Victorian Occupations: Life and Labor in the Victorian Period as Seen by Artists, Writers, and Modern Historians

General

  • The Hidden World of the Victorian Working Classes
  • Working-Class Attitudes: Stoicism and Acceptance
  • The Lack of Social Security in Victorian England
  • Bankruptcy in Victorian England — Threat or Myth?

Professions

  • the Law
    • Judges
    • Solicitors and Barristers
  • the Clergy
    • Representations of Anglican and Dissenting Clergy in Victorian Literature
  • Construction: Clerk of the Works
  • Civil Engineers
  • Mechanical Engineers
  • School teachers
  • Physicians

Skilled Labor — Craftsman

  • The Hierarchies of Victorian Workers: Craftsman, Semi-skilled Factory Operatives, and Laborers
  • Victorian Wages for Skilled and Unskilled Labor: The Example of Construction Workers on the Thames Embankment
  • The Prince of Victorian Manual Workers: The Skilled Craftsman
  • Artisans
  • Blacksmiths

Semi-Skilled Labor

  • Miners
  • Textile Mill Workers
  • Welsh Dairies in Victorian London

Unskilled Labor

  • Agricultural Workers (article from the 1874 Cornhill Magazine)
  • Costermongers
  • Railway porters and pundits
  • The Victorian Navvy
  • Victorian Navvies — Their Nationality, Religion, Social Position, and Relation to the Armed Services
  • A Navvy's Glossary
  • Construction workers: Butty Gangs, Working for Fixed Wages, and Ruskinian Economics
  • Crossing Sweepers

Gender and Work

  • Victorian Women, Class, and Occupation
  • Victorian Working Women: Sweated Labor
  • Needlewomen: Dressmakers, Milliners, and Slop-workers
  • A Washerwoman's Daughter
  • Governnesses
    • The Figure of the Governess, based on Ronald Pearsall's Night's Black Angels
    • The Victorian Governess Novel
    • The Governess and Class Prejudice
    • Punch and Brontë on Training the Ideal Governess
    • The Victorian Governess: A Bibliography

Servants

  • Domestic Service, The "Mute and Forgotten" Occupation
  • What Kind of Staff Would a Victorian Household Have?
  • "Maid in England" — the life of the Victorian domestic servant (Public Record Office exhibition)
  • "On the Side of the Maids" --an 1874 account of a maid's hard life
  • Kinds: Butlers, Maids, Cooks, Coachman, Gamekeepers, Gardeners

Child Labor

  • Introduction
  • Mines

Criminal classes

  • burglars
  • mudlarks
  • smash and grab

Dore's Pedlar



Dore's Woman Pedlar



Dore's Pedlar

Three London pedlars by Gustave Doré


Victorian Web Overview Victorian Economics Victorian History

Last modified 9 February 2007