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From Disinfectors to Mush-Fakers, Photos of Real Life in Victorian London (2016)
- cs702 9y agoJudging by those photos, I have to say Dickens[1] was spot-on in his criticism of the quality of life for ordinary citizens in Victorian London. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens
- yourapostasy 9y agoIt struck me to realize the similarities of hardships to common US citizens (and developed world citizens to a lesser extent) today. Medical episodes cause a cascade of ill-circumstance tumbling once-stable positions into the streets: "...who is now in difficulties through ill-health..." Retirement a binary condition ill-suiting putting purpose to people's lives: "I’m lost, I’ve been put off my perch" Substance abuse inures the senses of those who have given up, and thereby tragically reinforcing cycles of abuse into future generations: "...early acclimatizes her infant to the fumes of tobacco and alcohol" Poor squeezed by land prices into living in the flood plains, with predictable disastrous consequences if their unlucky number comes up: "The sufferings of the poor in Lambeth, and in other quarters of the Metropolis, caused by the annual tidal overflow of the Thames" "Improvements" displacing common people to the benefit of rentiers, and destroying the micro-culture of a neighborhood: "As a matter of fact, the inhabitants of Church Lane were nearly all what I may term “street folks” – living, buying, selling, transacting all their business in the open street...condemned as an unwholesome over-crowded, throughfare, and the houses on either side are now almost entirely destroyed, and the inhabitants have been compelled to migrate to other more distant and less convenient parts of the metropolis" Industrial disruption comes at a steep cost to those whose lives are disrupted and swept under the inconvenient rug of the disruptive effects to individuals, even military veterans, to the benefit of the overall economy: "...two boardmen who seemed worthy of a better position..." There are some, but too few, bright points, considering the progress we trumpet ourselves possessing. Some parts of the human condition remain quite thoroughly embedded within our civilization's mien for the time being. View some Photochroms to give yourself sense of the color of that era [1]. [1] http://fiveminutehistory.com/photochrom-victorian-era-color-photography/ http://fiveminutehistory.com/photochrom-victorian-era-color-...
- coldcode 9y agoNever would have imagined a mush-faker was an umbrella repairman.
- JetSpiegel 9y ago> having obtained an umbrella to mend, they prefer sitting out doing the work in the street, in front of the house. This attracts the attention of the neighbours, and the fact that they have been entrusted with work by the inhabitants of one house generally brings more custom from those who live next door. When the job is terminated, the mush-faker ” looks about him, as he enters the house, in quest of an umbrella which has passed the mending stage ; and, in exchange for the same, offers to make a slight reduction in his charge. Thus he gradually obtains a stock of very old umbrellas, and by taking the good bits from one old “mushroom” and adding it to another, he is able to make, out of two broken and torn umbrellas, a tolerably stout and serviceable gingham. They went from house to house asking for old umbrellas, and from two old ones they could make a new one.
- richdougherty 9y agoSource: https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:vep848coz https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:vep848coz
- gumby 9y ago"Mush" for "mushroom" (slang for umbrella) and "fake" I assume from make (fecit pronounced "fake-it"in Latin which had more weird vestigial remnants than today).
- ljf 9y agoQuote: "Mushfake" is a very interesting word. It seems to have first appeared in underworld slang back in the early 19th century in England. "Mush" by itself was, in that period, slang for an umbrella, from its similarity in shape to a mushroom. The verb "to fake" during the same period was criminal slang for "putting something in shape to sell by covering its defects." So a "mushroom faker" or "mushfake" was a con artist who repaired discarded umbrellas just enough to make them briefly functional and then sold them on the street, preferably during a downpour. http://www.word-detective.com/111703.html#mushfake http://www.word-detective.com/111703.html#mushfake
- sverige 9y agoNeckbeards were a thing then, too.
- gwern 9y agoFor tremendously more detailed writeups of the Victorian London street trades, with interviews and statistics, check out https://archive.org/stream/cu31924092592751 https://archive.org/stream/cu31924092592751 _London labour and the London poor; a cyclopaedia of the condition and earnings of those that will work, those that cannot work, and those that will not work_. All sorts of odd obsolete trades.
- Reason077 9y agoIn a lot of ways, Victorian London doesn't sound all that much different to modern London. Alhough these days, the Police generally don't bother trying to crack down on illegal street traders and other minor crimes.
- zoul 9y agoAs a photography geek I must say those are incredibly good photographs! Is there some kind of trick in play or was the art of photography really that good back then?
