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Introduction
Environmental history is related to human activities and the built environments impact on the natural environment. The industrial revolution was a period of great change in the Victorian city of Manchester. The process revolutionized the economy and the lifestyle of the people. New technologies were invented to make work easier, and many people moved from the countryside to the fast-growing cities due to the new opportunities offered. Industrialization changed how most things were manufactured, resulting in gas emissions and other environmental hazards. The progression came with a significant downside to the environment. This paper discusses human attitudes and approaches to how people have shaped, managed, or protected that environment.
Engels Account of the Urban Environment of Manchester
Engels account of the urban environment of Manchester states aspects regarding the material conditions of Manchesters working class. Friedrich Engels was the eldest and rebellious son of a family of German industrialists. His father apprenticed him to a family mill in Salford near Manchester in an attempt to keep him away from his undesirable friends in Berlin and to quell the rebellion. In the new place, Engels gave up the champagne of the middle class and the dinner parties and spent most of his time talking to workers. On his quest, Engels discovered the industrialization project, which was extensive and where the life expectancy of the poor was as low as it had been during the black death of 1348-1350 (Engels, 1892). In the condition of the working class in England, Engels described the living conditions in the countrys industrial towns as the highest and most unconcealed pinnacle of social misery in the old days. In his book, he views capitalism as a form of justification for the rich people to exploit the uneducated and the poor.
History focuses on his recollections while residing in Manchester, which was at the center of the industrial revolution. Engels was shocked by the environmental degradation, child labor, low pay, unfavorable surroundings, high death rates, and oppressors political and social power. Engels showed that industrial employees made less money and lived in less comfortable settings than their counterparts from the pre-industrial era (Engels, 1892). Poor employees were subjected to hazardous working conditions, including claustrophobic workspaces with inadequate ventilation, machinery injuries, and exposure to dust, toxic substances, and solvents. Women, men, and children left their homes early in the morning to work for 16-hour periods at industries or textile factories (Tocqueville, 1835). Despite the working classs aspirations for a healthier lifestyle, families frequently faced hardship because wages frequently remained low or maybe even decreased. He concluded that the proletariat revolution was required due to the widespread hardship and class injustice he saw in England.
Smoke Pollution impact on Public Health
Victorian Manchesters urban environment in the nineteenth century was characterized by coal smoke, which impacted everyone living there, regardless of their income. Individuals breathed in the sulfurous, smoke-filled air as they worked and lived beneath descending coal-black skies. Major General Sir Charles Napier, designated commander of the ground forces of the Northern District in 1839, referred to Manchester as the chimney of the world and the entrance to hell (Britain, 1840). This was after he realized and witnessed the black sulfurous smoke billowing out of the new industries and domestic cauldrons in the 1840s (Mosley, 2004). A permanent feature of the urban landscape since the start of the nineteenth century has been the citys already smoke cloud.
Manchester had come to symbolize the fumes, dirty industrial city following a century of tremendous industrial and urban growth. In the 1880s, a useful, positive perception of Manchesters physically desecrated surroundings emerged based on cultural ideals and precepts that mirrored the citys residents conception of themselves as urban industrial workers (Britain, 1840). For many of the citys residents, the steam-powered factories had brought monetary possessions and environmental concerns. The continued rise in air pollution caused respiratory illnesses and a higher death rate.
People of Manchesters Response to the Citys Smoking Chimneys
Manchester City was a source of attraction for visitors from all parts of the world who wondered at the new cityscape of massive warehouses, textile factories, and a mass of smoking chimneys. In the 1780s, the rustic and predominant verdant city had just 14 industrial chimneys (Mosley, 2004). Then later, in the 1840s industrial revolution sprouted 500 more factory chimneys, and the number rose to twelve hundred by 1898 (Mosley, 2004). The mushrooming industries attracted people, and the population grew from 40,000 to 76,000 between 1780 and 1801 (Mosley, 2004). As a result, Manchester City, once a symbol of the new age, had changed and became the epitome of smoke- begrimed, polluted industrial city.
However, during the same, a positive utilitarian image of the citys blackened physical environment had evolved, drilled into the lives and cultural values of the citizens who defined themselves as the urban industrial workforce. They viewed steam-powered means as a source of material wealth and a link to happiness, wealth, and prosperity. As much as there were effects of smoke, such as lack of clean air, they viewed it positively, bringing a massive band of employment and plenty of comfort to the citizen (Mosley, 2004). The production of smoke warranted no apologies from most industrialists who said that the smoke chimneys were a barometer for social progress and economic success.
Smoke was portrayed as advantageous and harmless, a type of filth that posed little danger to life and wellness. By the beginning of the 20th century, humorous, adoring pictures of the citys smoke industry chimneys could be found on postcards inscribed with the phrase Beautiful Manchester (Mosley, 2004). The mental picture of an industrial smoking chimney surpassed a home fireplaces psychological comfort. Smoke generation was widely accepted and praised as an unmistakable indicator of Manchesters prosperity and entrepreneurship.
