“Victorian London was an incredibly complex society which had a lot of social issues to deal with, such as crime, poverty, and prostitution,” explains Jamie Wolfendale, marketing executive of The History Press in the U.K.
Thanks to Wolfendale and her colleagues at U.K. publisher History Press, Victorian London now also has Twitter–specifically, a Twitter account that tracks what happened in the Whitechapel district of East London in the late 1880s. That was a time of dockworkers with sore feet, butchers struggling to stay open in neighborhoods full of people too poor to afford meat, beggars stealing apples–and, most famously, Jack the Ripper.
The WhitechapelRealTime account launched on August 24th, and its first week was spent telling the stories of the #Butchers, #Constables, #WorkingLadies, and more–but history buffs and true crime enthusiasts who recognize the name of Mary Ann Nichols know that with her murder on August 31st, Jack the Ripper hysteria was in full effect.
“The media often used and manipulated the social issues to sell more copies of their papers every day,” Wolfendale says. “The Ripper murders are often cited as the reason behind the onset of press sensationalism–which is something that will feature heavily in the project.”
After a successful project in a similar vein last year–TitanicRealTime–the History Press was looking for another concept to tweet in real time, and the nature of both social media and the Jack the Ripper murders made this a logical fit. “Social media would have played a massive factor in the Ripper case if it existed at the time,” Wolfendale adds. “We wanted to show people that there is a much broader and more interesting context to history than that which is often portrayed in popular media.”
It’s hard to imagine just how much the Jack the Ripper case would have been magnified had Twitter existed–it would have been like a somewhat grislier Miley Cyrus twerking of the late 1880s–but with WhitechapelRealTime, we can at least follow along with an alternate history in which it did. See some highlights of WhitechapelRealTime below.
Thank you for following the Whitechapel Real Time campaign. Welcome to Victorian London, 1888…
— WhitechapelRealTime (@WChapelRealTime) August 24, 2013
#Image Brick Lane, London pic.twitter.com/NWfQbhoUO4
— WhitechapelRealTime (@WChapelRealTime) August 24, 2013
#WorkingLady The police lack interest in women like me, making it far easier for me to make a living!
— WhitechapelRealTime (@WChapelRealTime) August 24, 2013
#Dockworker Working the docksides can be hard but I get to see and experience the world
— WhitechapelRealTime (@WChapelRealTime) August 24, 2013
#Reporter Whitechapel is the rotten core of London: dirty, squalid and crime-ridden.
— WhitechapelRealTime (@WChapelRealTime) August 24, 2013
#Reporter Constable! Constable! Any fresh news on the Tabram murder?
— WhitechapelRealTime (@WChapelRealTime) August 25, 2013
#Punch Great advert in the latest edition – get yours now! pic.twitter.com/ADaQlhO39Z
— WhitechapelRealTime (@WChapelRealTime) August 25, 2013
#Punch Dangerous times we live in – take a trip to Pall Mall to secure your Vest pocket revolver today… pic.twitter.com/p9O3M8eiKO
— WhitechapelRealTime (@WChapelRealTime) August 25, 2013
#Punch #Recap: remember this, from July? #Londonlife pic.twitter.com/4Own9PYrxD
— WhitechapelRealTime (@WChapelRealTime) August 25, 2013
#WorkingLady Arrested. Again. At least I have a bed for the night…
— WhitechapelRealTime (@WChapelRealTime) August 27, 2013
#Reporter They conclude that the girl died from 'exhaustion following enteric fever'
— WhitechapelRealTime (@WChapelRealTime) August 27, 2013
#Constable I wonder why that man was limping. Has he been in a fight?
— WhitechapelRealTime (@WChapelRealTime) August 26, 2013
#DrReesL Murder weapon: most likely a knife of some sort, perhaps a butcher's knife #Ripper
— WhitechapelRealTime (@WChapelRealTime) August 31, 2013
#PCNeil Oh! There's a woman lying by the stable. Looks like she's touching the gates… Let me lift my lamp – oh God preserve me, her throat…
— WhitechapelRealTime (@WChapelRealTime) August 31, 2013
#InspHelson 'I was present at mortuary. No cuts to victim's clothes; buttons, stays and clasps mostly fastened. No signs of a struggle.'
— WhitechapelRealTime (@WChapelRealTime) September 3, 2013
#DrReesL. NOTES: Perp must have some rough anatomical knowledge. Crime took 4 or 5 mins, I estimate
— WhitechapelRealTime (@WChapelRealTime) September 1, 2013
#BREAKING Nichols was an 'unfortunate' and had five children. Estranged from husband and lover through DEMON DRINK
— WhitechapelRealTime (@WChapelRealTime) September 1, 2013
[Images via The Lodger (1944)]