Gender in History Material Masculinities

This book explores men’s material culture and consumer behaviour in the rapid social and economic transformations of eighteenth-century England, arguing that men came to rely on their possessions to make sense of their identities during such significant historical changes. Material masculinities is the first book-length study dedicated to eighteenth-century men’s material culture and consumer behaviour. Whilst scholarship has increasingly acknowledged men as active participants in consumer society, the broader implications of their material interactions have previously remained underexplored.This timely monograph examines the complexities of men’s material lives as they ascended the social hierarchy, the book studies five ‘material masculinities’ throughout the key stages of life – boyhood, householder, mobile man, discerning consumer, and gentleman sportsman – to highlight how material culture shaped masculine identity formation, experiences, and the dynamics of gendered power. Drawing on an extensive array of historical sources, the book reveals how men relied on goods to construct and perform multifaceted masculine identities. It also examines how their choices, desires, practices, and skills influenced and defined the consumer culture of eighteenth-century England.Material masculinities argues that these goods played a central role in how men understood themselves during a period of profound social, cultural, economic, and political change – change that was underpinned by men’s active participation in the commercialisation of British society in this pivotal period of English history. Material Masculinities examines the material and consumer practices of over 1000 men from the middling and upper ranks of eighteenth-century society, c.1650–1850. It draws upon evidence from over 35 archives and museum collections to detail how material objects were integral for men in forming identities and shaping experiences. For men of all social ranks, ages, and geographic locations, material knowledge was imperative for masculine social identities to operate in a commercial society. Before the centralised factory and widespread mass-produced goods, men personalised and repaired their goods; products were shaped by men’s attitudes and concerns. Objects were tools in men’s identity formation and the exercise of social and gendered power. There was a reciprocal relationship between men and goods in this period; men were active agents of material and commercial change driving product and aesthetic innovation.

Pages: 304, Hardcover, Manchester University Press