Review: A fascinating glimpse into Victorian London
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 13, 2013
I found this Kindle ebook to be a fascinating glimpse into the lives of working girls in Victorian London (and the term 'working girls' as used here is not a euphemism for something else, though that would also have made for an interesting memoir.) The author, a practitioner of the 'new journalism' of the time, insinuated herself into service as a housemaid and parlour-maid in two different households - one whose mistress was pleasant and fair and the other not so. She also found work in various laundries and, more briefly, assumed the lives of a crossing-sweeper and a flower girl. What she discovered in all these employments is extremely revealing, not just to those reading her columns in a newspaper of the day but also to us, at our twenty-first century remove.Many years ago I read Monica Dickens' similar books ('One Pair of Hands,' 'One Pair of Feet' and 'My Turn to Make the Tea'), and was delighted to come across this earlier version. Although 'Lizzie's' investigations don't match those of Dickens either in time spent or in humour, they are no less detailed. My one reservation about the account by the 'American girl' is that her fairly privileged upbringing sometimes betrays her into appearing to take the side of the employers more than she perhaps should have. It seems that following her reports she discovered that many servants felt that too.This in no way spoils the various accounts, though. This is definitely a book worth reading if you have any interest at all in social history or the working lives of others - even now there are probably many young women in India whose days are not very different from those of young working women in Victorian London.