#ragged schools

[dayofaestheticorsubculture]

Victorian Urban Poverty

Victorian urban poverty refers to the severe and widespread impoverishment that affected many inhabitants of Britain's rapidly growing cities during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901). This period of dramatic social, economic, and technological transformation, driven primarily by the Industrial Revolution, saw the unprecedented expansion of urban centers such as London, Manchester, Birmingham, and Liverpool. While industrialization brought prosperity to some, it also created dire conditions for a large portion of the population. The resulting poverty was characterized by overcrowded slums, inadequate sanitation, high mortality rates, child labor, and limited access to healthcare and education. Victorian urban poverty is now recognized as one of the most significant social issues of the 19th century in Britain and played a crucial role in the development of modern social welfare policies.

The Industrial Revolution led to rapid urbanization as people from rural areas migrated to cities in search of work in factories and workshops. Between 1801 and 1901, the population of England and Wales increased from 8.9 million to over 32.5 million, with a substantial portion of this growth concentrated in urban areas. London’s population grew from about 1.5 million in 1800 to over 6.5 million by the end of the century. However, urban infrastructure did not keep pace with this growth, leading to cramped housing, strained public services, and unsanitary conditions.

Industrial employment was often unstable, dangerous, and poorly paid. Workers faced long hours (commonly 12–16 per day), exposure to hazardous materials, and few protections against unemployment or injury. Wages were often insufficient to support a family, particularly during periods of economic downturn. Seasonal unemployment was also common, especially in industries like construction or textiles, leading to cyclical hardship for many families.

The surge in urban populations led to the development of slums—overcrowded, poorly constructed tenements and courts lacking basic facilities. These slums were often located near factories and industrial sites, where land was cheapest and air and water pollution were worst. In cities like Manchester and Glasgow, entire neighborhoods emerged consisting of back-to-back housing or cellar dwellings with no drainage, ventilation, or sunlight.

Multiple families frequently shared a single room, and it was not uncommon for ten or more individuals to sleep in the same small space. Cellar dwellings, which were dark, damp, and poorly ventilated, often housed the poorest families. These conditions facilitated the spread of infectious diseases and contributed to alarmingly high mortality rates, especially among infants.

Sanitation in Victorian cities was primitive and grossly inadequate for the growing population. Many homes lacked running water and relied on communal water pumps or wells, which were frequently contaminated with human waste due to the proximity of cesspools and open sewers. Indoor toilets were rare among the poor, who typically relied on shared outdoor privies or “night soil” collection.

Epidemics of cholera, typhoid, and tuberculosis were common in urban slums. London experienced major cholera outbreaks in 1832, 1849, 1854, and 1866. The link between waterborne illness and contaminated drinking water was conclusively demonstrated by Dr. John Snow during the 1854 outbreak in Soho, helping to lay the foundation for modern epidemiology and prompting gradual public health reforms.

The average life expectancy for the urban poor was shockingly low. In the 1840s, life expectancy in Manchester was estimated at 26 years for males, compared to 45 years in rural Rutland. Infant mortality was extremely high, with one in three children in some slum districts dying before their fifth birthday.

Employment for the urban poor was typically in low-wage, unregulated sectors such as textile mills, coal mines, construction, and domestic service. Conditions in these industries were often dangerous and exploitative. Workers could be dismissed with little notice, and injuries or illness meant instant loss of income, with no social safety net.

Child labor was widespread and accepted for much of the Victorian period. Children worked in factories, mines, and as chimney sweeps, errand boys, or domestic servants. In textile mills, children as young as five were employed as “piecers” or “doffers,” performing repetitive, physically taxing tasks in noisy, unsafe conditions. In mines, they worked as “trappers,” opening and closing ventilation doors, or hauling coal through narrow passages.

The Factory Acts, beginning in 1833, gradually introduced regulations on child labor, setting minimum age limits and restricting working hours. However, enforcement was weak, and many poor families depended on their children's income to survive, resulting in continued exploitation.

The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was a central feature of Victorian poverty policy. It aimed to reduce the cost of poor relief by discouraging reliance on public assistance. The Act mandated the construction of workhouses, institutions where the destitute could receive food and shelter in exchange for labor. Conditions in workhouses were deliberately harsh to deter all but the most desperate from seeking aid.

Families were often separated, personal belongings confiscated, and diets kept minimal. Workhouse labor was menial and grueling—stone-breaking, oakum-picking, or laundry work. The workhouse became a symbol of state indifference and social stigma, feared and resented by the poor.

Despite its severity, the system failed to address the root causes of poverty. Critics, including Charles Dickens, used literature to highlight the cruelty and inefficacy of the workhouse system, as in Oliver Twist. Over time, growing public awareness led to calls for reform and the gradual humanization of poor relief.

