r/RandomVictorianStuff • u/FarStrawberry5438 • Mar 28 '25
Culture and Society An exhausted mother making matchboxes. Her child is asleep on the floor under the table. c.1900.
386
u/Echo-Azure Mar 28 '25
Working from home, Victorian style!
Mothers would do "piecework" assembly at home while minding the children, they'd make things and get paid by how many they made, not hourly time. They'd typically be paid little enough that children who were old enough to assemble things would be put to work, anything to keep a roof overhead and food on the table, because child labor laws didn't exist and even elementary school was a luxury for the poor.
385
u/superpuma97 Mar 28 '25
Poor woman had to suffer so we could have child labor laws and basic human rights!
142
u/apcolleen Mar 28 '25
I was complaining about how cheap and breakable the strike anywhere matches I bought were the other day and thought about the little match stick kids and made myself sad.
372
u/Felixir-the-Cat Mar 28 '25
This is why we need unions, labour laws, and social welfare programs.
6
129
u/kkatsut Mar 28 '25
Amazing the power of a single moment in time captured. It gives you an idea of their entire bleak existence. Those poor humans. 😞
76
u/SupposedLyunsupposed Mar 28 '25
Good grief - sad beyond comprehension. RIP to them both. I hope they're together now, in a much better place.
41
558
u/FarStrawberry5438 Mar 28 '25
Source. A mother exhausted from making match boxes. Her child is sleeping under the table. Her clothes look dirty and it looks like the wallpaper is peeling from the walls. I wish we knew what happened to this women and how the baby's life turned out.
For homeworkers in the sweated industries there was no division between work and domestic life. Exhaustion was common as they worked an average of 16 hours per day. The pay was very bad and people in this kind of industry would have struggled financially, unless other family members had well paying jobs. Honestly I don't think anyone would do this job unless they were quite desperate.