Bread Winner

“[A] compelling re-evaluation of the Victorian economy. . . . Bread Winner is a book with the personal and domestic at its heart, telling a powerful story of social realities, pressures, and the fracturing of traditional structures. . . . The great strength of this book is the assurance with which the author moves from the intimate to the general and back again, using eyewitness recollections as a lens through which the reader can examine a society in flux.”—Wall Street Journal

“Deeply researched and sensitive without being sentimental.”—Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph, “Best History Books of 2020”

“There is much that is fascinating in Bread Winner about the choices imposed on and faced by those entering the labour market.”—Cormac Ó Gráda, Familia

“Bread Winner is constructive for its use of personal narratives as historical evidence that can generate new interdisciplinary methods of interpretation in economic history.”—Sarah Winter, Victorian Studies

Shortlisted for the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing 

“Griffin’s pioneering research shifts our attention from the generalities of economic growth to the realities of lived experience. Her humane and human book is an outstanding contribution to the history of Victorian Britain.”—Martin Daunton, author of Wealth and Welfare

“Bread Winner is a love affair with life-writing. The extraordinary voices of the poor, the ambitious, the mobile and the utterly insignificant of Victorian Britain are brought together to tell us how they got by in a precarious world.”—Lucy Delap, author of Knowing Their Place

“A sobering—and important—account of the human dimensions of economic life. . . . Makes a powerful case for why attention to the family is indispensable to any understanding of the Victorian economy.” —Deborah Cohen, author of Family Secrets

“Griffin’s startling re-evaluation of the Victorian family, powered by the voices and experiences of the poor themselves, is both rigorous and moving in its human detail and searching analyses.”—Peter Mandler, author of The English National Character