Emma Griffin

Bread Winner – An Excellent History

As we are often told by some historians, Victorian Britain was a ‘Golden Age’ or ‘The Age of Decadence’, it may have been for some, but for 75% of the country it was not. That 75% were the working class, poor and some in dire poverty, rammed together in the most overcrowded areas of our town and cities. The majority of people did not have houses in the suburbs, with running water, gardens and space.

Emma Griffin has looked at how the majority tried to survive in the Victorian Economy and the reality of life, especially for women. What screams loudly through this wonderful exploration of history, is how gendered Victorian society was. To quote professor Griffin “Britain was much richer in 1914 that at anytime previously, but it was still a gendered society in which men earned the bread and women baked it!”

By viewing how the domestic situation, we can see the many challenges working class families encountered, from the cost of foods and that by viewing the diet we are provided with a unique window on the living standards of the lower classes. If men earned the money, could they always be relied up to hand over a fair proportion to support the home, and sometimes this was not the case.

Professor Griffin also uses some working-class autobiographies to illustrate her points, and these speak loudly throughout the book. What does strike the reader, is that the autobiographies of the working-class do not turn into a misery memoir but are rather stoic. But what we do see from these is that hunger was unpleasant and memorable. Whilst that there were many reasons for this, these are investigated with fairness and no bias.

What you do learn from this book is how apparent that not everyone shared in the nations wealth, and at the heart of Victorian Society was a gendered inequality. By grasping this basic but simple truth can we truly start to grasp the meaning of economic growth in Victorian Britain. What also happens is that you are able to re-evaluate the concept of the Victorian family, and those that survived, really need our admiration and respect.… (meer)

An interesting piece of research using working people's autobiographies to provide a different viewpoint on the effects of the industrial revolution on the working class. But,in the end, I'm not sure her final thesis is that different from what has gone before. I found the social changes brought about by the availability of more and better paid work the most interesting part e.g. The effects on courtship and marriage. Overall, it needed more contextualisation as a framework for the personal experiences - perhaps it would be best to read a more formal history of the period alongside this book.… (meer)