Download or read book The Victorian Domestic Servant written by Trevor May and published by Shire Publications. This book was released on 2008-03-04 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1851 there were over one million servants in Britain, making domestic service the second-largest source of emplyment after agriculture. The range of people who kept servants was vast, from aristocrats to the lower middle class families who employed a single 'maid of all work'. Trevor May explains teh great range of jobs available in domestic service-from the humble maids who were expected to clean their employers' rooms without being seen, to the formal, liveried footmen, who were very well paid, especially if they were tall. Many branches of domestic service in the nineteenth century are outlined, and descriptions of the working conditions of the servants give an insight into the strict social hierarchy, which was a strong 'below stairs' as it was above.
Download or read book A Visitor s Guide to Victorian England written by Michelle Higgs and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2014-02-12 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An “utterly brilliant” and deeply researched guide to the sights, smells, endless wonders, and profound changes of nineteenth century British history (Books Monthly, UK). Step into the past and experience the world of Victorian England, from clothing to cuisine, toilet arrangements to transport—and everything in between. A Visitor’s Guide to Victorian England is “a brilliant guided tour of Charles Dickens’s and other eminent Victorian Englishmen’s England, with insights into where and where not to go, what type of people you’re likely to meet, and what sights and sounds to watch out for . . . Utterly brilliant!” (Books Monthly, UK). Like going back in time, Higgs’s book shows armchair travelers how to find the best seat on an omnibus, fasten a corset, deal with unwanted insects and vermin, get in and out of a vehicle while wearing a crinoline, and avoid catching an infectious disease. Drawing on a wide range of sources, this book blends accurate historical details with compelling stories to bring alive the fascinating details of Victorian daily life. It is a must-read for seasoned social history fans, costume drama lovers, history students, and anyone with an interest in the nineteenth century.
Download or read book A Day in the Life of a Victorian Domestic Servant written by Leonore Davidoff and published by Unwin Hyman. This book was released on 1976 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Servant written by Pamela Horn and published by Sutton Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Victorian England measured social acceptability in terms of the number of servants employed in a household. It is perhaps unsurprising then that this frequently overlooked body of workers actually formed the largest occupational group in the country at the end of the nineteenth century. In this illustrated account, Pamela Horn draws upon a wealth of contemporary sources and 'servants' books' as well as personal reminiscences by servants and employers. She presents a comprehensive record of recruitment and training; the duties expected by servants, and the wide range of conditions under which they worked, some of which led to happy retirement, others to prostitution or squalid death. It is a compelling picture of a vanished social system.
Download or read book Victorian Domestic Servant written by Trevor May and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Victorian Domestic Servant written by Trevor May and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Victorian Servants Class and the Politics of Literacy written by Jean Fernandez and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-09-10 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, Fernandez brings the under-examined figure of the Victorian servant out of obscurity in order to tell the story of his or her encounter with literacy, as imagined and represented in nineteenth-century fiction, autobiography, pamphlets and diaries. A vast body of writing is uncovered on the management of servant literacy in Victorian periodicals, advice manuals, cartoons, sermons, books on household management, and pornography, thereby revealing that the domestic sphere was a crucial war zone in the battle over mass literacy. By attending to how fictional and nonfictional texts of the age feature literate servant narrators, she demonstrates how the issue of servant literacy as a cultural phenomenon has profound implications for our understanding of the nexus between class, mass literacy, voice and narrative power in the nineteenth century. The study reads canonical fiction by Mary Wollstonecraft, Emily Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wilkie Collins, and R.L. Stevenson alongside popular detective fiction by Catherine Crowe, the Diaries of Hannah Cullwick, and best-selling pamphlets of the age, while introducing to Victorian scholarship hitherto little known or unknown servant autobiographies that address life history as an engagement with literacy.
