The Blackest Streets; The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum

by Sarah Wise

• ISBN13: 9780805075380
• ISBN10: 0805075380
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2007-05-01
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Summary

An enthralling account of the most notorious slum in Victorian Englandand how it became a laboratory for "reforming" the poor Condemned as a "fruitful hotbed of disease and death," the Old Nichol, a fifteen-acre East London slum, was a shameful blot on the age of progress. A maze of rotting hundred-year-old houses, the Old Nichol suffered rampant crime and a death rate four times that of London. Among the more piquant discoveries of an 1887 government inquiry was that the owners of these fetid dwellings included lords, lawyers, even churchmen. Drawing on a rich archival store, Sarah Wise reconstructs the Old Nichol and the lives of its 6,000 inhabitantsthe woodworkers, fish smokers, and dog dealers, whose tiny rooms doubled as workshops and farmyards. She depicts as well the eugenicists, anarchists, and philanthropists who ventured into the Old Nichol to "save" the poor with such theories as emigration and sterilization. The winning solution was demolition: the Old Nichol was replaced with a new, hygienic settlementin which only eleven of the original residents could afford to live. Widely praised as a sensitive chronicler of the poor, Wise captures the moment when the poor turned from public nuisance into social experiment.

Author Biography

Sarah Wise, a historian of Victorian England, is the author of The Italian Boy, honored with the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for Nonfiction and short-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize. She lives in London.

Supplemental Materials

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

Rewards Program

Currently unavailable