Industrial Revolution Tenements

Words: 335
Pages: 2

However with the rapid population growth in large major cities, the environments of these cities suffered tremendously. The most common living spaces were tenements. Tenements were very crowded and occupied by the lower poor class. A typical tenement building was from five to six stories high, with multiple apartments on each floor. They were very cramped and had little to no ventilation. There was absolutely no privacy and they normally did not have a running sewage system. Any one apartment, on average, housed ten to twelve people at a time.

Tenements were kept very unclean and messy. Mold and lack of sewage were two major reasons for diseases in tenements. Since the living quarters were so cramped, the diseases spread very quickly. Some of these diseases include tuberculosis, smallpox, typhoid, cholera, tuberculosis, and malaria. Due to these tough living conditions, the infant mortality rate skyrocketed. From 1890 to 1910, ten percent of infants died before
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Most men, women, and children worked in large factories. Many of these factories were dark and very dangerous. The machines were not safe at all and their smoke filled the air causing many workers lung disease. The lack of safety precautions also led to many machine related accidents.
Workers only received a break for lunch and a break for dinner. The average unskilled worker earned about ten cents an hour. This was very low and did not make up for the terrible working conditions. Women got paid one third to half of the salary of men. Children earned even less and were used for the grunt work. Many children suffered health issues and physical damage as a result of this. Child labor laws were eventually put into effect and stopped this. As a result of low wages, crime rates in cities nearly tripled. In hope of spreading awareness, Jacob Riis photograph the average lifestyle during the industrial