About the Book
Longlisted for the Historians of British Art Book Prize 2023
The 18th century has been hailed for its revolution in consumer culture, but Material Literacy in Eighteenth-Century Britain repositions Britain as a nation of makers. It brings new attention to 18th-century craftswomen and men with its focus on the material knowledge possessed not only by professional artisans and amateur makers, but also by skilled consumers. This book gathers together a group of interdisciplinary scholars working in the fields of art history, history, literature and museum studies to unearth the tactile and tacit knowledge that underpinned fashion, tailoring and textile production. It invites us into the workshops, drawing rooms and backrooms of a broad range of creators, and uncovers how production and manual knowledge extended beyond the factories and machines which dominate industrial histories.
This book illuminates, for the first time, the material literacies learnt, enacted and understood by British producers and consumers. The skills required for sewing, embroidering and the textile arts were possessed by a large proportion of the British population: men, women and children, professional and amateur alike. Building on previous studies of shoppers and consumption in the period, as well as narratives of manufacture, this collection documents the multiplicity of small producers behind Britain’s consumer revolution, reshaping our understanding of the dynamics between making and objects, consumption and production. It demonstrates how material knowledge formed an essential part of daily life for eighteenth-century Britons. Craft technique, practice and production, the contributors show, constituted forms of tactile languages that joined makers together, whether they produced objects for profit or pleasure.
Table of Contents:
List of Figures
List of Tables
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction, Serena Dyer (De Montfort University, UK) and Chloe Wigston Smith (University of York, UK)
2. ‘Work’d pockets to my entire satisfaction’: Women and the Multiple Literacies of Making, Ariane Fennetaux (University of Paris, France)
3. Needlework Verse, Crystal B. Lake (Wright State University, USA)
4. Domestic Crafts at the School of Arts, Chloe Wigston Smith (University of York, UK)
5. ‘To Embroider what is Wanting’: Making, Consuming and Mending Textiles in the Lives of the Bluestockings, Nicole Pohl (Oxford Brookes University, UK)
6. Material Literacies of Home Comfort in Georgian England, Jon Stobart (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)
7. Stitching and Shopping: The Material Literacy of the Consumer, Serena Dyer (De Montfort University, UK)
8. Stitching the It-Narrative in The History and Adventures of a Lady’s Slippers and Shoes, Alicia Kerfoot (SUNY Brockport, USA)
9. Making, Measuring and Selling in Hampshire: The Provincial Tailor’s Accounts of George and Benjamin Ferrey, Sarah Howard (Independent Scholar, UK)
10. Gendered Making and Material Knowledge: Tailors and Mantua-Makers, c. 1760–1820, Emily Taylor (National Museums Scotland, UK)
11. Dress and Dressmaking: Material Evolution in Regency Dress Construction, Hilary Davidson (University of Sydney, Australia)
12. Fancy Feathers: The Feather Trade in Britain and the Atlantic World, Elisabeth Gernerd (Historic Royal Palaces, UK)
13. Tomahawks and Scalping Knives: Manufacturing Savagery in Britain, Robbie Richardson (University of Kent, UK)
14. The Lady Vanishes: Madame Tussaud’s Self Portrait and Material Legacies, Laura Engel (Duquesne University, USA)
15. Learning to Craft, Beth Fowkes Tobin (University of Georgia, USA)
Select Bibliography
Index
About the Author :
Serena Dyer is Lecturer in History of Design and Material Culture at De Montfort University, UK. She has published on albums, wallpaper, consumer culture and childhood in the eighteenth century. Her book, Material Lives: Women Makers and Consumer Culture in the 18th Century, was published by Bloomsbury in 2021.
Chloe Wigston Smith is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English and Related Literature and the Centre for 18th Century Studies at the University of York, UK. She is the author of Women, Work, and Clothes in the 18th-Century Novel (2013), as well as articles on women in literature, material culture studies and fashion culture.
Review :
This collection adds significant depth to consumer-focused histories of the eighteenth century, providing a valuable model of material literacy for future scholars. It challenges entrenched boundaries between producers and consumers, and moves our understanding of engagement with the material world beyond the shop counter to the varied and multiple spaces in which it might take place. This forms a vital step forward in histories of consumption, but the volume is of broader significance for scholars of the eighteenth century and beyond as it also speaks powerfully to gender and status hierarchies of knowledge, print culture, commerce, and colonial entanglements.
This book has much to recommend to anyone interested in the material culture of the eighteenth century. Individual chapters and groups of chapters will also make fascinating reading for scholars interested in the place of reconstruction in academic work, the status of craft and craft knowledge in Britain (and elsewhere), the textile, clothing and furnishing trades, shopping, and visual culture.
[Material Literacy in 18th-Century Britain] is a beautifully illustrated, multi-perspective volume that will be essential reading for anyone working on material culture.
Material Literacy brings together a wealth of experienced and emerging talent that demonstrates the vitality and range of material culture studies and points to a vibrant future for further work […] That eighteenth-century Britain was a “nation of makers” is unquestionably demonstrated within this volume. […] With the range of essays and the diversity of expertise evident within them, Material Literacy will surely become a central and critical piece for readers and scholars at all levels who are interested in material culture studies.
