6 – Lots of Diseases & Low Life Expectancy
One of the main reasons for the low life expectancy in the 19th century was the number of child deaths. For a white male in 1850, his life expectancy was just over 38 at birth, but if he reached the age of 20, he could live to his fifties or sixties. In the second half of the 19th century, New York was the most diverse city in the United States but also the most overcrowded and disease riddled. The city only had a primitive sewage system at this time, and if you wanted to use the bathroom, you had to rely on a privy or an outhouse.
The waste management problem resulted in a significant increase in diseases such as cholera, malaria, typhoid, yellow fever, smallpox, and tuberculosis. In cities around the world, mass outbreaks of these infectious diseases were common. The cholera epidemic of 1849 killed an estimated 5,000 people while a typhoid epidemic in 1860 also killed thousands. The epidemics were especially lethal when it came to children.
Over in England and Wales, the infant mortality rate was 150 deaths per 1,000 births in 1890. No matter where you lived, even if you made it past the first few years of life, there was no guarantee of living a long time. In New York between 1840 and 1870, approximately 25% of 20-year olds did not see their 30th birthday. It must have been a terrible thing for urban families to know that at least one of their children would not see their 5th birthday. The ensuing fatalist attitude of working-class families meant they had large families to ensure that at least some of the kids would survive. This of course only contributed to the problem of overpopulation.
Still, the epidemics persisted. An estimated 50,000 people died from smallpox in Britain and Ireland in 1871. Typhoid fever remained a huge problem in urban areas in the UK and U.S. at the end of the 19th century. Even though water treatment facilities were built in America, the disease continued, and no one knew why. New York was the site of the infamous Typhoid Mary, an Irish cook called Mary Fallon. It turned out she was carrying the disease and infecting the families she worked for. This was proof that even the wealthy were not safe from the rampant diseases of the era.