Private charities and religious organizations played a major role in addressing urban poverty. Institutions like the Salvation Army (founded in 1865), the Society for the Relief of Distress, and various church missions provided food, shelter, and moral guidance. Middle- and upper-class philanthropists, including Octavia Hill and Angela Burdett-Coutts, contributed to housing improvements and educational programs.

The settlement movement, most notably exemplified by Toynbee Hall (founded 1884), sought to bridge the divide between the classes by placing educated volunteers in poor neighborhoods to offer services and advocate for reform. Reformers emphasized moral and character development alongside material aid, reflecting Victorian beliefs about self-help and the “deserving” versus “undeserving” poor.

Social investigations by writers such as Henry Mayhew (London Labour and the London Poor) and Charles Booth (Life and Labour of the People in London) documented urban poverty in unprecedented detail, providing empirical foundations for later social policy.

Women were disproportionately affected by urban poverty. Many worked in low-paid, insecure occupations such as laundry work, sewing, factory labor, or domestic service. Wages for women were substantially lower than for men, even for equivalent work, and job security was minimal. Widows, single mothers, and elderly women were especially vulnerable to destitution.

Prostitution became a survival strategy for many women, particularly those without family support or alternative employment. The Victorian era saw increasing concern with “fallen women,” and the state responded with a combination of punitive measures (e.g., the Contagious Diseases Acts) and charitable rescue work. Institutions like the Magdalene asylums sought to rehabilitate prostitutes through labor and religious instruction, though these efforts were often coercive and moralizing.

Access to education was extremely limited for the poor during the early Victorian period. Many children worked instead of attending school. Ragged Schools, which provided free education and food for impoverished children, emerged in the 1840s through charitable efforts. The Elementary Education Act of 1870 began the process of compulsory state-funded education, which became mandatory up to age 10 with the 1880 Education Act.

Education was increasingly seen as a means to escape poverty, and literacy rates improved markedly over the century. However, the quality of schooling for poor children often remained low, and many left school to join the labor force as soon as legally permitted.

Poverty and crime were closely linked in the public imagination, with slums seen as breeding grounds for vice and disorder. Petty theft, begging, and prostitution were common survival strategies, and Victorian society increasingly viewed the poor through a lens of criminality.

The creation of professional police forces, such as the Metropolitan Police (1829), marked a shift from informal community policing to more systematic law enforcement. While crime rates did not necessarily rise in line with urbanization, the visibility of crime among the urban poor prompted moral panic and punitive legislation.

Reformatories and industrial schools aimed to redirect delinquent youth, reflecting growing concern about juvenile crime. Nonetheless, the criminal justice system often dealt harshly with poor offenders, many of whom were imprisoned for minor infractions.

By the late Victorian era, public sentiment increasingly recognized the inadequacy of laissez-faire approaches to poverty. Legislative reforms in housing (e.g., the Artisans’ and Labourers’ Dwellings Improvement Acts), public health (e.g., the Public Health Acts), and labor (e.g., the Factory and Mines Acts) reflected a gradual shift toward state intervention.

Reports such as Charles Booth’s maps of poverty in London and Seebohm Rowntree’s studies of York (1899) offered a scientific, data-driven perspective on the causes and extent of poverty, emphasizing that it often arose from structural, not moral, factors. These findings laid the intellectual groundwork for the later development of the British welfare state in the 20th century.

Victorian urban poverty remains a defining feature of 19th-century British history. Its brutal realities influenced literature, politics, social thought, and the foundations of modern social policy. The era’s grappling with poverty spurred a transition from charitable and punitive responses to more comprehensive, rights-based approaches to welfare and social justice. The legacy of Victorian poverty continues to inform debates on urban inequality, housing, public health, and labor conditions in contemporary society.

[morganbritton132]

The worst thing Steve ever did as a dumb little child was tell Hopper that he pretends to cry to get what he wants.

He doesn’t even remember that conversation but years later when he’s thirteen and three beers deep at a high school party, he is rudely reminded of it.

It’s unfortunate that Steve only learns about the police breaking up the party when he makes eye contact with Hopper. It’s even worse when he gets marched out with the other underaged drinkers and then separated from them.

He lets his eyes get big and watery since it’s just him and Powell. His bottom lip trembles. His voice breaks in just the right spot and - a hand snaps their fingers in front of his face and Hopper says, “Can the fake tears, Harrington. They ain’t working here. Get in the truck.”

“But…” how do you know they’re fake dies on Steve’s lips when Hopper glares at him. It’s embarrassing that it doesn’t work and it’s embarrassing that he’s the only one going with Hopper.

Mandy is fifteen and she’s gonna think he’s a total loser now. He tells Hopper this when he finally gets in the truck an hour later, “She - everybody is gonna think I snitched! You’re ruining my life!”

