Streets Coloured Black and Blue: Charles Booth's notebooks and the revelation of London's poverty

The notebooks that Charles Booth and his assistants kept of their explorations of late-Victorian London poverty are unparalleled in the detail and colour they provide for the modern researcher. Historian Sarah Wise undertook a close examination of the Booth Archive held at the LSE, and in this illustrated talk, she reveals how the notebooks enabled her to piece together a complex picture of life in one small part of ‘outcast London’.

Sarah Wise (@MissSarahWise) is the author of three books on 19th-century social history, including The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of A Victorian Slum. She teaches undergraduates at the University of California’s London study centre and runs adult education courses in Victorian history and literature at the Bishopsgate Institute, East London.

Nicola Wright (@NCWright06) joined LSE in 2008 from Imperial College London where she led the development of the UK Research Reserve project. In March 2015 Nicola was appointed Director of Library Services.

The British Library of Political and Economic Science (@LSELibrary) was founded in 1896, a year after the London School of Economics and Political Science.  It has been based in the Lionel Robbins Building since 1978 and houses many world class collection, including The Women's Library.  

Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSEBooth

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