Perhaps one of the most recurring themes and topics that is ever present in our texts and in the Victorian era in general is the topic of labor. The Industrial Revolution was important but it had its darker sides and consequences. One of these darker sides were the conditions of the people and children forced to work. 

Ernest Jones was a strong leader, poet, and writer who was very concerned about the conditions of the working class. Jones illustrated these two depictions of ‘The English Town’ and ‘The Grecian City’ around 1843-1853. The contrast emphasizes the horrific conditions of the industrial cities in England during the Victorian Era. The differences in the English city and the Greek city underlines the consequences and conditions that industrialization and urbanization can create. The Greek city’s sky is light, there’s space and nature, and the water is light. On the other hand, the English city’s sky is dark with smog, the water is dark, there’s no nature or space, and it’s filled with warehouses and factories. He depicts the warehouses with names like ‘Bone Grinder & Co.’ and ‘Killmen Bros’ to accentuate the horrible things that happen to the workmen. 

We see the mistreatment of the working class in North and South with the strike that occurs. The workmen feel like they’ve been taken advantage of and the bosses don’t take them seriously. This mistreatment is also widely covered in The Condition of the Working class in England in 1844. Engels says, “After roaming the streets of the capital a day or two, making headway with difficulty through the human turmoil and the endless lines of vehicles, after visiting the slums of the metropolis, one realises for the first time that these Londoners have been forced to sacrifice the best qualities of their human nature, to bring to pass all the marvels of civilization which crowd their city” (Engels, COVE). With this industrialization, came human turmoil like what Engels said. The conditions of the industrialization were horrific, dirty, and entirely unsafe. The illustration made by Ernest Jones, spotlights the conditions caused by this Industrial Revolution and therefore reveals what England would have looked like during that time period.

Contributed by Lexie Persinger