. Members of the

elite, unlike their

colleagues on the continent, pursued their wealth in

the new industrial

framework with great energy. They worked closely

with the middle classes and

workers, even to the point during the nineteenth

century of sponsoring gradual

reform efforts to stifle any chance of revolution from

below.

The combination of inventiveness, growing markets,

governmental support,

and social flexibility made Britain the world's

dominant economic power until

the end of the nineteenth century. Napoleon's

interference had hurt economic

growth, but had also spurred the British to look for

new manufacturing methods

and markets. Once the wars were over, Britain

flooded the continent and the

Americas with high-quality, inexpensive goods. No

nation could compete against

British efficiency. When Britain began industrializing

before 1789, there were

isolated areas on the continent such as the French Le

Creusot works that could

have served as the base for a similar growth. Twenty-

six years of revolution

and mercantile policies made that competition

impossible. ^15

[Footnote 15: E. J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution,

1789-1848 (New York: New

American Library, 1964), pp. 44-73.]

Cotton production continued to increase and was

supplemented by the

arrival of the modern Iron Age. In 1800 Russia and

Sweden had exported iron to

Britain. By 1815 Britain exported more than five

times as much iron as it

imported. By 1848 the British produced more iron

than the rest of the world

combined. As in textile production, in ironmaking a

number of inventions

appeared to respond to problems. Refining of the

brittle cast iron was

improved to make it more malleable and tougher. At

the same time more

efficient mining processes for both coal and iron ore

were used to ensure a

constant supply of raw materials.

To further dominate the metals market, in the 1850s

Henry Bessemer

(1813-1898) developed a process to make steel, a

harder and more malleable

metal, quickly and cheaply. So effective was the

process that between 1856 and

1870 the price of British steel fell to one half the

amount formerly charged

for the best grade of iron. The drastic reduction in

price, a mark of

industrialization, had a positive impact on all areas of

the economy.

In the period after midcentury Britain produced more

than two-thirds of

the world's coal and more than half of the world's

iron and cloth. Industrial

development encouraged urbanization and by 1850

more than half of the

population lived in cities and worked in industries.

The British continued to

enjoy the highest per capita income in the world, and

the island nation stood

head and shoulders above the world in terms of

economic and material strength.

Industrialization: The Second Phase

The second phase of industrialization brought new

products and power

sources to the continent. Increased food production

and improved health

standards and diet led to a population explosion that

promised both economic

gains and bureaucratic burdens. The rapid and

massive growth of cities brought

with it the social problems of urbanization. Workers

united to fight for their

interests, while the middle classes extended their

wealth and influence. Both

groups changed the nature of social and political life.

Food And Population Increases

Liberated from many of the restraints of the past by

the French,

Napoleonic, and Industrial revolutions, most

Europeans made the transition

from a society based on agriculture to a modern

urban society. The spectacular

growth of the industrial sector makes it easy to

overlook the great strides in

food production during the nineteenth century.

Because of the improved global

transportation network and better farming methods,

the expanding number of

city dwellers had more and better food to eat in 1914

than they had had in

1815.

It is estimated that in 1815 around 60 percent of the

money and 85

percent of the Europeans were tied to farming. These

large quantities of

capital and labor were not effectively used, because

the advances made in

Holland and Britain in the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries had not spread

to the continent. However, progressive landowners

gradually introduced these

improved methods when they saw the money to be

made feeding the growing

population of the cities.

By the end of the nineteenth century farmers on the

continent were

plowing new lands and using higher yielding crop

varieties to survive in the

worldwide agricultural competition. Industrial

nations such as Britain, in

which only 10 percent of the population was engaged

in farming, imported more

than a fourth of their food. Farmers in the Americas,

Australia, and New

Zealand competed with each other in the cutthroat

export market. The peasants

of Ireland and southern and eastern Europe were

unable to produce efficiently

enough to prosper in this new setting. Russia, where

the peasantry comprised

70 percent of the population, had to export to bring

in foreign capital to

finance industrialization. When the country had to

compete with efficient

foreign farmers, the tsarist minister of finance

stated, "we may go hungry,

but we will export." ^16

[Footnote 16: I. Vyshnegradsky, quoted in William L.

