Life and Labour of the People in London facts for kids

This map from 1889 shows parts of Whitechapel. The red areas were "well-to-do" (richer), and the black areas were where people had very little money.

This key explains the colors on Booth's poverty map. Each color showed how much money people in an area had.

Life and Labour of the People in London was a very important set of books. It was written by a man named Charles Booth. These books looked closely at the lives of ordinary people in London during the late 1800s. They showed what jobs people did and how they lived.

The first part of this work came out in two books. The first book was published in 1889. The second book came out in 1891. Later, a bigger version was made with nine books between 1892 and 1897. Finally, a huge collection of seventeen books was finished in 1902-1903.

Understanding Life in London

A special part of Booth's study was the creation of detailed maps. These maps showed where people with different amounts of money lived. Investigators walked through the streets of London. They wrote down how wealthy or poor people were in each area. Then, they colored these details onto maps, street by street. This helped everyone see how different parts of the city were.

Where the Information Is Kept

The original notebooks from this huge study are very important. They are kept safe at a special place. This place is called the Archives Division of the British Library of Political and Economic Science. It is part of the London School of Economics and Political Science in London.

See also

• 19th century London
• Costermonger
• Poverty map