Other Environmental Issues in Manchester during this Period
Greater Manchesters waterways had a horrible track record of quality decrease dating back 200 years. The Croal, Irk, and Medlock rivers, as well as the Irwell and its tributaries, were the origins of the most challenging contamination incidents (Douglas et al., 2020). During the nineteenth century, rapid industrialization resulted in numerous factories, works, and refineries directly depositing different contaminants into streams, including ashes and cinders. In addition, furnace deposits, abandoned coal, and cinders from domestic fireplaces reduced the channels capacity by half in the upper reaches of the Irwell. As a result, the entire River Irwell, 46 yards broad, was coated in a thick layer of filthy foam and appeared to have a thick, sooty crust (Douglas et al., 2020). Finally, during the nineteenth century, a huge amount of solid waste, such as embers, carbonaceous material from residences and factories, and various uncontrolled discharges from diverse sources, was regularly added to the drainage system.
A substantial proportion of immigrant workers in Manchester had only temporary, low-paying occupations and lived in overcrowded, wet, dimly lit, and insufficiently ventilated dwellings with poor sanitation. Low-lying dwellings were particularly vulnerable to flooding from unclean rivers and were surrounded by industries, windmills, rail tracks, and flyovers (Douglas et al., 2020). Numerous reform-minded organizations, like the Manchester and Salford Noxious Vapours Abatement Association, issued warnings about the risks posed by chemical pollutants (Douglas et al., 2020). Manchester additionally had an unenviable reputation for being dirty and depressing.
Victorian Manchester Interaction with the Natural World
The urban growth of Manchester was about the occupation of land and the transformation of natural resources. Urbanization elevated the dependence on cultural and natural resources. Manchester and its surroundings joined urban expansion and technological innovation. It faced challenges related to urbanization, particularly unplanned consequences of material flow. However, it later makes progress in environmental and health improvements (Mosley, 2008). Local campaigns and Political actions enhanced the voice of reforms. The practices enhanced constant adjustments, re-appraisal, and response to changes in attitude and examining o used and new technological changes (Wordsworth, n.d). Chemical factories minimized relaxing waste into the rivers. The sanitary reforms promoted the provision of clean water and efficient disposal of household waste and sewage.
Drainage and reclamation of moss land around Manchester provided rich soils, and the organic waste helped improve the land. Manchester and Salford pioneered smoke control measures, and the 1930s saw a campaign for clean air and smokeless zones (Wordsworth, n.d.). One of the various attempts made by Victorian environmental reformers was to use cost-benefit analysis to encourage people to minimize air pollution in metropolitan areas. However, industrialists continually pitched smoke control as a lucrative commercial opportunity, with Manchesters anti-smoke activists asserting that improved and automated fuel technology.
Environmental History of Cities and Challenges Facing the World Today
Industries and factories release pollutants directly into streams and water sources. The water bodies were often used as a receptacle for domestic and industrial wastes. Water pollution results from the runoff of nitrogen phosphate from animal waste in agricultural fertilizers due to the increased food production caused by cultural eutrophication in rivers and lakes. This resulted in algae blooms that deplete oxygen from the water and kill aquatic animals and plants (Mosley, 2008). Sewage was additionally dumped in the sea, and agricultural irrigation led to the salinization of water sources depletion in urban areas.
Coal is the major energy source, resulting in a higher demand for wood to be used in industries; hence trees were cut down quickly without being replaced. The lack of trees damages the environment by disrupting the animal population and carbon cycle and degrading habitats. Trees play a major role in the carbon cycle through the environment as they absorb carbon dioxide and then release oxygen during photosynthesis (Mosley, 2008). The industrial revolution was powered by burning coal in big industrial cities and began pumping vast amounts of pollution into the atmosphere. Additionally, the continued rise in air pollution has caused respiratory illnesses and higher death rates.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the industrialization of Manchester was good but came with major challenges, especially to the environment. At the beginning of industrialization, the working classs living conditions were characterized by child labor, exposure to toxins, poor sanitation, and low wages. Smoke pollution was a major challenge that came with the formation of new industries, which affected the public health of the people. Manchester was filled with smoky clouds, but some saw it as a sign of wealth, entrepreneurship, and prosperity. Other environmental challenges included water and land pollution. Reforms were later made to counter the challenge of industrialization on the environment.
References
Britain, G. (1840). Report from the Select Committee of the Health of Towns, Parliament. House of Lords.
Douglas, I., Hodgson, R., & Lawson, N. (2002). Industry, environment and health through 200 years in Manchester. Ecological Economics, 41(2), 235-255.
Engels, F., (1892) Industrial Manchester, 1844 , in The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., pp. 45, 48-53.
Mosley, S. (2004). Public perceptions of smoke pollution in Victorian Manchester. In E. M. Dupuis (Eds.), Smoke and mirrors: The politics and culture of air pollution (pp. 51-76). New York University Press.
Mosley, S. (Executive Producer). (2008). Podcast 16: Urban air pollution in historical perspective [Audio podcast].
Tocqueville, A. D. (1835). Manchester, from Journeys to England and Ireland, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 104-110.
Wordsworth, W. (n.d.). Outrage done to nature, from the excursion (1814). Courtesy.
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