Blackwell, The

Industrialization of Russia: An Historical Perspective

(New York: Thomas Y.

Crowell, 1970), p. 24.]

The expanded food supply supported the growth in

European population from

175 million to 435 million. ^17 This 130 percent

increase between 1800 and

1910 partially disproved the views the British

clergyman Thomas Robert Malthus

(1766-1834) set forth in his Essay on Population.

Malthus asserted that human

reproduction could easily outrun the earth's ability to

produce food. ^18 In

his own day he could point to the limited food supply

and rapidly increasing

population. From this evidence he concluded that the

inevitable fate of

humanity was misery and ruin, since the number of

people would rise

geometrically while food supply would grow only

arithmetically. The experience

of the next two centuries has at least temporarily

disproved Malthus' thesis.

[Footnote 17: Fernand Braudel, Capitalism and

Material Life: 1400-1800 (New

York: Harper & Row, 1975), p. 11; William Langer,

"Checks on Population

Growth: 1750-1850," Scientific American 226 (1972),

pp. 92-99.]

[Footnote 18: Thomas Malthus, "An Essay on

Population," in Introduction to

Contemporary Civilization in the West, vol. II (New

York: Columbia University

Press, 1955), p. 196.]

A gradual decline in mortality rates, slightly better

medical care, more

food, earlier marriages, and better sanitary

conditions contributed to the

population increase. The number of people grew so

rapidly in Europe that

although 40 million Europeans emigrated throughout

the world, the continent

still showed a population increase in one century that

was greater than that

of the previous two thousand years. Where the

economies were advanced, such as

in northern and western Europe, the population

growth could be absorbed. But

in the poorer countries of southern and eastern

Europe, the masses faced the

choices of overcrowding and starvation or

emigration.

The Ties That Bind: New Networks

To bring the increased food supply to the growing

population, to

distribute new resources to larger markets, and to

connect augmented capital

with essential information, Europeans built the most

complete and far-reaching

transportation and communication networks ever

known. Without rapid and

dependable transport and contact the Industrial

Revolution could not have

occurred, cities would not have grown, factories

could not have functioned,

and the new millions of Europeans would not have

been fed. The new networks

became the arteries and nervous system of Europe.

The Duke of Bridgewater made a major step forward

in water transportation

in 1759 when he built a seven and one-half mile long

canal from his mines to

Manchester. Water transport cut the price of his coal

in half and gave Britain

a vivid lesson in the benefits of canals. Nearly four

thousand miles of

improved rivers and canals were built, with strong

governmental support by the

1830s, making it possible to ship most of the

country's products by water.

Following the British example, canal building spread

through Europe and North

America and then to Egypt with the Suez Canal in

1869 and Latin America with

the Panama Canal in 1914. The first project cut the

sailing time between

London and Bombay India by nearly half, while the

second did away with the

need to sail around South America to reach the

Pacific Ocean.

Until 1815 most roads were muddy, rutted paths that

were impassable

during spring thaws and autumn rains. In that year a

Scotsman, John McAdam,

created the all-weather road by placing small stones

in compact layers

directly on the road bed. The pressure of the traffic

moving over the highway

packed the stones together to give a fairly smooth

surface. This practical

solution cut the stagecoach time for the 160 miles

from London to Sheffield

from four days in the 1750s to 28 hours.

Steam-powered vessels replaced the graceful though

less dependable

sailing ships in ocean commerce. Clipper ships are

among the most beautiful

objects ever built, but they could not move without

wind. Sturdy,

awkward-looking steamships carried larger cargo

with greater regularity and

revolutionized world trade. The price of American

wheat on the European market

dropped by three-fourths in the last part of the

century, thanks to a

considerable degree to the savings made possible by

the large, reliable steam

ships. Transatlantic passenger and mail services

were also improved by the use

of steam to power seagoing vessels.

The most important element in the European arterial

network was the

railroad. Between 1830 and 1860 rails linked every

major market in Europe, and

the United States. By 1903 the Russians had pushed

the Trans-Siberian railroad

to the Pacific Ocean. Railroads cheaply and efficiently

carried large amounts

of material and people long distances and knit

countries and continents closer

together. Within cities, urban rail lines and trolleys

were widespread by the

end of the century; these had an impressive effect on

housing and business

patterns by permitting a wider diffusion of workers.

