Bread Winner by Emma Griffin

Bread Winner by Emma Griffin ISBN-13: 9780300230062 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Yale University Press Released: June 9th 2020

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description from Goodreads:
The overlooked story of how ordinary women and their husbands managed financially in the Victorian era – and why so many struggled despite increasing national prosperity

Nineteenth century Britain saw remarkable economic growth and a rise in real wages. But not everyone shared in the nation’s wealth. Unable to earn a sufficient income themselves, working-class women were reliant on the ‘breadwinner wage’ of their husbands. When income failed, or was denied or squandered by errant men, families could be plunged into desperate poverty from which there was no escape.

Emma Griffin unlocks the homes of Victorian England to examine the lives – and finances – of the people who lived there. Drawing on over 600 working-class autobiographies, including more than 200 written by women, Bread Winner changes our understanding of daily life in Victorian Britain.


My Review:
Bread Winner is a detailed look at how the increasing male wages of the Victorian period didn't necessarily mean that the women and children in British working-class families also experienced more financial security. The author looked at autobiographies of both men and women during the period of the 1830s up to 1914, and she sometimes compared this to information gleaned from autobiographies written before the 1830s. She talked about different aspects of finances and life, summarizing information gleaned from these autobiographies and including a few quotes to give an idea of what specifically was said. She covered information about when women took paid work and what their wages were able to buy versus when men took paid work and their wage rates. She also talked about the importance of the unpaid work that women did at home, and how women were deliberately forced to depend on men's wages for financial security due to the unequal wage rates.

The author also talked about the various reasons for the male wages to be insufficient to support the family and statistical rates of these reasons occurring in the autobiographies. These ranged from the choice of the men to not share their full wages to injury or inconsistent work. She talked about how women worked out of the home or with her husband to supplement his wages or what they did to support the family when the husband was injured or abandoned them. She explored how working men were treated as special with increased respect and better food, and how children sometimes had to find other ways to get food when there wasn't enough money to feed everyone. She ended by talking about how children viewed their mother and their father in terms of how they fulfilled their roles more than with emotional words like "love." Overall, this is not an entertaining read, but it's very informative. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in how male/female roles and wages changed in England from the 1800s to the 1900s.


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