“In Bridewell Beating Hemp with Many Others in the Like Circumstances”
Description:
Plate 4 of “A Harlot’s Progress,” a series of six engravings made by Hogarth showing the rise and eventual fall of a woman named Polly (or Molly). Although she arrives in London seeking employment as a seamstress, she is misled into a life of prostitution by Elizabeth Needham, a well-known Madam of the time. Polly eventually dies of syphilis. In the scene in this engraving, Polly has been sent to Bridewell prison and is beating hemp. Like Flora Montgomerie, these stories were used to warn women against the fate that awaited them if they wandered too far astray.
On loan from the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives