Throughout the twentieth century, historians debated what happened to the living standards of ordinary men, women, and children during the British industrial revolution. But where this historical question once attracted attention from across the methodological spectrum, the past two decades have seen cultural and qualitative approaches eclipsed by statistical accounts written by economic historians. In this article, I will argue that the marginalisation of social and cultural approaches to historical living standards has been to the detriment of our understanding. Through an analysis of two discrete sources of evidence – nineteenth-century budget data and working-class autobiography – this article sheds new light on the diets and living standards of the labouring poor. It rejects the optimism/pessimism dichotomy that continues to frame quantitative analyses and presents a more nuanced account that examines how experiences varied according to region, gender and age. The article concludes that it is not only that it is possible to incorporate cultural change into our analyses of living standards, but that it is necessary to do so in order to grasp this period in all its complexity.

中文翻译：

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英国工业革命期间的饮食、饥饿和生活水平*

在整个 20 世纪，历史学家一直在争论英国工业革命期间普通男人、女人和儿童的生活水平发生了什么变化。但是，这个历史问题曾经引起了整个方法论领域的关注，但在过去的 20 年里，文化和定性方法被经济历史学家撰写的统计记录所掩盖。在本文中，我将论证社会和文化方法对历史生活水平的边缘化已经损害了我们的理解。通过分析两个独立的证据来源——19 世纪的预算数据和工人阶级的自传——这篇文章揭示了劳动贫困者的饮食和生活水平。它拒绝继续构成定量分析的乐观/悲观二分法，并提出了一个更细致入微的说明，检查体验如何根据地区、性别和年龄而变化。本文的结论是，不仅可以将文化变迁纳入我们对生活水平的分析，而且有必要这样做才能全面掌握这一时期的复杂性。