Victorian "Underclass"

The underclass consists of “sunken people” who lived in poverty. (Victorious: Victorian Era) The underclass was located in East London, which is now the city of White Chapel. The Victorian lower class was divided into two sections; the working class who did labor and the poor. The poor were people who did not relatively work, did not work at all, or received public charity. “The lower class contained men, women, and children performing many types of labor, including factory work, seamstressing, chimney sweeping, mining, and other jobs. Both the poorer class and the middle class had to endure a large burden of tax. This third class consisted of about eighty-five percent of the population but owned less than fifty percent of the land.” (Victorious: Victorian Era) In the working class, skill and unskilled workers categorized people. Skilled workers obtain power to create Trade Unions, which helped them improve and move up the social class. While the skilled workers progress, the unskilled workers and underclass became vulnerable in exploitation and resulted in exploitation. During the 1850s, 750,000 women were left without men because there were 4% more women then men. These women were called “superfluous women.” (Victorious: Victorian Era) --Women who were not married because there were not enough men. This resulted in many women to be known as “fallen woman.” They were prostitutes and were paid to have sexual relations with men. They worked as domestic servants. Prostitution became a social problem and some were murdered brutally by Jack the Ripper. “In London during this time, there were approximately 50,000 prostitutes out of a population of 1.1 million.” (Suit101: Post-Jane Austen Novels) that is about 4% of the population. The underclass was a violent and exploited class to live in.

• http://victorious.pbworks.com/Victorian-era#Prostitution
  
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era
  
• http://recommended-fiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/postjane_austen_novels
  
• http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/627776/Victorian-Age