The Women who made Victorian Matchboxes (Brutal Work and Starvation Pay)

Victorian women were exploited as match-box makers in London's East End, working long hours day and night to make enough boxes to earn money to eat and stave off the rent collector - so many in fact that they lived surrounded by them in mean and dirty rooms. Match-box making was such a horrible piece-work existence that, were the boxes you spent countless hours making failed to dry, then not only would you earn nothing from the factory, but you'd find starvation knocking at the door. Find out about this unforgiving work in an eye-witness contemporary account by charitable ladies that visited homeworkers to discover their hard lives.

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Credits: Narration - markmanningmedia.com
CC-BY - Match box making, Members of the Matchmakers' Union, ‘Pearl’ safety matches, London, England, 1890-1 by Wellcome Collection; Matchbox by Auckland Museum
CC BY-SA - Bow match factory by Tim Fahey; Queen's Building Mile End Road by Ewan Munro

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