Material Lives: Women Makers and Consumer Culture in the 18th Century

(Paperback)

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Eighteenth-century women told their life stories through making. With its compelling stories of womens material experiences and practices, Material Lives offers a new perspective on eighteenth-century production and consumption. Genteel womens making has traditionally been seen as decorative, trivial and superficial. Yet their material archives, forged through fabric samples, watercolours, dressed prints and dolls garments, reveal how women used the material culture of making to record and navigate their lives. Material Lives positions women as makers in a consumer society. Through fragments of fabric and paper, Dyer explores an innovative way of accessing the lives of otherwise obscured women. For researchers and students of material culture, dress history, consumption, gender and womens history, it offers a rich resource to illuminate the power of needles, paintbrushes and scissors.

Reviews

There is something deeply moving about encountering eighteenth-century women via the things they stitched, wore, cut, drew and painted. Richly detailed, evocative and precise as well as beautifully illustrated Material Lives has much in common with the intricate, creative women's work that Dyer studies in this book. * Hannah Greig, University of York, UK *
Serena Dyers lavishly illustrated and brilliantly researched book calls for us to rethink the immense cultural power of the needles, brushes, glue and scissors that four Georgian women used to fashion new versions of history. It is a compelling read. * Alison Matthews David, Ryerson University, Canada *
A meticulous, insightful and intimate reconstruction of how four genteel women recorded and memorialized their lives through material life writing ... [and] a compelling vision of womens engagement in the eighteenth-century world of goods as knowledgeable, skilful and creative makers. * Karen Harvey, University of Birmingham, UK *
This splendid book portrays the unforgettable world of female imagination, skill and artistic talent that shaped consumer identity in the eighteenth century. * Giorgio Riello, University of Warwick, UK *
Material Lives offers a brilliant re-evaluation of eighteenth-century womens lives through their craft practices. Organised around four rich case studies, Dyers book eloquently questions the presumed primacy of the textual archive and models an innovative interdisciplinary methodology that has far-reaching repercussions for the study of womens history. * Jennie Batchelor, University of Kent, UK *

Author Bio

Serena Dyer is a historian of material culture, consumption and fashion. She is Lecturer in History of Design and Material Culture at De Montfort University, UK, an Associate Fellow of the University of Warwick and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Paul Mellon Centre. She was previously Curator of the Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture, London, UK.