RESPONSE PAPER

Response Paper

Response Paper

The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 is one of the best-known works of Friedrich Engels. Originally in writing in German as Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England, it is a study of the working class in Victorian England. It was furthermore Engels' first publication, in writing throughout his stay in Manchester from 1842 to 1844. Manchester was then at the very heart of the Industrial Revolution, and Engels amassed his study from his own facts and comprehensive up to designated day reports. Engels contends that the Industrial Revolution made workers poorer off. He displays, for demonstration, that in large developed towns death from infection, as well as death-rates for workers were higher than in the countryside. In towns like Manchester and Liverpool death from smallpox, measles, scarlet high warmth and whooping hack was four times as high as in the surrounding rural areas, and death from convulsions was 10 times as high as in the countryside. An intriguing demonstration displays the boost in the general death-rates in the developed village of Carlisle. Prior to the introduction of mills (1779-1787), 4,408 out of 10,000 young children passed away before coming to the age of five. After the introduction of mills the number increased to 4,738. Prior to the introduction of mills, 1,006 out of 10,000 mature individuals past away before coming to 39 years old. After the introduction of mills the death rate increased to 1,261 out of 10,000. (Engels & McLellan 1999) It is advised by numerous to be a classic account of the condition of the developed working class.

It was initially addressed to a German audience. The eldest child of a thriving German textile industrialist, Engels became engaged in fundamental journalism as a teenager. Sent to England, what he glimpsed made ...