>How and why did city life change between 1800 and 1900? Chapter 22 examines social change in the nineteenth century. The urban society that emerged in this century had costs as well as benefits. Advances in public health and urban planning brought some relief to the squalid working-class slums. On the whole, living standards rose in the 1800s, but wages and living conditions varied greatly according to status, and many urban residents were still poor. Differences in income, education, and occupation divided people into socially stratified groups; rather than discuss “the” working class or “the” middle class, it is more accurate to speak of “working classes” and “middle classes” and consider the blurring boundaries between the two. Major changes in family life and gender roles accompanied this more diversified class system. Dramatic breakthroughs in science and technology further transformed urban society after 1880, and a new generation of artists, writers, and professional social scientists struggled to explain and portray the vast changes wrought by urbanization.