In the mid-1860s Arthur J Munby began to collect the first mass-produced photographic images of working-class women in England, recording fascinating details about the women, the places he
purchased the photographs and the raging debates on this new commercial practice of photography, in accompanying diaries.Many of these images—not to mention Munby’s fascinating diaries—have
never been published before. This book examines this previously un-investigated archive, offering a fresh and arresting perspective on the interrelationships between photographic
representations of working-class women, the creation of new identities of class and gender and the evolution of popular conceptions of photography itself.
