Death, Grief and Poverty in Britain, 1870–1914Cambridge University Press, 2005 M07 25 - 294 pages With high mortality rates, it has been assumed that the poor in Victorian and Edwardian Britain did not mourn their dead. Contesting this approach, Julie-Marie Strange studies the expression of grief among the working class, demonstrating that poverty increased - rather than deadened - it. She illustrates the mourning practices of the working classes through chapters addressing care of the corpse, the funeral, the cemetery, commemoration, and high infant mortality rates. The book draws on a broad range of sources to analyse the feelings and behaviours of the labouring poor, using not only personal testimony but also fiction, journalism, and official reports. It concludes that poor people did not only use spoken or written words to express their grief, but also complex symbols, actions and, significantly, silence. This book will be an invaluable contribution to an important and neglected area of social and cultural history. |
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Page 11
... argue that : ' Nobody else could afford the luxury of investing so much emotion in a child that its death , and its ... argued , as this book does , that silence speaks volumes . Pioneering in its attempt to approach the interpersonal ...
... argue that : ' Nobody else could afford the luxury of investing so much emotion in a child that its death , and its ... argued , as this book does , that silence speaks volumes . Pioneering in its attempt to approach the interpersonal ...
Page 12
... argued that the working classes were unable to 'afford the luxury' of 'pure' grief and that poverty blunts the sensibilities whilst affluence facilitates more 'humane' feelings, Vincent closes the essay stating that this cannot be ...
... argued that the working classes were unable to 'afford the luxury' of 'pure' grief and that poverty blunts the sensibilities whilst affluence facilitates more 'humane' feelings, Vincent closes the essay stating that this cannot be ...
Page 16
... argued that rites associated with death and mourning were characterised by moving the status of the dead from the ... argue that death rites assisted people in transitional relationships with society . On expiration , the deceased ...
... argued that rites associated with death and mourning were characterised by moving the status of the dead from the ... argue that death rites assisted people in transitional relationships with society . On expiration , the deceased ...
Page 17
... arguments against a Freudian division between worlds of the public and the private self to suggest that the success of funeral customs as 'words against death' depends on the degree of consonance/dissonance between inner lan- guages of ...
... arguments against a Freudian division between worlds of the public and the private self to suggest that the success of funeral customs as 'words against death' depends on the degree of consonance/dissonance between inner lan- guages of ...
Page 18
... argued that death in modern Britain had become as ' disgusting ' as sex had been to the Victorians . Declaring that ' no censor- ship has ever been really effective ' , Gorer called for the readmission of grief and mourning into modern ...
... argued that death in modern Britain had become as ' disgusting ' as sex had been to the Victorians . Declaring that ' no censor- ship has ever been really effective ' , Gorer called for the readmission of grief and mourning into modern ...
Contents
1 | |
2 Life sickness and death | 27 |
3 Caring for the corpse | 66 |
4 The funeral | 98 |
reassessing the pauper burial | 131 |
the cemetery as a landscape for grief | 163 |
7 Loss memory and the management of feeling | 194 |
8 Grieving for dead children | 230 |
death grief and the Great War | 263 |
Bibliography | 274 |
Index | 290 |
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Common terms and phrases
Anfield Cemetery argued Asylum babies BALS ABZ belief bereaved body BOHT Bolton Bolton Burial Board burial ground burial insurance burial service burial space cadaver Cambridge Catholic cemetery child Childhood classes coffin commemoration common grave concerning context corpse culture of death customs Cwmardy D. H. Lawrence dead deceased died dying Edwardian emotional emphasised exhumation expression father funeral Gissing grave deeds grave owners grave space grief guardians Haslingden headstone highlights History Ibid identity implied infant interment Jalland Jones Lancashire Lancet Liverpool Daily Post living London loss LVRO 352 HEA Manchester Maud Pember Reeves memory mortality mother mourning neighbours noted notions OH Transcript Oxford parents parish pauper burial pauper grave perceived perceptions post-mortem poverty private grave public grave Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Reeves relatives represented respectability rites rituals sense sick significance social spiritual stillbirth story suggests Tape University Press Victorian whilst widow woman women workhouse working-class culture