Hopper tells him that he doesn’t care and then asks, “You been drinking?”

“Have you been stupid?” Steve mocks back, kicking the back of his seat. He wasn’t even allowed to sit upfront. “Yes, you have ‘cause you’re stupid. And you suck.”

“Watch it, kid.”

“I’m not a kid!” Steve snaps, kicking his seat again, and again, and again. “I’m going to be a loser forever now and ‘m pro’ably gonna get beat up in jail, and it’s gonna be. All. Your. Fault.”

Hopper slams on the breaks, nearly crashing Steve into the back of his seat. He turns around, “You’re not going to jail. You’re going home because I’m going easy on you. Now shut up, sit there, and be grateful I’m not hauling your ass into the station like your little friends.”

That’s so much worse, Steve thinks. They’re definitely going to think he snitched. He’s never going to be invited to another party for the rest of his life after this. His high school social life is gonna die before he even gets there.

Steve cannot spend all of high school being known as the guy that’s friends with cops. He needs to be at that station. He needs -

He doesn’t even think twice about it.

Hopper’s fingers are curled around the edge of the seat. Steve sends his foot forward, smashing into them. He grinds the heel of his sneaker until Hopper starts swearing.

He swears, and swears louder, and then declares, “You can spend the rest of the night with your friends.”

Good.

Not good, Steve thinks only after they pull into the station’s parking lot. His parents are going to kill him. They’re going to kill him and then reanimate him, and then kill him again. They’re not even home right now to call anyways. Jesus.

He doesn’t have anyone to call.

Hopper drags him into the crowded station and drops him into the chair next to Callahan’s desk. He says, “Book him for underage drinking and resisting arrest.”

Steve vaguely hopes everybody heard that but also, he needs to get out of here. He makes another split second decision and blurts out, “I need to go to the bathroom.”

Callahan doesn’t look up from the new form he has when he says, “Later.”

“I can’t hold it,” Steve says, voice cracking. He gives Callahan big watery eyes when he looks up. He sounds generally pathetic when he adds, “Think ‘m gonna be sick.”

“I- okay. Go. Go! Don’t throw up here.” Callahan waves off. “Bathroom is down the hall.”

Good to know that still works on some people, Steve thinks as he books it down the hall. He goes past the holding cell, past the bathroom, and right out the back exit.

Then he runs.

He gets called ‘Jailbreak’ by the older kids for a while before he gets to high school and they give him a new nickname.

[donutcats]

[fully ignoring the fact that janet got bagged and kidnapped as I scuff my feet against the floor because I'm not yet mentally ready to theorize about whatever the Fuck is going on with that plot thread] man... simon is such a great character huh. he's kind of like a feral cat that's hanging on by a thread and I love him a lot.

[repugnantbeast]

Lesley’s puppetsona (kinda.. it’s more doll the puppet)

Saw some other puppet Lesley designs and I wanted to try and make one

[jomo-is-here]

oh how i wish i had the time and energy to draw more than one thing a month :(

[peipakao]

that post about the lack of fic in opm fandom made me remember this fuckin. essay i wrote like a year ago for a reddit comment that i then shamefully deleted cos it was so entirely irrelevant to the original post. but i saved it so. here it is. a fanthropological analysis on the state of fic in opm fandom:

One Punch Man is not a small fandom by any means, but it definitely seems that most fans are of the 'dudebro who likes to powerscale' variety, and I'm continually surprised by how small the shipping and fanfic writing side of the fandom is in comparison. Like, this is one of the most popular well known anime series in the world, I'm pretty sure even the most casual of anime fans has to have at least heard of it. But it only has 5k fics on AO3, which isn't exactly small, but considering its popularity and in comparison to other popular battle action "shounen" manga (technically OPM is seinen but no one remembers that so), it is bafflingly tiny. I've thought about it a lot, and I think it comes down to multiple related reasons, both internal to the story that limit the likelihood of a fan to write fics for it, and external, lowering the number of ppl who would want to write fics for it that become/stay fans in the first place.

Let's start with internal reasons. The cast of characters is huge, made up of mostly men (a lot of whom are young + attractive). Which seems like it should be a definite boon to M/M shipping--the backbone of a large number of fandoms! But I think there's a difference in that with so many characters, screentime/focus is really spread out across them, and I'd find it hard to really tell you who counts as a "main character". On top of that, there's not a whole lot of interaction between them, they all seem much more isolated. I think this is especially the case in the biggest arc that took 7 years to complete. Even the biggest ship/pair had a ~3 year gap in the manga where they didn't appear together at all.

