Sujet

The Gasworkers’ Strike: Christmas Eve entertainment for gas stokers, 1890. Creator: Unknown.

Légende

The Gasworkers' Strike: Christmas Eve entertainment for gas stokers, 1890. 'The South Metropolitan Gas Company, by the energetic and determined management of its operations under the conduct of Mr. George Livesey, the Chairman, has successfully overcome the difficulty of providing a full supply of gas for its customers in the southern and south-eastern districts of London. Two or three weeks' practice has made the new hands brought from the country as expert in the few and simple duties of attending to the retorts, which have been described in former notices of this subject, as the old hands were before they "struck" in obedience to the dictators of the Gas Workers' Union...the gasworkers...were treated to a cheerful social entertainment on Christmas Eve [ie a 'minstrel show' - performed by mostly white actors wearing blackface makeup for the purpose of portraying racial stereotypes of Black people]. It is now felt that the crisis has passed, as the men of the Beckton and other large gasworks are not likely to follow an example which has signally failed; and the coal supply of London is drawn from many different sources, by railway as well as by vessels entering the Thames'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.

Crédit

Photo12/Heritage Images/The Print Collector

Notre référence

HRM25A51_066

Model release

NA

Property release

NA

Licence

Droits gérés

Format disponible

24,6Mo (4,3Mo) / 31,0cm x 19,9cm / 3659 x 2346 (300dpi)

Mots clés

people male looking work employment man men music arts industry worker class audience musician musicians art guy watching British lighting blackface industrial performance gas performers performer performing make up show makeup strike Victorian century Britain cosmetics make-up newspapers press print company concept controversy B&W strikers striker controversial engraved engraving racism Working Class 19th century black & white black and white B W working-class minstrels nineteenth century racist workers The Print Collector gas lighting Illustrated London News industrial action minstrel social class wood engraving ILN blacked up newspaper Unknown blacking up South Metropolitan Gas Company gas lights on strike 19th-century minstrel show The Illustrated London News W. D. A. A. W. D.