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Clothing the Poor in Nineteenth-Century England
About this book
In this pioneering study Vivienne Richmond reveals the importance of dress to the nineteenth-century English poor, who valued clothing not only for its practical utility, but also as a central element in the creation and assertion of collective and individual identities. During this period of rapid industrialisation and urbanisation formal dress codes, corporate and institutional uniforms, and the spread of urban fashions replaced the informal dress of agricultural England. This laid the foundations of modern popular dress and generated fears about the visual blurring of social boundaries as new modes of manufacturing and retailing expanded the wardrobes of the majority. However, a significant impoverished minority remained outside this process. Clothed by diminishing parish assistance, expanding paternalistic charity and the second-hand trade, they formed a 'sartorial underclass' whose material deprivation and visual distinction was a cause of physical discomfort and psychological trauma.
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Information
Table of contents
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Tables
- Abbreviations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction Identifying the poor, locating their clothes
- 1 Setting the standard: working-class dress
- 2 âFrankly, a mysteryâ: budgeting for clothes
- 3 âPoverty busied itselfâ: buying clothes
- 4 âWomanâs best weaponâ: needlework and home-made clothing
- 5 âThe struggle for respectabilityâ
- 6 The sense of self
- 7 âThe bowels of compassionâ: clothing and the Poor Law
- 8 âAn urgent desire to clothe themâ: ladiesâ clothing charities
- 9 âWe have nothing but our clothesâ: charity schools and servants
- 10 âThe greatest stigma and disgraceâ: lunatic asylums, workhouses and prisons
- Conclusion No finery
- Bibliography
- Index