London established

subways first in the 1860s, followed by Budapest in

1896 and Paris in 1900.

[See English Royal Train: This English Royal train was

built in the early

1840s for the special use of Queen Victoria in her

travels over the nation's

rapidly expanding railway system. courtesy

L'Illustration, December 9, 1843]

Connected with the growth of the transportation

networks and

technological innovation, major improvements came

in the area of

communications. Postal agreements among the

various countries made cheap and

dependable mail service possible. The modern

postage stamp and improved

transportation brought astronomical increases in the

amount of letters and

packages mailed after 1850. ^19 Starting in the

1840s the electric telegraph,

undersea cable, telephone, wireless telegraph, and

typewriter expanded

humanity's ability to exchange ideas and information.

No longer would distance

be a critical obstacle after the transportation and

communications

revolutions. The world became a smaller, if not more

unified, place.

[Footnote 19: Eugen Weber, A Modern History of

Europe (New York: W. W. Norton,

1971), p. 988.]

The Continent Industrializes

The continent faced many hurdles to economic

growth after 1815. Obstacles

to mobility, communication, and cooperation among

the classes prevented the

social structures there from adapting as easily to

change as had the British.

The farther south and east the social system, the

more repressive was the

structure. In many parts of the continent, the

restored nobilities reclaimed

their power, and they were neither intellectually nor

financially prepared to

support industrial development. Fragmented political

boundaries, geographical

obstacles, and toll-takers along primary river and

road systems hampered

growth, especially in central Europe. In eastern

Europe, the middle classes

were weaker and more isolated than in the west.

At the end of the Napoleonic wars, the initial stages

of

industrialization could be found in Belgium, France,

and Germany. In Sweden,

Russia, and Switzerland there were pockets of

potential mechanized production,

but the total of all of these activities was tiny

compared to Britain's

economy. In 1850 only Belgium could compete with

British products in its own

markets. There a combination of favorable

governmental policies, good

transportation, and stability brought some success.

Governments and businesses sent officials and

representatives to Britain

to try to discover the secrets of industrialization. The

British tried to

protect their advantage by banning the export of

machines and processes and

limiting foreign access to their factories. Industrial

espionage existed then

as now, and continental competitors did uncover

some secrets. Britain's

success could be studied, components of it stolen,

and its experts hired, but

no country on the continent could combine all the

factors that permitted

Britain to dominate.

After midcentury, a long period of peace, improved

transportation, and

strategic government assistance encouraged rapid

economic growth in France and

the German states. Population increased 25 percent

in France and nearly 40

percent in the Germanies, providing a larger market

and labor supply. Two

generations of borrowed British technology began to

be applied and improved

upon; but the two most important developments

came in banking and customs and

toll reforms.

After 1815, aggressive new banking houses appeared

across Europe,

strengthened by the profits they had made extending

loans to governments

during the Napoleonic wars. They saw the money to

be made investing in new

industries such as railroads and worked with both

governments and major

capitalists. Firms such as Hope and Baring in London,

the Rothschilds in

Frankfurt, Paris, Vienna, and London, and numerous

Swiss bankers were

representative of the private financiers who had well-

placed sources and

contacts throughout the state and business

communities. ^20

[Footnote 20: Sidney Pollard, European Economic

Integration: 1815-1970 (New

York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974), pp. 56-62.]

Banking changed radically during this period to

satisfy the growing

demands for money. Long-range capital needs were

met by the formation of

investment banks, while new institutions were

created to fill the need for

short-term credit. The ultimate source of financial

liquidity was the middle

classes - the thousand of little people who put their

money in banks to make

their own profits on interest earned. More money

could be gained from the many

small investors than from the few rich families who

used to dominate banking.

The Germans led the way in the other major

development, the Zollverein

(customs union), that began under Prussian

leadership in 1819. This

arrangement helped break down the trade barriers

erected by state boundaries

and in the next twenty-three years came to include

most of central and

northern Germany. Instead of the more than 300

divisions fragmenting the

Germans in 1800, there was a virtual free trade

market, something Britain had

enjoyed since the union of Scotland and England in

1707 - and which the

European Economic Community will create after

1992. The significance of the

Zollverein was that it allowed goods to circulate free

of tolls and tariffs,

thus reducing prices and stimulating trade.

