NCERT Solutions Class 10 Social Science Chapter 6 Work Life and Leisure

Write in brief

1. Give two reasons why the population of London expanded from the middle of the eighteenth century.

Answer:

(i) The early industrial cities of Britain such as Leeds and Manchester attracted large numbers of migrants to the textile mills. By 1750, one out of every nine people of England and Wales lived in London. Clerks and shopkeepers, small masters and skilled artisans, semi skilled and sweated outworkers, soldiers and servants, casual labourers, street sellers, and beggars had settled in the city; they worked in the London dockyards as well as in other major industries.

(ii)During the First World War, London began manufacturing motor cars and electrical goods, and many large factories were set up. These opportunities increased the population of the city.

2 . What were the changes in the kind of work available to women in London between the nineteenth and the twentieth century? Explain the factors which led to this change.

Answer:

(i)Factories employed large numbers of women in the early nineteenth centuries.

(ii)With technological developments, women gradually lost their jobs in the industries and factories; this situation forced them to work within households.

(iii)According to the 1861census record, a quarter of a million domestic servants in London were women, and many of them had recently migrated.

(iv)Most of them used their own homes to increase family income by taking in lodgers. They were also engaged in tailoring, washing and matchbox making for income.

(v)However, in the twentieth century, they got employment in wartime industries and offices and withdrew from domestic service.

3. How does the existence of a large urban population affect each of the following? Illustrate with historical examples.

a) A private landlord

b) A Police Superintendent in charge of law and order

c) A leader of a political party

Answer:

a) A private landlord would have exploited the large urban population and made easy money. For example in the colonial era, in Bombay, more than 70 per cent of the working people lived in the thickly populated chawls (multi-storeyed structures). Chawls were divided into smaller one-room tenements with no private toilets, and they posed a big hygienic challenge. These houses were largely owned by private landlords, such as merchants, bankers, and building contractors. They made quick money by exploiting the housing crisis the migrants faced.

b) A Police Superintendent in charge of law and order would have to face difficulty in identifying criminals and monitoring their activities in a systematic way. For example, in the 1870s, crime flourished in the city of London; there were nearly 20,000 criminals living in the city. Many of their criminal activities in this period were recorded, and crime became an issue of widespread concern. The police were worried about law and order. So the population of criminals was counted, and their activities monitored, and their ways of life were investigated by the police; it was a colossal task.

c) A leader of a political party living among the large urban population would have to pay attention to the survival crisis faced by the poor. Large masses of people could be drawn into political causes in the cities which are mostly centers of political power too. For example, in 1886, the London poor exploded in a riot due to the terrible conditions of poverty. In 1887, the poor workers' riot known as 'the Bloody Sunday of November 1887; was brutally suppressed by the police.

4. Give explanations for the following:

a) Why well-off Londoners supported the need to build housing for the poor in the nineteenth century?
b) Why a number of Bombay films were about the lives of migrants?
c) What led to the major expansion of Bombay's population in the mid-nineteenth century?

Answer:

a)

The well-off Londoners supported the need to build housing for the poor in the nineteenth century due to the following reasons:

• First, many of one-room houses occupied by the poor were overcrowded, badly ventilated, and lacked sanitation; they posed a serious threat to public health.

• Second, there were worries about fire hazards created by poor housing.

• Third, there was a widespread fear of social disorder, especially after the Russian Revolution in 1917. Workers' mass housing schemes were planned to prevent the London poor from turning rebellious and snatching the properties of the rich.

b)

Bombay appeared to migrants as a 'mayapuri'- a city of dreams. Many Bombay films deal with the arrival in the city of new migrants, and their encounters with the real pressures of daily life. Some popular songs in movies such as CID (1956) and Guest House (1959) speak of the contradictory aspects of the city. Most of the people in the film industry were themselves migrants who came from cities like Lahore, Calcutta and Madras, and contributed to the national character of the film industry.

c)

(i)Bombay became the capital of the Bombay Presidency in 1819. The trade in cotton and opium expanded, and large communities of traders and bankers, artisans and shopkeepers settled in the city.

(ii)The establishment of textile mills led to a fresh surge in migration. By 1921, there were 85 cotton mills with 146,000 workers.

(iv)The development of the railways brought with it a higher scale of migration into the city. For example, when the famine hit the dry regions of Kutch, lakhs of people came to Bombay in 1888-89.

Discuss

1. What forms of entertainment came up in nineteenth century England to provide leisure activities for the people.

Answer:

1. Many new types of entertainment for the common people came into being. Even the state funded some forms of entertainment.
2. Libraries, art galleries and museums were established in the nineteenth century to provide people with a sense of historical achievement of the British
3. Music halls were popular among the lower classes, and, by the early twentieth century, cinema became the great mass entertainment for mixed audiences.
4. British industrial workers were also encouraged to spend their holidays by the sea.

2. Explain the social changes in London which led to the need for the Underground railway. Why was the development of the Underground criticised?

Answer:

(i)Between the two World Wars (1919-39) the British state built a million single-family cottages in the suburbs.

(ii)Meanwhile, London city had extended beyond the range where people could walk to work, and the development of suburbs made new forms of mass transport necessary.

(iii) People could not be encouraged to leave the city and live in the suburbs because there were no means of travelling to the city for work. The London underground railway solved the housing crisis by carrying large masses of people to and from the city.

(iv) The Underground railway was criticized initially because it caused many health problems; the compartment was filled with passengers smoking pipes, and the air was polluted with sulphur, coal dust and fumes from the gas lamps, causing asphyxiation and heat.

(v)Many described it 'iron monsters' causing unhealthiness of the city. Charles Dickens wrote in Dombey and Son (1848) about the massive destruction in the process of construction. To make approximately two miles of railway, 900 houses had to be destroyed.

3. Explain what is meant by the Haussmanisation of Paris. To what extent would you support or oppose this form of development? Write a letter to the editor of a newspaper, to either support or oppose this, giving reasons for your view.

Answer:

The Haussmanisation of Paris:     In 1852, Louis Napoleon IIIassigned the task of rebuilding of Paris to the chief architect, Baron Haussmann. Haussmann's name had become known for the forcible reconstruction of cities to enhance their beauty and to impose law and order. The poor were evicted from the city to avoid their political rebellion. By 1870, many of the streets of Paris were built by Haussmann. In these streets, policemen were employed, night patrols were begun, and bus shelters and tap water introduced. This well-planned rebuilding of Paris gave employment opportunities to many, but nearly 350,000 people were evicted from the centre of Paris.

A letter to the editor:

Respected Editor Sir,

The Haussmanisation of Paris is against the very idea of development since it will cause enormous natural destruction and human displacement. Haussmanisation will damage environment with devastating consequences. A mindless concrete construction for beautification of city and streets will make nights warmer and surface drier. Concretised surfaces will also prevent percolation of rain water and cause floods every monsoon. The forcible eviction of the poor is shocking to the modern mind- a city without the majority of its people! Reconstruction should be done in a balanced way without affecting the people.

Above all, the Haussmanisation seems to be a plan for satisfying Louis Napoleon III's idea of beauty and his ambition for luxury.