Rag picker trade plate

Chiffonniers (rag pickers) were men and women, and sometimes their children, working in the streets to collect rags – chiffons in French, which gave the name to their profession – in order to sell them to people who transformed them into paper. They found rags in piles of rubbish in front of houses and in the streets. They located the rags and pulled them out with a pick or hook, their main working tool, and put them into a hood. They also collected animal skins, bones or any other useful material, thus participating in the high circularity of materials at the time. In 1828, the Paris Police Prefecture created an official trade plate to count and control the rag pickers. It was a hierarchised profession with different profiles: authorised rag pickers (a few thousand) as well as unauthorised rag pickers (more numerous). The trade plate was a way to control a profession that was seen with suspicion by the city authorities because it operated at night and often in marginalised areas. With the boom of urbanisation during the 19th century, the rag pickers played an essential role in the social economy of the city. They belonged also to the imaginary, encompassing contrasted feelings and becoming popular characters in European romantic art and literature. Even though by the end of the 19th century rag pickers progressively began losing their crucial role as a result of new waste management methods – for example, the creation of the garbage bin (poubelle in French) – they continued to exist throughout the 20th century.

Inscription Transliteration: Recto : Duplicata, N°490, M. Poussot, Chiffonnier Verso : 1858, 49 ans, 1m65c, CH. ET. S. CH. F. ORD. Y. CH. N. OR. B. MO. ME. RD. BA. CH. VI. OV. Traduction: Recto : Duplicata, N°490, M. Poussot, Chiffonnier Verso : 1858, 49 ans, 1m65, CH. ET. S. CH. F. ORD. Y. CH. N. OR. B. MO. ME. RD. BA. CH. VI. OV. (= CHeveux ET SOurcils CHatains, Front ORDinaire, Yeux CHatains, Nez ORdinaire, Bas MOyen, MEnton rond, BArbe CHâtain, VIsage OVale) Translation: Recto: Duplicata, N°490, Mr. Poussot, Ragpicker Verso : 1858, 49 years old, 1m65cm tall chestnut (light brown) hair and eyebrows ordinary forehead chestnut (light brown) eyes ordinary nose average mouth round chin chestnut (light brown) beard oval face