Postcard, photographic postcard

Portrait postcard of a young resident of the training home run by the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants. This is one in a series of photographs taken of the girls just before they left the home for employment as domestic servants in London houses. MABYS was funded in 1874 by Henrietta Barnett & Mrs Nassau Senior to rescue unruly street girls and prostitutes and retrain them as domestic servants. Like many wealthy women their work among the poor related to the only model of cross-class relationship they knew firsthand: their relationship with their domestic servants. Many of the Association's wealthy supporters often went on to employ the 'rescued' girls as members of their own household.