Useful Toil: Autobiographies of Working People from the 1820s to the 1920s

ISBN-13: 9780415103992 / Angielski / Miękka / 1994 / 400 str.

John Burnett;Burnett Proffes; John Burnett

Opis

Useful Toil engages freshly and directly with the ordinary' people of the nineteenth century. John Burnett has assembled twenty seven telling extracts from the diaries and autobiographies of working people - wheelwrights and stone-masons, miners and munition workers, butlers and kitchen maids, navvies, carpenters, potters and ship assistants to list only a few. The men and women who speak in these pages concentrate on their working experiences, though they also write about their homes and their fears. They thus reveal, often unconsciously, the essence of their attitudes, values and beliefs.
Burnett's broad and sympathetic introductions focus and contextualise the wealth of material. These stories provide the antithesis of great name' history, yet they constantly touch on human experiences that are timeless and universal.

Recenzje

`Both provide a wealth of primary source material for historians of all ages; both are wonderful incentives to contemporary autobiographical writing.' - Times Educational Supplement

Spis treści

Part 1 The Labouring Classes; Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Anonymous Navvy*‘Autobiography of a Navvy’, Macmillan’s Magazine, Vol. v, 1861–2.; Chapter 3 Farm Labourer*From unpublished autobiography., Tom Mullins; Chapter 4 Straw-Plait Worker*From ‘A Little of my Life’, London Mercury, edited by J. C. Squire, Vol. XIII, No. 76, November 1925–April 1926., Lucy Luck; Chapter 5 Weaver*From The diary of John Ward of Clitheroe, weaver, 1860–64. Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire for the year 1953. Vol. 105, 1954, pp. 161 et seq., John Ward (O’neil); Chapter 6 Sweet-Boiler*From ‘Before my Time’, Granada Television interview, 1963., William Luby; Chapter 7 Coal-Miner*Unpublished autobiography., Thomas Jordan; Chapter 8 Coal-Miner*From These Poor Hands. The Autobiography of a Miner working in South Wales, Gollancz, 1939., B. L. Coombes; Chapter 9 Shop Assistant*From One Woman’s Story, unpublished autobiography., Winifred Griffiths; Chapter 10 Munitions-Factory Worker*Unpublished autobiographical extract., Rosina Whyatt; Part 2 Domestic Servants; Chapter 11 Introduction; Chapter 12 Footman*From Diary of William Tayler, Footman, 1837, edited by Dorothy Wise, with notes by Ann Cox-Johnson, St Marylebone Society Publications Group, 1962. William Tayler’s Diary is the property of Mr Richard Willoughby Bartlett, and the editor, Dorothy Wise, acknowledges his permission to reproduce., William Tayler; Chapter 13 House-Steward*From From Hall-Boy to House-Steward, Edward Arnold & Co., 1925., Lanceley William; Chapter 14 Chef*From Royal Chef. Recollections of Life in Royal Households from Queen Victoria to Queen Mary, as told to Joan Powe, William Kimber, 1954 and 1974., Gabriel Tschumi; Chapter 15 Butler*‘A Butler’s View of Man-Service’, The Nineteenth Century: a Monthly Review, January–June 1892, Vol. XXXI, 1892., John Robinson; Chapter 16 Page-Boy*The extract, which describes his life as a page-boy at the Almacks Bridge Club, London, in 1904, is from

O autorze

John Burnett