Describing Women's Clothing in Eighteenth-Century England (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781837650347)

Uncovers sources from the parish pauper to the gentlewoman to consider relationships with clothing across the social hierarchy in the long eighteenth century.

Descriptions of women's clothing increasingly circulated across textual genres and beyond in eighteenth-century England. This book explores the significance of these descriptions across a range of sources including wills, newspapers, accounts, court records, and the records of the old poor law.

Attention has rested on women literate and wealthy enough to leave behind textual or material traces, but this book ranges from the parish pauper to the gentlewoman to consider descriptive languages, rhetorical strategies, and relationships with clothing across the social hierarchy. It explores how women described their own clothing, but also looks at how it was described by overseers, family members, retailers, and even strangers. It shows that we must look beyond isolated descriptions to how, why, and who was describing clothing to understand its role. Chapters uncover themes of material obligation, expectation, and entitlement.

This book also contributes to our understanding of the material literacy of eighteenth-century consumers. It traces the role of textual description in this dissemination of knowledge about clothing, but also alerts us to what was happening beyond the written word, drawing attention to the communication of multisensory information. Above all, it demonstrates that there remains much still to be unpicked from textual sources.

Author: Elizabeth Spencer
ISBN-10: 1837650349
ISBN-13: 9781837650347
Publisher: Boydell Press
Language: English
Published: 03/12/2024
Pages: 224
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.08lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.56d