irisfang 's review for:

Shadows of the Workhouse by Jennifer Worth

5.0

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I have a lot of emotions and it's difficult to write a review that isn't just me smashing on my keyboard. But taking a deep breath and standing back, I think I can say this is one of the best books on a historical topic I've ever read. It tells the stories of those who typically don't get told: the poor, the children, the elderly, the sick. Before reading this book, I would had no idea what a "workhouse" was, much less that it was supposedly started as a social service. From today's perspective it seems more like a prison than anything else. But - and I think this is important - the book doesn't simply go "these people led horrible lives and everything was awful." The people in this story are just that, people , and their stories are not and should not be told as though they are nothing more than a statistic from a system. A history book could have told me what a workhouse was, or what life was like in the east end of London, possibly with more facts than this book contains. This book, however, emphasizes how real the people who lived through all these experiences are. Not everyone went through the system the same, not everyone lived the same lives. And I think that's something we really need to remember: people have lived, loved, suffered, and persevered through incredibly challenging times throughout all of history. Whatever they faced, they deserve to be recognized for all of who they were, and I think this book does a great job of showing that.