Industrialization in Manchester City, Essay Example

Manchester Lecture Assignment Questions

1. What were the factors that helped Manchester take off industrially?

British ideas of a spinning mill and power loom reach the Manchester

-War of 1812 causes Manchester to make their own goods

-Eli Whitney introduced the idea of interchangeable parts

2. What were conditions like in the city during the early industrial revolution?

Life was hard for poor rural workers who were part of the putting-out system, but at least they worked at their own pace. In the grim factories of industrial towns, workers faced a rigid schedule set by the factory whistle. There were no plans for both sanitary codes and building codes that could control the development and growth of the Manchester city. People lacked adequate housing, police protection and security, and education from people who moved to the city from the rural areas seeking for jobs. Most of the unpaved streets had no drainage and collected heaps of garbage. Workers and job seekers lived in dark, dirty shelters; almost the entire family lived in one bedroom.

3. What steps were taken to improve conditions?

Workers formed labor unions to increase their influence. Reformers, however, felt that governments needed to play an active role to improve conditions for the poor. Workers also demanded more rights and protection.

4. What is the connection between Communism and Manchester? What is the connection between social Darwinism and Manchester

The Darwinism and the Communist Manifesto influenced all subsequent communist literature and is regarded as a classic exposition of modern communist views, appeared in Manchester in 1848. It was written by Marx, partly on the basis of a draft prepared by Engels.

5. What happened to industry in Manchester in the twentieth century?

The industries collapsed due to the decline in farm products such as cotton. Even government intervention, in the form of the 1959 Cotton Industry Act, came too late, and its enforced modernization and rationalization was pointless, since by now synthetic fibers were already beginning to replace cotton in many woven goods. By the 1960s, Manchester’s, and Lancashire’s cotton industry was dead.

6. What was the aim of the social democratic state in providing public housing and other social programs in Manchester?

They wanted to improve the living standards of the residents in Manchester city. Most of them were job seekers and workers who were working in the industry.

7. What has been the strategy since the 1980s for reinvigorating Manchester?

Setting the stage- In industrialized countries in the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution opened a wide gap between the rich and the poor. Business leaders believed that governments should stay out of business and economic affairs. Reformers, however, felt that governments needed to play an active role to improve conditions for the poor. Workers also demanded more rights and protection. They formed labor unions to increase their influence.

Engel questions

1. What were the conditions Engels discovered in Manchester?

He combined both real experience of the city, with a strong social conscience. The result was his The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844.

2. How did the wealthy try to insulate themselves from the conditions of the industrial city?

The wealthy rent the courts and build pig-pens in them. In almost every court one or even several such pens may be found, into which the inhabitants of the court throw all refuse and offal, whence the swine grow fat; and the atmosphere, confined on all four sides, is utterly corrupted by putrefying animal and vegetable substances.

3. How could his observations lead to communist politics?

In a Manchester, England, textile firm between 1842 and 1844, Engels came into contact with Chartism, the movement for extension of suffrage to workers. He contributed to the Northern Star and other publications and made a study of political economy. His experience and studies convinced him that politics and history could be explained only in terms of the economic development of society; he believed that the social evils of the time were the inevitable result of the institution of private property and could be eliminated only through a class struggle culminating in a communist society

Questions for “Compost City” article:

4. How was Hulme redeveloped after World War 2?

Consumption of culture was the key for its redevelopment: the people who were early consumers of this underground culture were of two types: firstly, those in rapture, young people, for example students from colleges and universities or dropouts from them; and secondly, usually by general revulsion, the establishment.

5. What were the problems in the new public housing?

The key to the process is that redundant city housing decayed very quickly, business and people move out and property prices decrease. This spatial dynamic creates an environment I have coined ‘the collapsoscape’ (Keeffe and Jefferies forthcoming).

6. How did young people and cultural activity transform the area? How did they help create a post-industrial Manchester?

The young people and their cultures were summarily removed from Hulme and a second new tabula rasa created. It was left to Mills Beaumont Leavy Architects to create a new ‘European masterplan’ of roads and low-rise buildings, for the new home owners (Manchester City Council 1994).