Download or read book Maids of Misfortune written by M. Louisa Locke and published by M. Louisa Locke. This book was released on 2009-11-28 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First book in the USA Today bestselling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series. It’s the summer of 1879, and Annie Fuller, a young San Francisco widow, is in trouble. Annie’s husband squandered her fortune before committing suicide five years earlier, and one of his creditors is now threatening to take the boardinghouse she owns to pay off a debt. Annie Fuller also possesses a secret. She supplements her income by giving domestic and business advice as Madam Sibyl, one of San Francisco’s most exclusive clairvoyants, and one of Madam Sibyl’s clients, Matthew Voss, has died. The police believe his death was suicide brought upon by bankruptcy, but Annie believes Voss has been murdered and that his assets have been stolen. Nate Dawson wrestles with a difficult decision. As the Voss family lawyer, he would love to prove that Matthew Voss didn't leave his grieving family destitute. But that would mean working with Annie Fuller, a woman who alternatively attracts and infuriates him as she shatters every notion he ever had of proper ladylike behavior. Sparks fly as Anne and Nate pursue the truth about the murder of Matthew Voss in this light-hearted, cozy historical mystery set in the foggy, gas-lit world of Victorian San Francisco. Maids of Misfortune is the first book in M. Louisa Locke’s USA Today bestselling Victorian San Francisco mystery series, followed by Uneasy Spirits, Bloody Lessons, Deadly Proof, Pilfered Promises, Scholarly Pursuits, and Lethal Remedies. Locke’s shorter works, collected in Victorian San Francisco Stories: Vols 1 and 2, and Victorian San Francisco Novellas, feature beloved minor characters from the series. There are also two boxed sets of the novels, Victorian San Francisco Mysteries: Books 1-4 and Victorian San Francisco Mysteries: Books 5-7.
Download or read book Servants Stories written by Michelle Higgs and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2015-09-30 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: True accounts by domestic servants though a century and a half of British history revealing what their lives were really like—includes illustrations. Step into the world of domestic service and discover what life was really like for these unsung heroines (and heroes) of society. Between 1800 and 1950, the role of servants changed dramatically, but they remained the people without whom the upper and middle classes could not function. Through oral histories, diaries, newspaper reports, and never before seen testimonies, domestic servants tell their stories, warts and all—Downton it isn’t! You’ll read about revenge on a mistress with a box of beetles; the despair and loneliness of a fourteen-year-old maid; the adventure of moving to London to go into service; and an escape from an unhappy home life—as well as the “servant problem” and how servants found work; how National Insurance began to improve their lot; the impact World War I had on domestic service; and what was done to try to make the occupation appealing to a new generation. Praise for Michelle Higgs’ previous books “Enjoyable and well-written social history.” —Who Do You Think You Are? “Daily life is recounted with both historical detail and sympathy, aided by numerous first-person accounts.” —Your Family Tree
Download or read book The Housekeeper s Tale written by Tessa Boase and published by Aurum. This book was released on 2014-05-19 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Working as a housekeeper was one of the most prestigious jobs a nineteenth and early twentieth century woman could want – and also one of the toughest. A far cry from the Downton Abbey fiction, the real life Mrs Hughes was up against capricious mistresses, low pay, no job security and gruelling physical labour. Until now, her story has never been told. The Housekeeper’s Tale reveals the personal sacrifices, bitter disputes and driving ambition that shaped these women’s careers. Delving into secret diaries, unpublished letters and the neglected service archives of our stately homes, Tessa Boase tells the extraordinary stories of five working women who ran some of Britain’s most prominent households. There is Dorothy Doar, Regency housekeeper for the obscenely wealthy 1st Duke and Duchess of Sutherland at Trentham Hall, Staffordshire. There is Sarah Wells, a deaf and elderly Victorian in charge of Uppark, West Sussex. Ellen Penketh is Edwardian cook-housekeeper at the sociable but impecunious Erddig Hall in the Welsh borders. Hannah Mackenzie runs Wrest Park in Bedfordshire – Britain’s first country-house war hospital, bankrolled by playwright J. M. Barrie. And there is Grace Higgens, cook-housekeeper to the Bloomsbury set at Charleston farmhouse in East Sussex for half a century – an era defined by the Second World War. Revelatory, gripping and unexpectedly poignant, The Housekeeper’s Tale champions the invisible women who ran the English country house. Normal0falsefalsefalseEN-GBX-NONEX-NONE
Download or read book Victorian Servants A Very Peculiar History written by Fiona Macdonald and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2012-02-03 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's not all longing looks across the dining room from that high-class gentleman! Life as a Victorian servant was tough, tough, tough! Discover the bizarre and oh-so-strict rules one had to keep to when serving the dignitaries in 'Victorian Servants: A Very Peculiar History'. Rise up through the ranks from washerwoman to housemaid to ladies' maid and beyond, but mind you don't keep any 'followers', as boyfriends are immoral and are strictly not allowed! While you wait on hand and foot from 5.30 am to 11 pm you won't even have time to rest your own. The chamber pots are certainly not to be sniffed at, and remember if the bell rings once, you are wanted. It's hard work but it's better than the alternative: begging, returning home penniless or heading to the workhouse. You'll discover stories of suffering and household tips galore in 'Victorian Servants: A Very Peculiar History'!
