ABSTRACT
The prominence of Outcast London in metropolitan historiography makes it impossible to identify a simple pattern of ‘myth and revision’ in the treatment of the working class. In the long run the concentration on casual labour and the inner east end may have been distortive, reinforcing the impression of London as a rapidly deindustrialising city to the extent that her developing industries were overlooked. London labour history after Outcast London reflected many of the movements of labour history nationally. The main developments in London labour history have been in the gender history of the metropolitan working class. Little has been written on the impact of the war itself on London, though a series of Anglo-French economic and demographic studies is filling that gap, assessing the economic dislocation caused by the outbreak of war, and the effect of wartime conditions on infant mortality in London.
