The Condition of the Working Class in England
The Condition of the Working Class in England is an 1845 book by the German philosopher Friedrich Engels, a study of the industrial working class in Victorian England. It was Engels' first book and had originally been written in German, but an English translation was published in 1887. It was written during Engels' 1842–1844 stay in Salford and Manchester, the city at the heart of the Industrial Revolution, and compiled from Engels' own observations and detailed contemporary reports.
After their second meeting in 1844, Karl Marx read and was profoundly impressed by the book.
Summary
In Condition, Engels argues that the Industrial Revolution made workers worse off. He shows, for example, that in large industrial cities such as Salford, Manchester and Liverpool, mortality from disease was four times that in the surrounding countryside, and mortality from convulsions was ten times as high. The overall death rate in Manchester and Liverpool was significantly higher than the national average. An example highlights the increase in the overall death rates in the industrial town of Carlisle. Before the introduction of mills, 4,408 out of 10,000 children died before age five, while after the introduction of mills, the figure rose to 4,738. Before the introduction of mills, 1,006 out of 10,000 adults died before reaching 39 years old; after their introduction, the death rate rose to 1,261 out of 10,000.Engels' interpretation was influential with British historians of the Industrial Revolution. He focused on both the workers' wages and their living conditions. He argued that the industrial workers had lower incomes than their pre-industrial peers and they lived in more unhealthy and unpleasant environments. This was a critique of industrialization that was echoed by many of the Marxist historians who studied the industrial revolution in the 20th century.
Originally addressed to a German audience, the book is considered by many to be a classic account of the universal condition of the industrial working class during its time. The eldest son of a successful German textile industrialist, Engels became involved in radical journalism in his youth. Sent to England, what he saw there made him even more radical.
In 1844, in Paris, Engels met and formed his lifelong intellectual partnership with Karl Marx. Engels showed Marx his book, convincing Marx that the working class could be the agent and instrument of the final revolution in history.
The German original
In the original German edition he said:English editions
The book was translated into English in 1885 by an American, Florence Kelley, under her then-married name Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky. Authorised by Engels and with a newly written preface by him, it was published in 1887 in New York and in London in 1891. These English editions had the qualification in 1844 added to the English title.Engels in his 1892 preface said:
The book has been continuously reissued, and remains in print in several different editions.