They Came Bearing Bread: The Hard Lives of the Porteuses de Pain

The porteuses de pain (female bread porters) delivered bread in French cities for over a century. They had notoriously hard lives, doing difficult labor and typically living in poverty. One was involved with a famous gang, another with the biggest abortion scandal of the time. Artists and writers portrayed them in paintings, sculpture, novels, poems and plays. This book offers the first in-depth look at their lives: contemporary views of them, their conditions of employment, their social roles and status, their families, their role in crimes as victims and accused, their medical problems and their portrayals in the arts. It is meant both as an introduction to lives unknown to many today and as a source book for future efforts by others.