- watmough 9y agoI believe the photographic plates of the day would have been large, maybe 8x10 inches and developed or printed at 1:1 scale. That would give a pretty good head start on quality.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ljf 9y agoIt is easy to forget just how good film or plate photography is. I scanned some slides from the 80s and they were amazing, easily printed at A4
- DougWebb 9y agoBesides the large plates, I think you're reacting to the focus as well. We've gotten very used to our small lenses and their infinite depth of field that keeps everything focused. We're so used to it that now it's a feature to have a smartphone camera that can blur the background. But those old cameras did that automatically, because they were only capable of a narrow depth of field and the photographer had to be really careful about where the focus was when he composed the shot.
- irrational 9y agoOne thing that strikes me is how many people wore hats back then. I could only find a few people not wearing a hat in the photos.
- ashark 9y agoOne was not presentable without a hat! Now we commonly sport sailors' underwear (t-shirts) as outerwear in public, and even in places of business! And low-class rugged laborers' trousers (denim jeans) are worn about by merchants and businesspersons, and can be expensive, high fashion. Clothes are weird.
- ljf 9y agoAlways blows me away how smart the original beat poets and lsd-heads dressed - Jack Kerouac for example: http://www.cmgww.com/historic/kerouac/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/183292_max.jpg http://www.cmgww.com/historic/kerouac/wp-content/uploads/201...
- nonbel 9y agoLook at this guy's huge shoe: https://i2.wp.com/www.oldlondon.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/thompson_london_01.jpg?w=620 https://i2.wp.com/www.oldlondon.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/...
- mattkrause 9y agoIt must be some kind of prosthetic for a short leg, because his other shoe is normal-sized.
- ljf 9y agoLikely a polio shoe: http://members.upnaway.com/~poliowa/Polio%20Feet%20Problems.html http://members.upnaway.com/~poliowa/Polio%20Feet%20Problems....
- gerdesj 9y agoAlmost certainly. One of my rugby and maths teachers (!) had a similar one for that reason. Now the 2 1 7 and 6 for the peppermints is an odd thing. I presume it is the price but my first effort is: 2 for 1, 7/6 ie 2 for the price of one for 7 shillings and 6 pence but that was quite a lot of money. Another photo show a bowl of ahem beef leg soup for 2d. Pre decimalisation British currency was: £1 = 20 shillings, 1 shilling = 12 pence, penny was written as d (denarius, the s for shilling is really sestertius and the £ is L for libra - all loosely Latin).
- twic 9y agoHe was a professional arse-kicker.
- wimagguc 9y agoI might be wrong, but this looks very much like penny lick ice cream glasses: https://i2.wp.com/www.oldlondon.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/thompson_london_13.jpg https://i2.wp.com/www.oldlondon.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/... (If you haven't heard of them: in the 1800s London, one happy customer would get their ice cream, lick the glass clean and return it to the vendor, who would refill it and give it to the next customer. Perhaps the best way to spread tuberculosis, which the Penny lick did very well on until it was banned in 1899.)
- nonbel 9y agoThey appeared to be quite aware and concerned about contagion though: http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications/thomson-6.htm http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications/thomson-6.htm
- Stratoscope 9y agoWhen I was a kid growing up in the late '50s, the restaurants had a jar of mustard and a jar of mayonnaise at the table, and you used your table knife to spread whichever you wanted on your sandwich, just like you would at home. This was a problem if you wanted both mayonnaise and mustard. It wouldn't be polite to contaminate one with the other, plus you might get bits of lettuce and bread in the jar. So we were taught that after putting the mustard on the sandwich, rather than dip the dirty knife in the mayonnaise jar, we should first lick it clean.
- gambiting 9y agoIn communist Poland, street vendors frequently offered carbonated water as a refreshing drink in the summer - but they only had a glass or two, so you would buy a glass of water, drink it, and return the glass for the next customer to use - in the best case, it was quickly rinsed before re-use. The last one was in use until 1995. Sadly wiki only has an article on this in Polish, but google translate does a decent job: https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturator https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturator
- Reason077 9y agoDespite all the dirt and horse poop, it's amazing how much more open and un-congested all the streets looked back then. Now days, of course, London's streets are all choked with parked cars, creating a less than welcoming environment for cyclists and pedestrians. And horses.
- Nomentatus 9y agoIn very early photos only horses and people who stood very still, such as a fellow getting his shoes shined, are visible since the exposure times were so long.