History

Myah Johnson

Yesterday, 23:05

All that part of the town was comparatively old; it was there that the first cotton mills were built, and the crowded alleys and back streets of the neighbourhood made a fire there particularly to be dreaded. The staircase of the mill ascended from the entrance at the western end, which faced into a wide, dingy-looking street, consisting principally of public-houses, pawnbrokers' shops, rag and bone warehouses, and dirty provision shops. The other, the east end of the factory, fronted into a very narrow back street, not twenty feet wide, and miserably lighted and paved. Background information: This excerpt is from Elizabeth Gaskell's novel Mary Barton, describing life in Manchester in the early 1800s. Which social class do you think lived in the conditions described in the passage?