Slumming Was a Victorian Leisure Activity
A slum is an overcrowded poor district. Wealthy Victorians visited them for entertainment.
A slum is a squalid overcrowded district, usually urban. The verb *to slum* records something specific: in 1880s London and New York, wealthy people took organised tours of poor districts as an evening's entertainment, a fashion widely reported and criticised at the time. *Slumming it* still carries that sense of visiting hardship voluntarily. The noun appeared in London cant around 1810, originally meaning a room, and its earlier origin is unknown.
- A poor district. *The city slums.*
- To slum it. *Slumming it.*
- Slum clearance. *Slum clearance.*
- A room (archaic cant). *A slum.*
- London slang — about 1810. *The origin.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | slum | A slum. |
| Plural | slums | Slums. |
| Verb | slum | Slumming. |
| Adjective | slummy | Slummy. |
| Compound | slumlord | A slumlord. |
- He grew up in the slums.District.
- Victorians went slumming.History.
- We are slumming it.Idiom.
Victorian slumming
- Organised tours of the East End became fashionable in the 1880s
- Guides and police escorts were sometimes hired
- The press covered it as a craze and criticised it
- Some visitors turned to genuine reform work
- The phrase slumming it survives from the fashion
London cant, recorded from about 1810, originally meaning a room; earlier origin unknown.
What was Victorian slumming?
An 1880s fashion in which wealthy people toured poor districts as entertainment, widely reported and criticised at the time.
What did slum first mean?
A room, in London criminal slang around 1810. The district sense came later.