Revisiting Southam Street: Class, Generation, Gender, and Race in the Photography of Roger Mayne

Abstract

This article examines pictures taken by the British photographer Roger Mayne of Southam Street, London, in the 1950s and 1960s. It explores these photographs as a way of thinking about the representation of urban, working-class life in Britain after the Second World War. The article uses this focused perspective as a line of sight on a broader landscape: the relationship among class, identity, and social change in the English city after the Second World War. Mayne's photographs of Southam Street afford an examination of the representation of economic and social change in the postwar city and, not least, the intersections among class, race, generation, and gender that reshaped that city.

Life Between Walls: Race, Subdivision and Lodging Houses in Postwar London

“…While the figures in the table represent a small proportion of properties in the area, and further research is needed, the pattern corresponds with descriptions of Notting Hill as a 'zone of transition', especially compared to the more ethnically homogeneous population observed by sociologists in Notting Dale (Jephcott 1964: 25-26). Southam Street, for example, regarded as one of the hubs of Notting Dale's working class community (Brooke 2014), featured just two houses with parts let out as rooms, according to both the 1956 and 1963 valuation lists. 4 Yet even a very limited sample of the valuation lists, focused on the transitional streets of Notting Hill, has more to tell us.…”

Intimate relationships with Shirley Baker’s photos of Manchester and Salford: the mnemonic potential of documentary photos

“…Understanding how people relate to documentary photos that purportedly represent their lives, enables more effective use of found photos as sources in academic and community history contexts. Between 1960and 1981, Shirley Baker (1932-2014 photographed street life in inner-city areas of Manchester and Salford as they were undergoing a drastic council-led 'slum clearance' programme. Her huge photographic portfolio extensively featured children, also teenagers, young mums and the elderly; working age men were marginal figures.…”

“…[3] The work of other, mainly male photographers of London street life, notably Roger Mayne and Nigel Henderson, has been more prominent, see Moran (2012), Brooke (2014 2013, Read (2011). [14] Conveyed in interviews and evaluation feedback.…”

Crime Scene Photography in England, 1895–1960

“…55 As Stephen Brooke has shown in his analysis of the London street photography of Roger Mayne, mid-century documentary photography often used the technique of juxtaposition, such as the movement of children playing against the static lines of streetscapes, or images expressing the dichotomy between social classes. 56 Cinema also provided a visual language of stark morality and emotional tension in the 1930s. By then, there was one cinema seat for every fifteen inhabitants in Britain, with a market second in size only to that of the United States.…”