Hard Times is set in the fictional city of Coketown in northern England. Coketown is in the grips of industrialization. Factories dominate the skyline, their smoke colors the sky, and the needs of industry reshape the geography. The factories’ owners are the community’s leaders; men like Gradgrind and Bounderby own the schools and dictate what children are taught. As such, the population of Coketown shows the interplay between industrialization and poverty. The factory workers are subject to dangerous working conditions, are forced to live in poor, polluted places, and have no say in their children’s education. Due to the urgency of industrialization and the rapid pace of societal change, the new factories create a small aristocracy of wealthy businessmen who rule over the poor workers. The stark contrast between the lives of workers like Blackpool and wealthy industrialists like Bounderby and Gradgrind demonstrates this disparity. Blackpool struggles to get by and is thus unable to leave his wife and marry Rachael, while rich and powerful men like Bounderby and Harthouse can marry, separate, and seduce partners on a whim. Industrialization heightened the contrast between the rich and poor, emphasizing the crushing effects of poverty on society’s least powerful people.

Poverty is a health issue in an industrialized world.