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Material lives : women makers and consumer culture in the 18th century
Author
Title
Material lives : women makers and consumer culture in the 18th century / Serena Dyer.
ISBN
9781350127029
9781350127005
9781350126961
1350127000
9781350126985
1350126985
9781350126978
Edition
First edition.
Publication
London ; Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020.
Distribution
[London, England] : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020
Physical Description
1 online resource.
Local Notes
Access is available to the Yale community.
Notes
Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.
Access and use
Access restricted by licensing agreement.
Summary
"Conventional histories of the 18th century - and the industrial revolution and the birth of the consumer society - have distorted our understanding of the complex dynamics of material production and consumption and the ways in which these were experienced by both men and women. With its illuminating stories of women's experiences, and their material literacy and agency as producers, Material Lives offers a new way of looking at this period, challenging previously held views and assumptions. Using deep archival research to tell these stories, Material Lives shifts the conceptual framework by which women are perceived as passive consumers - those who bought things - to active producers - those who made things. Dyer focusses on genteel women, whose engagement with production has traditionally been characterised as decorative, trivial and superficial, and reveals the strategies used by women to negotiate and record their interactions with the increasingly sophisticated world of goods. Exploring the material archives of four women of the period - fabric samples, 'dress of the year' watercolours, doll-sized versions of women's garments and adorned prints - as forms of lifewriting, or material biographies, the book reveals how women used the material culture of making to record and navigate their lives. In so doing, Material Lives challenges our previously held understanding of 18th-century society and the history of gender, making and consumption, placing women centrally as 'makers' in this new consumer society. For researchers and students of material culture, dress history, consumption, gender and women's history, it offers a rich resource of stories to illuminate the past"-- Provided by publisher.
Variant and related titles
Bloomsbury dress and costume library.
Other formats
Also published in print.
Print version: Dyer, Serena. Material lives London ; New York : Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020.
Format
Books / Online
Language
English
Added to Catalog
August 12, 2024
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Charts and Tables
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
1. Introduction: Making Material Lives Material Life Writing The Consumer Culture of Making Four Material Lives
2. Material Accounting: A Sartorial Account Book Barbara Johnson (1738?1825) Educating Barbara Johnson Accounting for Herself Material Literacy A Chronicle of Fashion
3. Dress of the Year: Watercolours Ann Frankland Lewis (1757?1842) Sartorial Timekeeping and the Fashion Plate Accomplishment and Creative Practice Society and Fashionable Display Selfhood, Emotion and the Mourning Watercolours
4. Adorned in Silk: Dressed Prints Sabine Winn (1734?1798) Paper Textiles, Dress and the Dressed Print Sabine Winn's Dressed Prints Print and Making at Nostell
5. Fashions in Miniature: Dolls Laetitia Powell (1741?1801) The Powell Dolls Mimetic Dolls and Miniature Selves Dolls as Sartorial Social Narrators
6. Conclusion: Material Afterlives
Glossary
Bibliography
Index.
Subjects
Genre/Form
Electronic books.
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