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 ii
... relationships and of the cultures that inform them and lend them meaning . Historical anthropology , historical sociology , comparative history , gender history and historicist literary studies among other subjects - all fall within the ...
... relationships and of the cultures that inform them and lend them meaning . Historical anthropology , historical sociology , comparative history , gender history and historicist literary studies among other subjects - all fall within the ...
Page 6
... relationship between expense , respectability and notions of decency has dominated historical discussion of the working - class culture of death . Yet respectability was ( and is ) a slippery concept . A term familiar to the Victorians ...
... relationship between expense , respectability and notions of decency has dominated historical discussion of the working - class culture of death . Yet respectability was ( and is ) a slippery concept . A term familiar to the Victorians ...
Page 15
... relationship between emotionality , subjectivity and social practice ' . Culture provides the resources through which we understand , or theo- rise , emotional responses to loss , whilst the multifarious effects of grief ( physical ...
... relationship between emotionality , subjectivity and social practice ' . Culture provides the resources through which we understand , or theo- rise , emotional responses to loss , whilst the multifarious effects of grief ( physical ...
Page 16
... relationships with society . On expiration , the deceased exchanged their ' living ' status for an intermediary identity as a corpse . Following burial , their status shifted into a new phase , immortal- ity , and a new society , that ...
... relationships with society . On expiration , the deceased exchanged their ' living ' status for an intermediary identity as a corpse . Following burial , their status shifted into a new phase , immortal- ity , and a new society , that ...
Page 19
... relationship with death to a pathological one where death was taboo . " Not only is the concept of cultural change as a neat and self - contained process questionable , the notion that the twentieth century heralded an unhealthy culture ...
... relationship with death to a pathological one where death was taboo . " Not only is the concept of cultural change as a neat and self - contained process questionable , the notion that the twentieth century heralded an unhealthy culture ...
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