Jane Eyre: Coming of Age as a Worker

This shirt is part of the uniform children wore at the Foundling Museum we visited. Embroidered on the necks are phrases that teachers said to the children while they were there. This one struck me in particular because Jane Eyre also faces this accusation as a young orphan.

This wall of "tokens" at the Foundling Museum represents the love of the mothers who had to give up their children due to poverty or illegitimacy. Tokens were sometimes left with the children to allow them to have an item from a loved one. 

This staircase led to the second floor of the Foundling Museum. Next to the stairs was a poem an orphan girl wrote about the spirit of the staircase and all the mothers who had abandoned their children there. While Jane's mother and father were middle class citizens, being an orphan without fortune reduced her to a working class existence. 

At the Geffrye Museum of Interior Design, we explored middle class life through the ages. In Jane Eyre's time, well-bred women were women of leisure. That was the mark of the genteel. However, Jane is never content to just knit stockings or play music. She aspires for greater intellectual pursuits. 

The nineteenth century artwork at the Tate Britain is full of symbolism about the role of women in society. One painting by Emily Osborn (1828-1925) titled Nameless and Friendless depicts a widowed woman attempting to sell her paintings at an art gallery. Instead of appraising the artwork, the men in the background are appraising the lady painter.