Francoise Barret-Ducrocq

I found this book fascinating. Ducrocq takes on many Victorian stereotypes about the working classes and shows, through then-new evidence, their blatant falsehood. Some of the issues she discusses include refutations of the ideas that the poor have little sexual self-control; that their crowded living quarters eroded morality and "decency"; that they had children frivolously, without real emotional attachment to the infants; and so on.

Ducrocq relates the stories of individual working-class Victorians, pieced together from letters and hospital/orphanage records, to debunk these myths. A great read, and well translated.… (mehr)