skygiants

Oh huh, I didn't know any of this! I mean, it's not particularly surprising because it's the kind of thing middle-class reformers love to get up in arms about, but I wasn't aware it was so much of A Thing.

(As a sidenote, it wasn't until I read the sequels that I even realized that the books took place in the US -- as a child I somehow had the vague impression that all poverty-stricken turn-of-the-century hovels were in the UK by default.)