Cheap Street : London’S Street Markets and the Cultures of Informality, C.1850–1939

From around 1850, London’s street markets grew in number and scale, giving working-class Londoners a site for shopping, entertainment and sociability. Cheap Street is the first major study of this subject, analysing the street markets as a component of London’s lively informal economy, and providing new insights into urban and consumer geographies. -- .

Cheap street is a lively and scholarly account of London’s street markets, which were an overlooked site of urban modernity and the most vigorous outgrowth of the informal economy that flourished below and beyond the recognised institutions of the consumer city. Kelley brings together design and material culture history, urban studies and social and cultural history to analyse the street markets’ distinct characteristics. These included the flaring naked flames of their naphtha lights, their impermanent yet persistent unofficial occupation of space, and the noisy performative selling that took place there. The result is a new interpretation of London’s urban geographies, moving beyond the accepted view of the West End as the consumer city and the East as the city of poverty, and demonstrating that the informality of the street markets was a powerful force in shaping representations of London and its people. -- .