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Stories

  • Article

Surviving as a working-class woman without work

An enforced period of unemployment was extremely tough for Claire Hart, a working-class woman with a strong work ethic. Here she describes her feelings during this difficult time.

  • Article

Healing hard-working hands

The names we use to describe different hand injuries tell us about history, gender and class. Occupational therapist María Cristina Jiménez explores those injuries, and the changing ways we talk about them.

  • Article

The work of wet-nursing

Many of us know that in the past, babies were sometimes nourished by wet-nurses. But, perhaps surprisingly, the practice continues today – and the milk recipients are not only babies.

  • Interview

Inside the mind of George Vasey, co-curator of Misbehaving Bodies

Discover how curator George Vasey honoured the approaches of Jo Spence and Oreet Ashery, who mischievously subvert clichés around illness and death.

All stories (108)

Images

  • Misunderstanding between a doctor and his working-class patient, who has swallowed the leeches he prescribed. Wood engraving by G. Du Maurier, 1877.
  • Two working-class men wearing top hats and moustaches, imitating the fashions of the upper classes, rejoice in their new-found equality in fashion. Wood engraving after John Leech, 1854.
  • An under-nourished working class mother holding a baby; advertising the "GeSoLei", an exhibition in Düsseldorf on healthcare. Lithograph after R. Waller, 1926.
  • A working class patient misunderstanding his doctor's diagnosis of acne as the illness being caused by his having been to Hackney. Wood engraving by G. Du Maurier, 1875.
  • The British Museum: working-class people attending a guided tour and looking at exhibits of English history in glass cases and on the walls. Etching by G. Cruikshank, 1843.
  • Dwellings for the Working Classes, Peabody Square, Shadwell.
  • Three English conversations about tourist destinations: Paris is praised as a centre of fashion, Margate is deprecated as being a place for the English working classes. Coloured etching by J. Phillips, 1835.
  • Planters Foods Limited : manufacturers of margarine, compound, edible fats, refined oils, and other high-class food preparations : registered office & works, Brombro Port, Cheshire.
  • [1934 cigarette card (no.25 in a series of 50 : Believe it or not) featuring Tom Thumb, who had kissed 1,500,00 women in 3 years. From Carreras high class cigarettes (Arcadia Works, London)].
  • [1934 cigarette card (no.25 in a series of 50 : Believe it or not) featuring Tom Thumb, who had kissed 1,500,00 women in 3 years. From Carreras high class cigarettes (Arcadia Works, London)].
All images (106)

Catalogue

All works (1.3K)