But there are definitely still lots of ships with potential and interactions to fuel shipping (although I still think less than comparable media), so that's not the whole story. Which brings me to my next point about external factors. Most of those ships are not in the early parts of OPM, and you're probably gonna have to read through the manga and also the webcomic to get to them. Most people have not done this, and have probably only watched season 1 of the anime, considering that was the peak of its popularity. And those early parts are much more comedic, so I think the impression most ppl have of OPM is that it's primarily a gag anime/manga. Which is still true, but the story has definitely gotten more complex and serious. So I think a lot of people who might want to write fic for OPM probably don’t get into it because they don't expect it to have much potential in that regard.

I think the release schedule of the anime also plays a huge role, with the anime taking 4 years to come out with a (widely considered) disappointing second season, and with a third season trailer having been released after like 5 years. It’s probably not an understatement that most anime/manga fandoms are much more focused on the anime side of things, and not everyone who enjoys an anime is going to then get into the manga.

And let's not forget the manga and webcomic release schedule, with the webcomic releasing basically solely according to ONE's whims, and the manga constantly going through redraws. Which I'm not necessarily complaining about since we get all this lovely content for free! But it does pose another hurdle for new potential fans, and I imagine there are quite a few who simply didn't want to put in that commitment over time, or honestly just got confused about what was going on.

OPM as a whole has lost a lot of relevance, it seems not many people are getting into it right now and many fans who did write fic for it at the peak of its popularity have probably left the fandom in search of greener pastures.

This is all just speculation though. I wasn't actually in the fandom when it was popular, only got into it a few years ago, so my theories on its decline aren't super backed up. I hope it gets popular again, having said all that I think there's so much fandom potential that isn't being tapped into. Like others have said, a lot of fandom/fic is based on filling in gaps and aspects that weren't explored, and there's plenty to explore in OPM.

[aalas-f-wings]

Stan is just like me fr, I know he would celebrate every time he *actually* understands/learns something at school

He also stims a lot!!!

[russilton]

Not to be autistic in the room right now— and do not mistake this as me calling ANY driver ASD—

but it does actually piss me off a lot that you can both be criticised for being flat and too focused on your work, and then when you flip it on its head and try to play into the jokes, you are criticised for trying to make people like you.

I’ve experienced both and it drives me mad the way people try to pick apart someone’s personality and accuse them of lying for acceptance— so fucking what— should we not be considering the state of society that people feel like they’ll only get a break from criticism if they try to make everyone like them?

Also the guy who regularly has to go back on his word bc Twitter informs him what he’s said is fucked up is kinda full of it

[lem0nademouth]

i know st paddys is over but i think every day is a good day to remind everyone that the IRA was a terrorist organization that killed and injured a lot of people who had exactly no ability to reunite NI and the Republic

[chill-vibes-but-rainbow-panic]

I rewatched the episode where Lenny talked about his human life and the day he got bitten, and part of it is honestly kinda hilarious

Like, he just goes: "I was fascinated by vampires, because they live in old castles and drink from crystal cups and wear satin cloaks."

But most of the time this show cuts to the count, he's always like: "This school is fucking falling apart, we have absolutely zero money."

[sadaveniren]

.

[qstarhalo]

Guys......what if...........what if the qsmp eggs were in Raggedy Ann and Andy style..............

[swanqueenffprompter]

Emma Swan, freshly placed in foster care with Mary Margaret Blanchard, is just trying to lay low and get through her senior year at a new high school. Unfortunately, that plan goes out the window when she catches the attention of Regina Mills, the queen bee of the school. Regina is ruthless, making Emma's life a living hell with biting insults and cold stares that have everyone else too afraid to step in.

A few days later, after spending extra time at the library, Emma walks into her new foster home and is shocked to find Regina there—cleaning. The girl who everyone thinks is untouchable is scrubbing floors and dusting shelves. Regina freezes, her confidence shattering as she admits that her family isn’t as wealthy as she pretends. Cleaning houses is how she keeps up the charade, and she’s terrified that if anyone finds out, her perfect image will be ruined. She begs Emma not to say anything.

Emma has every reason to expose her, but seeing Regina so vulnerable stirs something unexpected in her. Now, she’s left with a choice: keep the secret and try to understand the girl beneath the facade, or use it to get back at the person who’s made her life a nightmare.

[fortjester]

peeled the dressings off my surgery incisions. they are so small actually. i have covered them back up w strategic bandaids, and now no one would be able to tell i was stabbed.

[ask-fortnite-drift]

WOWIE!! With OG Fortnite back, so is Drift + Ragnarok! Like the og map, they'll only be here for one month so ask while you can!

*Note: Drift and Ragnarok are not connected to the other chapters

[summertimemp3]

I love downton because why did the penultimate episode have the craziest whiplash between the worst writing ever and the most emotionally devastating moments