JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post (An addition to the post on George Orwell and his descriptions of the working poor miners of England.)
Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) traveled to England to work for the English subsidiary of his family's textile business, settling into Manchester (and Salford) in with a keen and ravenous eye. He didn't have the eloquence of a George Orwell, but he had more than enough to capture the essence of what he saw and to see deeply into what he suspected; and what he saw of course was not very pretty so far as the condition of the working poor was concerned.
So when he was in his early twenties, Engels researched and wrote about what he saw in the Industrial Revolution in the great smoking city of Manchester, grown from a city of 79,000 in 1811 to nearly 300,000 in forty years, seeing for himself the class struggles that he (and his new friend Karl Marx) would write about in Das Capital just four years later. What came of his work in Manchester was The Condition of the Working Class in England. Dedicated to the people of England, it would not be available in English for another 43 years (at which point the "in 1844" was added to the end of the book's title). [The images above and below of Manchester show the city ca. 1840, when the life expectancy was around 30.] He probably would have been very surprised to see that the revolution he wrote about didn't take place in England; and doubly so to see that the home of the revolution was Russia.
Working Conditions is seen as one of Engels' greatest achievements, both for his insight and reporting and of course for what the work would contribute to Capital. [The full text is found here.]
"But these are not all the evils which descend upon the head of the coal-miner. In the whole British Empire there is no occupation in which a man may meet his end in so many diverse ways as in this one. The coal-mine is the scene of a multitude of the most terrifying calamities, and these come directly from the selfishness of the bourgeoisie. The hydrocarbon gas which develops so freely in these mines, forms, when combined with atmospheric air, an explosive which takes fire upon coming into contact with a flame, and kills every one within its reach..."
"Let us turn now to the most important branch of British mining, the iron and coal-mines, which the Children's Employment Commission treats in common, and with all the detail which the importance of the subject demands. Nearly the whole of the first part of this report is devoted to the condition of the workers employed in these mines. After the detailed description which I have furnished of the state of the industrial workers, I shall, however, be able to be as brief in dealing with this subject as the scope of the present work requires.
"In the coal and iron mines which are worked in pretty much the same way, children of four, five, and seven years are employed. They are set to transporting the ore or coal loosened by the miner from its place to the horse-path or the main shaft, and to opening and shutting the doors (which separate the divisions of the mine and regulate its ventilation) for the passage of workers and material. For watching the doors the smallest children are usually employed, who thus pass twelve hours daily, in the dark, alone, sitting usually in damp passages without even having work enough to save them from the stupefying, brutalising tedium of doing nothing. The transport of coal and iron-stone, on the other hand, is very hard labour, the stuff being shoved in large tubs, without wheels, over the uneven floor of the mine; often over moist clay, or through water, and frequently up steep inclines and through paths so low-roofed that the workers are forced to creep on hands and knees. For this more wearing labour, therefore, older children and half-grown girls are employed. One man or two boys per tub are employed, according to circumstances; and, if two boys, one pushes and the other pulls. The loosening of the ore or coal, which is done by men or strong youths of sixteen years or more, is also very wea