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. |
From inside the book
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Page 7
... individual and the ' ultimate disgrace ' for a Victorian worker's family . Two years prior to the passage of the New Poor Law , the Anatomy Act legitimised the donation of the unclaimed pauper dead to anatomy schools for dissection ...
... individual and the ' ultimate disgrace ' for a Victorian worker's family . Two years prior to the passage of the New Poor Law , the Anatomy Act legitimised the donation of the unclaimed pauper dead to anatomy schools for dissection ...
Page 14
... individuals and given unique meaning. In this sense, a single funeral could represent shared understandings of death ... individual feels at such loss. Since the publication of Freud's essay 'Mourning and Melancholia' in 1917, grief in ...
... individuals and given unique meaning. In this sense, a single funeral could represent shared understandings of death ... individual feels at such loss. Since the publication of Freud's essay 'Mourning and Melancholia' in 1917, grief in ...
Page 15
... individual's grief from culturally required mourning ' . " Indeed , recent cross - disciplinary scho- larship of death and grief is typified by a tendency to borrow heavily from 55 54 49 50 51 S. Freud , ' Mourning and Melancholia ' in ...
... individual's grief from culturally required mourning ' . " Indeed , recent cross - disciplinary scho- larship of death and grief is typified by a tendency to borrow heavily from 55 54 49 50 51 S. Freud , ' Mourning and Melancholia ' in ...
Page 16
... individuals within society . Mourning ritual is also tied to a language of hope and survival , prompting some to interpret the performance of death rites as an attempt by different social groups to contain and control death ...
... individuals within society . Mourning ritual is also tied to a language of hope and survival , prompting some to interpret the performance of death rites as an attempt by different social groups to contain and control death ...
Page 17
... individuals use the transitional period between the separa- tion occasioned by death and the reincorporation into society in order to transcend death. The negatives of death are reformulated by the rites associated with burial into ...
... individuals use the transitional period between the separa- tion occasioned by death and the reincorporation into society in order to transcend death. The negatives of death are reformulated by the rites associated with burial into ...
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