In the second half of the century, industrialization

grew rapidly, aided

by the increased flow of credit and elimination of

many internal barriers.

Tariff walls throughout the area fell to a degree not

matched until after

World War II. Major firms such as the German Krupp

works and the French silk

industries controlled portions of the European

market and competed effectively

with Britain throughout the world.

Technological Growth And Advances

Another reason for the continent's economic

emergence was a wide range of

new technologies using new materials, processes,

and transportation. New

competitors began with state-of-the-art factories

that allowed them to

outproduce Britain, whose older factories were less

productive.

The basic change in the second phase of

industrialization was the use of

electricity in all aspects of life. Scientists had

discovered electricity's

basic principles a century earlier, but it was difficult

to generate and

transmit power across long distances. When the first

dependable dynamo, a

device that changed energy from mechanical into

electrical form, was perfected

in 1876, it became possible to generate electricity

almost anywhere. Inventors

such as the American Thomas A. Edison began to use

the new resource in

industry, transportation, entertainment, and the

home. Humanity had finally

found a source of power that could be easily

transported and used. The British

took the lead in bringing electricity to home use. The

Germans made the most

advanced application of electric technology to

industry.

[Hear P. T. Barnum]

Edison's early recording of PT Barnum

Another fundamental change came in the use of gas

and oil in the newly

devised internal combustion engine. Steam power's

use was limited by its

appetite for huge amounts of fuel and its sheer bulk.

Gottleib Daimler

perfected the internal combustion engine used in

most automobiles today. In

1892 Rudolf Diesel invented the engine that bears his

name. It burned fuel

instead of harnessing the explosions that drove the

Daimler engine.

These new developments led directly to the search

for and use of

petroleum and the beginning of the passenger car

industry. By 1914 the making

of cars was a key part of the Italian, Russian,

German, French, and American

economies. Automobile manufacturing called for a

number of "spinoff"

industries such as tires, ball bearings, windshields -

the list extends to

hundreds of items. Leaving aside the passenger car's

economic contribution,

the world's cities and people felt the complex impact

of this new form of

transportation, with consequences extending from

the range of an individual's

world to the increased noise level and pollution that

changed the character of

urban areas.

Other new machines changed life. Bicycles became

commonplace in the

1890s, as did sewing machines, cameras, and

typewriters, to name a few. Never

had people had the ability to transform ideas almost

instantly into products

accessible to the average person. This was another

dividend of

industrialization and a symbol of a rapidly changing

Europe.

The Human Costs Of Industrialization

Industrialization drove society from an agricultural to

an urban way of

life. The old system in which peasants worked the

fields during the summer and

did their cottage industry work in the winter to their

own standards and at

their own pace, slowly disappeared. In its place came

urban life tied to the

factory system. The factory was a place where people

did repetitive tasks

using machines over long hours to process large

amounts of raw materials. This

was an efficient way to make a lot of high-quality

goods at cheap cost. But

the factories were often dangerous places and the

lifestyle connected to them

had a terrible effect on the human condition.

In the factory system the workers worked and the

owners made profits. The

owners wanted to make the most they could from

their investment and to get the

most work they could from their employees. The

workers, in turn, felt that

they deserved more of the profits because their labor

made production

possible. This was a situation guaranteed to produce

conflict, especially

given the wretched conditions the workers faced in

the first stages of

industrialization.

The early factories were miserable places, featuring

bad lighting, lack

of ventilation, dangerous machines, and frequent

breakdowns. Safety standards

were practically nonexistent and workers in various

industries could expect to

contract serious diseases - workers with lead paint

suffered lung problems,

pewter workers fell ill to palsy, miners suffered black

lung disease, and

primitive machines claimed many fingers, hands, and

even lives. Not until late

in the century did health and disability insurance

come into effect. In some

factories workers who suffered accidents were

deemed to be at fault, and since

there was little job security, a worker could be fired

for virtually any

reason.

