Covent Garden Flower Women

1877

Street Life in London: Covent Garden Flower Women, 1877. John Thomson (Scottish, 1837–1921). Woodburytype; image: 11 x 7.9 cm (4 5/16 x 3 1/8 in.); paper: 11 x 7.9 cm (4 5/16 x 3 1/8 in.); mounted: 27.1 x 20.8 cm (10 11/16 x 8 3/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Photography Discretionary Fund 2019.49 Thomson’s collaborator, reporter Adolphe Smith said that “The familiar sight of a poor woman holding a pale child in her arms and offering modest violets to the pedestrian, is pregnant with a poetry which rags, and dirt fail to obliterate.” The jobs, which were passed down between generations, required worked long hours and yielded a meager income. These are the real-life counterparts of Eliza Doolittle in the musical My Fair Lady, who started out selling flowers in Covent Garden.