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All British Literature Videos 53 videos

1984
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Description:

The London slums were not where you wanted to live during the Victorian era. Trust us, there were no fancy hats for you.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

London's famous for a lot of stuff- Big Ben, the Tower Bridge, and about 365

00:09

days of rain every year. but in the 19th century it was famous for something even [man grimaces under an umbrella]

00:14

more unpleasant than rain. slums .yep the history of the slum starts way back in

00:19

18th century .as the Industrial Revolution got into full swing factories

00:24

started springing up in cities including London. and since the new jobs were in

00:28

the factories the factories were in the cities, [city shown]

00:30

people started flooding into the cities. alright so far so good .well

00:35

unfortunately despite this booming jobs there wasn't nearly enough housing to

00:39

accommodate this massive influx of people. which led to overcrowding to the

00:44

point that multiple families were living in the same room. it's one thing to say

00:48

how do you doodle to your neighbors every now and then but to see them every [faces crowd doorway]

00:53

waking second, that's a bit much. and it's not as if people were crowded

00:57

into nice places either. because housing was so scarce rent was way way

01:02

overpriced. and because housing was in such high demand landlords didn't put

01:07

much effort into keeping the places in good condition. which resulted in [man smirks in run down apartment]

01:11

apartments that were chock full of dirt and disease. yummy.

01:15

there were some other factors that conspired to make things even worse.

01:18

everyone with money moved out of the crowded cities and into the suburbs

01:22

though when city planners suggested tearing down entire neighbourhoods to [suburban house shown]

01:27

make room for stuff like railways, it wasn't as if the poor factory workers

01:31

could do anything about it ,because well who cares about people's lives when you

01:34

can have fast shiny trains, right? with even less housing all of the existing

01:39

problems were compounded. to make matters worse for slum dwellers the Victorians [crowded, poorly built houses shown]

01:44

with power or influence weren't exactly sympathetic to their plight .Victorians

01:48

tended to think the slums were inhabited by uncivilized folks. people like thieves

01:53

or prostitutes but were such moral failures that they deserve to live in

01:58

overcrowded hovels like a bunch of working-class sardines, which is where

02:03

writers like George haw came in. he didn't just describe the awful [faces frown in a sardine can]

02:06

conditions that existed in the London slums, he also emphasized that the vast

02:11

majority of the people living in them were poor workers. pas explained that

02:15

overpricing and corruption made these folks unable to improve their situations

02:20

and live decent lives. in other words things were a bit more complicated than [group of workers pictured]

02:25

the dominant theory, the poor are bad and deserved to be poor. with the problems of

02:30

the day acknowledged and better understood, it was easier for social

02:33

reformers to push for solutions, eventually leading to a brighter future

02:37

in London. a brighter future that continued to have the you know a lot of

02:40

rain. [woman shelters under umbrella]

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