The demand for plentiful and cheap labor led to the

widespread employment

of women and children. Girls as young as six years

old were used to haul carts

of coal in Lancashire mines, and boys and girls of

four and five years of age

worked in textile mills - their nimble little fingers

could easily untangle

jammed machines. When they were not laboring, the

working families lived in

horrid conditions in such wretched industrial cities as

Lille, France, and

Manchester, England. There were no sanitary, water,

or medical services for

the workers and working families were crammed

twelve and fifteen to a room in

damp, dark cellars. Bad diet, alcoholism, cholera, and

typhus led to a

reduction of life span in the industrial cities.

Simultaneous with, and

perhaps part of, the industrialization process was the

vast increase in

illegitimate births. Up to midcentury, corresponding

to the time of maximum

upheaval, continent-wide figures indicate that at

least one-third of all

births were out of wedlock. ^21

[Footnote 21: Edward Shorter, "Illegitimacy, Sexual

Revolution, and Social

Change in Modern Europe," in Theodore K. Rabb and

Robert I. Rotber, eds., The

Family in History (New York: Harper & Row, 1973),

pp. 48-84.]

Later generations profited from the sacrifices made

by the first workers

in the industrialization, and factory owners came to

understand that they

could make more profit from an efficient factory

staffed by contented workers.

Urban Crises

Huge population increases and industrialization

prompted a massive growth

of European cities in the nineteenth century, as can

be seen in the following

table. ^22

CITY 1800 1910

London 831,000 4,521,000

Paris 547,000 2,888,000

Berlin 73,000 2,071,000

Vienna 247,000 2,030,000

St. Petersburg 220,000 1,907,000

[Footnote 22: Heinz Gollwitzer, Europe in the Age of

Imperialism: 1880-1914

(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1969), p. 20.]

In addition, new towns sprang up throughout the

continent and soon reached the

level of over 100,000 inhabitants. Even in agrarian

Russia, where 70 percent

of the population worked on the land, there were

seventeen cities of more than

100,000 by the end of the century.

Political leaders faced serious problems dealing with

mushrooming city

growth. The factory system initially forced families to

live and work in

squalor, danger, and disease, a condition to be found

today in countries

undergoing the first stages of industrialization. City

leaders had to maintain

a clean environment, provide social and sanitation

services, enforce the law,

furnish transportation, and - most serious of all -

build housing. They

uniformly failed to meet the radical challenges of

growth.

Until midcentury human waste disposal in some parts

of Paris was taken

care of by dumping excrement in the gutters or the

Seine or through

street-corner manure collections. Not until

Haussman's urban renewal in the

1850s and 1860s did the city get an adequate

garbage, water, and sewage

system. Police protection remained inadequate or

corrupt. Other cities shared

Paris' problems to a greater or lesser degree. The

new industrial towns were

in even worse condition than the older centers.

[See London Slum: This illustration, Over London - By

Rail, vividly depicts

the problems that accompanied urbanization -

cramped living spaces, crime, and

air and water pollution. courtesy From Gustav Dore

and Blanchard Jerrold,"

London: A Pilgrimage" Grant and Co. London, 1872.]

The terrible life in the industrial towns touched

observers like novelist

Charles Dickens, who in his book Hard Times

described a typical British

factory town:

It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have

been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but

as

matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and

black,

like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of

machinery

and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents

of

smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and

never got

uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that

ran

purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building

full of windows where there was a rattling and

trembling

all day long, and where the piston of the steam

engine

worked monotonously up and down, like the head of

an elephant

in a state of melancholy madness. It contained

several large

streets all very like one another, and many small

streets

still more like one another, inhabited by people

equally

like one another, who all went in and out at the same

hours,

with the same sound upon the same pavement, to do

the same

work, and to whom every day was the same as

yesterday and

tomorrow, and every year the counterpart of the last

and

the next. ^23

[Footnote 23: Charles Dickens, Hard Times (London:

Thomas Nelson and Sons,

n.d.), p. 26.]

By the end of the century, however, governments

began to deal effectively

with urban problems. By 1914, most major European

cities began to make clean

running water, central heat, adequate street lighting,

mass public education,

dependable sewage systems, and minimal medical

care available for their

people.