Victorian historian tells what we can learn from Victorian ideas on thrift
One of the most fascinating questions raised by the economic downturn is whether it will permanently change our economic and personal behaviour. And it is a question with plenty of historical echoes. An old fashioned word – thrift – has been heard once again as the binge spending of recent years is followed by a painful consumer hangover. And thrift is often associated, as it always was, not only with saving money but also with leading a morally improved life....
Historian Katy Pettit has been researching the consumption habits of better-off working-class families in the East End of London from 1880 to 1914. She has discovered ideals that emerged from those communities themselves. They were a matter of pragmatic response to changing circumstances and personal preferences about consumption, rather than a moral or religious ideal of thrift. Women’s skill in managing family budgets was at the centre of this. “Such a highly valued skill was a crucial component of working-class respectability,” she argues.
Pettit notes the example of one woman from Wapping who “was highly proficient at keeping the family accounts and would have liked to have been an accountant if born a man”. Such skills were not just about the routine, but also involved “learning to adapt quickly to uncontrollable situations” – caused not only by unemployment but also by, for instance, a bereavement.
Much has been made in today’s economic crisis about how far people are changing their shopping habits, perhaps trading down from more expensive food stores. Katy Pettit’s research shows how shrewd shopping was not an exceptional response but a way of life for many East Enders. This involved cultivating good relationships with shopkeepers, and knowing when to find bargains – for example, at the end of the day. Children were also a well-informed part of the family economy, running errands in return for edible rewards. “Although today child labour is sometimes considered to be exploitative”, she argues, “the late-Victorian and Edwardian version in east London was complex, and the work was not necessarily harmful”....
What emerges from Pettit’s research is a sophisticated sense of consumer choice extending well below those with middle-class incomes. Individuals or families would trade economising in one area against the enjoyment of a particular luxury. The local press contained sophisticated recipes, and shops in poorer areas would stock foods such as pâté de foie gras....
So ‘thrift’ in such communities was not so much the self-denial with which the well-to-do sought to advertise their virtue. It was about families constantly managing resources in the hope of maintaining a lifestyle – including some more expensive consumption – whatever the circumstances. Today’s hard-pressed consumers will know the feeling.
Read entire article at BBC History Magazine
Historian Katy Pettit has been researching the consumption habits of better-off working-class families in the East End of London from 1880 to 1914. She has discovered ideals that emerged from those communities themselves. They were a matter of pragmatic response to changing circumstances and personal preferences about consumption, rather than a moral or religious ideal of thrift. Women’s skill in managing family budgets was at the centre of this. “Such a highly valued skill was a crucial component of working-class respectability,” she argues.
Pettit notes the example of one woman from Wapping who “was highly proficient at keeping the family accounts and would have liked to have been an accountant if born a man”. Such skills were not just about the routine, but also involved “learning to adapt quickly to uncontrollable situations” – caused not only by unemployment but also by, for instance, a bereavement.
Much has been made in today’s economic crisis about how far people are changing their shopping habits, perhaps trading down from more expensive food stores. Katy Pettit’s research shows how shrewd shopping was not an exceptional response but a way of life for many East Enders. This involved cultivating good relationships with shopkeepers, and knowing when to find bargains – for example, at the end of the day. Children were also a well-informed part of the family economy, running errands in return for edible rewards. “Although today child labour is sometimes considered to be exploitative”, she argues, “the late-Victorian and Edwardian version in east London was complex, and the work was not necessarily harmful”....
What emerges from Pettit’s research is a sophisticated sense of consumer choice extending well below those with middle-class incomes. Individuals or families would trade economising in one area against the enjoyment of a particular luxury. The local press contained sophisticated recipes, and shops in poorer areas would stock foods such as pâté de foie gras....
So ‘thrift’ in such communities was not so much the self-denial with which the well-to-do sought to advertise their virtue. It was about families constantly managing resources in the hope of maintaining a lifestyle – including some more expensive consumption – whatever the circumstances. Today’s hard-pressed consumers will know the feeling.