An online group of family history writers that I belong to sometimes reads a book to see how other writers have treated their historic subjects. This time the book was The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper. In it the author, Hallie Rubenhold, wrote about the lives of Jack the Ripper's victims, showing the reality of those lives as opposed to the lore passed down by Ripperologists through the ages.
Almost right away after the murders in 1888, a whole mythology sprang up around the deaths and the perpetrator. The emphasis was on the killer, Jack, and the mystery of his identity. The victims became throw away women, branded prostitutes by the press and dismissed as such by those whose interest was in the killer's mysterious identity.
Because of my interest in the East End of London in my research, I have read some of the many books about Jack the Ripper. They often contain details about the area where my family lived and the social life of the times that is hard to find elsewhere. I welcomed Robenhold's book and, when I took it off the shelf, I could see that my copy bristled with many bookmarks marking the places that had information that I wanted to look into further.
Jack terrorized the streets of the East End in 1888, a few years after the widow, Sarah Minster Cavanagh, had passed. So the details in the book would concern the generation after her. But when I leafed through the book again I came upon a chapter with the title "Demon Drink" and much of it is about the effect of alcohol on women. On my family tree a few women from that era and general location succumbed to that particular demon. Looks like it's time to read that chapter again and to look at whatever other items of interest I flagged in the book on my first read through.
Sources:
Britannica article about Jack the Ripper https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jack-the-Ripper
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