Round About a Pound a Week

"Round About a Pound a Week" was an influentialcite journal |last=Oren|first=Laura |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1973 |month=Winter/Spring |title=The Welfare of Women in Laboring Families:England, 1860-1950 |journal=Feminist Studies |volume=1 |issue=3/4 |pages=107 |id= |url= |accessdate=2008-06-18 |quote=] 1913 survey of poverty and infant mortality in London, by feminist and socialist Maud Pember Reeves. The project was conceived and carried out under the auspices of the Fabian Society's Women's Group, which she co-founded in 1908. The report was originally published as a political pamphlet, arguing for specific reforms, but is still in print and relevant today. [ [http://www.nzine.co.nz/views/maud_reeves.html nzine review ] ]

The Fabian Society, a precursor to the Labour Party, set out to try to alleviate the poverty of a few dozen families in Lambeth, a poor borough in South London, and to record this attempt at social reform. The project stretched over the four years just before the Great War, i.e. 1909 - 1913. The families they selected were "not" the poorest; they were the "respectable poor" of the working class, with the menfolk in relatively stable employment, earning "about a pound a week"; nonetheless, one in five of the children died at birth, and another one in ten before they reached adulthood. The project targeted pregnant women, and offered them money for extra food from a few months before the birth until several months afterwards. The families kept detailed budgets of their income and expenditure.

The book contains details of the division of food within the family, with the breadwinner being given a much greater share of the food than the rest of the family. This was because the other family members were completely dependent on the breadwinner. Nonetheless, this was rarely a sufficient amount.

The conditions described in the book have been described as "appalling",Rose, Sonya O, 1993, "Limited Livelihoods. Gender and Class in nineteenth-Century England". University of California Press. p.79] demonstrating the daily struggle these women faced to feed their families without being "forced to pawn their own boots.

It has also been noted that Reeves avoided the "sense of moral superiority" common in outside observers of these people, seeing them as "independent, resourceful, hard-working, respectable, but poor". Perkin, Joan, 1989. "Women and Marriage in nineteenth-Century England". Routledge, London. p 131]

The Fabian pamphlet argued for government reforms, including child benefit, school dinners, and free health clinics. It also noted the role of poor housing conditions in child mortality.

References

* Reeves, M.S. "Round About a Pound a Week". New York: Garland Pub., 1980. ISBN 0824001192