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Servant written by Pamela Horn and published by Alan Sutton Publishing. This book was released on 1995 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Victorian England measured social acceptability in terms of the number of servants employed in a household. This frequently overlooked body of workers actually formed the largest occupational group in the country by the end of the 19th century. In this account, the author draws on contemporary sources, including servants' books and personal reminiscences of servants and employers, to offer a record of recruitment and training; the duties expected of servants; and the range of conditions under which they worked - some of which led to happy retirement, others to prostitution or squalid death. Complemented with photographs, Punch illustrations and other ephemera, the book offers a picture of this vanished social system.
Download or read book The Victorian House written by Judith Flanders and published by HarperCollins Publishers. This book was released on 2003 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A middle class home, circa 1850, of the sort that many people live in today, is the focus of Judith Flanders' book. The Victorian age is both recent and unimaginably distant. In the most prosperous and technologically advanced nation in the world, people carried slops up and down stairs; buried meat in fresh earth to prevent mould forming; wrung sheets out in boiling water with their bare hands. This drudgery was routinely performed by the parents of people still living, but the knowledge of it has passed as if it had never been. Running water, stoves, flush lavatories - even lavatory paper - arrived slowly throughout the century; and most were luxuries available only to the prosperous.
Download or read book How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain written by Leah Price and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-09 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain asks how our culture came to frown on using books for any purpose other than reading. When did the coffee-table book become an object of scorn? Why did law courts forbid witnesses to kiss the Bible? What made Victorian cartoonists mock commuters who hid behind the newspaper, ladies who matched their books' binding to their dress, and servants who reduced newspapers to fish 'n' chips wrap? Shedding new light on novels by Thackeray, Dickens, the Brontës, Trollope, and Collins, as well as the urban sociology of Henry Mayhew, Leah Price also uncovers the lives and afterlives of anonymous religious tracts and household manuals. From knickknacks to wastepaper, books mattered to the Victorians in ways that cannot be explained by their printed content alone. And whether displayed, defaced, exchanged, or discarded, printed matter participated, and still participates, in a range of transactions that stretches far beyond reading. Supplementing close readings with a sensitive reconstruction of how Victorians thought and felt about books, Price offers a new model for integrating literary theory with cultural history. How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain reshapes our understanding of the interplay between words and objects in the nineteenth century and beyond.
Download or read book Mrs Seely s Cook Book written by Lida Seely and published by . This book was released on 1902 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Mrs Woolf and the Servants written by Alison Light and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-06-15 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Virginia Woolf wrote A Room of One's Own in 1929, she established her reputation as a feminist, and an advocate for unheard voices. But like thousands of other upper-class British women, Woolf relied on live-in domestic servants for the most intimate of daily tasks. That room of Woolf's own was kept clean by a series of cooks and maids throughout her life. In the much-praised Mrs. Woolf and the Servants, Alison Light probes the unspoken inequality of Bloomsbury homes with insight and grace, and provides an entirely new perspective on an essential modern artist.
Download or read book Feminism and the Servant Problem written by Laura Schwartz and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-18 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reveals a hidden history of women's suffrage from the perspectives of working-class women employed as domestic servants.
