At the Foundling Museum a charitable organization called "Exchange" challenges individuals to perform one simple act of kindness during their day. It encourages people in our working society to get involved with charity and the community around them.
The Foundling Museum showed how poor orphan children lived. The children were forced to join the workforce at young ages. They learned what it meant to "come of age" as a worker in their society by wearing clothes representing military and domestic roles that they would soon fill in society.
The Geffrye Museum was dedicated to show the history of the typical home throughout different centuries. We were able to see how the working class lived and the roles that women were expected to fill.
The job of a governess was very poorly paid, and often very lonely. Governesses were expected to teach the children of the house. They became dependent on their masters and had little to no hope of becoming independent later in life. This picture shows a typical kitchen and wash room that a governess would have in her master's house.
This painting shows a working woman from the 19th century. By looking at her facial expressions, we are able to see that she is unhappy, exhausted, and feels a sense of despair. She is unhappy about her position as a lower class worker and probably knows what it means to have to work for a living just to get by. No matter how much she tries, she cannot overcome her position in the lower class and will forever live a life of work to make ends meet.
Nice job, Lauren! I like your images and thought you did a great job expressing your thoughts. I like that you added in the picture of the kitchen that would have been in a governesses room. You are really able to get a feel of what their life would be like from those kinds of images. believed
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the pictures that you used for your blog this week! Not only did they represent what life was like for a working class citizen in the 19th century, but I liked how you explained in more detail about the governess and told what her life consisted of as she came to age as a worker. The descriptions with these pictures really gave me more in depth knowledge on what it was like to come to age as a worker in the 19th century. Awesome job Lauren!!
ReplyDeleteGreat pictures! You did a great job at describing what the piece of art meant from the Tate Britain.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Lauren! I really enjoyed your pictures and captions. I thought the first picture about the Exchange organization was a great way to open your photo essay and a neat thing to include! These images really show what it was like to Come of Age as a Worker in the 19th century. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteI liked the details that you captured for our eyes. A little note: the Geoffrye showed the interiors of the middle class, not the working class. A governess is declasse (middle class fallen on hard times), so you can see small tokens (pottery, for example) that revealed she once had a nicer standard of living than the quarters she was living in now.
ReplyDeleteLauren, this is simply amazing. Your pictures and captions are very moving and capture the full essence of the places we've visited thus far. In particular, your picture of the governess's kitchen and washroom really shows just how little a governess had. Great work and keep it up! We have another fun week ahead of us!
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