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The Bride's Story (1): The Child Manon

Siân Reynolds

in Marriage and Revolution: Monsieur and Madame Roland

This chapter describes the birth, upbringing, household and family of Marie-Jeanne Phlipon, using contemporary documents. The daughter of an engraver, her background is that of Parisian shopkeepers ... More

This chapter describes the birth, upbringing, household and family of Marie-Jeanne Phlipon, using contemporary documents. The daughter of an engraver, her background is that of Parisian shopkeepers and artisans. As an only surviving child, she receives hidden educational advantages, despite being a girl. A year in a convent school brings friendship with Sophie Cannet, addressee of a long correspondence.Less

The Tensions of Class and Region

Hester Barron

in The 1926 Miners' Lockout: Meanings of Community in the Durham Coalfield

This chapter explores the boundaries of region and social class that defined the identity of the Durham miner in the 1920s, and how this affected the positions adopted and choices made in 1926. It ... More

This chapter explores the boundaries of region and social class that defined the identity of the Durham miner in the 1920s, and how this affected the positions adopted and choices made in 1926. It assesses the strength of the occupational community, examining the dominance of mining in County Durham, and the relationships of the miners with other social and occupational groups, particularly during the general strike. Sections are devoted to the middle classes, shopkeepers, and the police. It then considers geographical identities, investigating the degree of mobility both within and outside of county boundaries. It analyses the miners' sense of national belonging, particularly with regard to memories of the First World War, and the relationship between the DMA and MFGB.Less

Resources Human and Material

Graham Rees and Maria Wakely

in Publishing, Politics, and Culture: The King's Printers in the Reign of James I and VI

This chapter addresses the following questions: How did they run the King's Printing House (KPH), an institution that stood at the summit of the London printing trade in the Jacobean period? How did ... More

This chapter addresses the following questions: How did they run the King's Printing House (KPH), an institution that stood at the summit of the London printing trade in the Jacobean period? How did they run a business that had to be in a position at short notice, and often at its own expense, to satisfy the market or royal demands for the production of everything from a broadside proclamation to a folio church Bible? These questions could be answered by asking a range of subsidiary questions: for instance, how did the KPH acquire type, paper, ink and all the myriad material objects on which the business depended? How did it organize its printing of its products, and their subsequent storage and distribution? The chapter looks further at some of the personnel involved in the KPH, and especially at those who were not immediate members of the Barker, Bill, and Norton families: the compositors, pressmen, correctors, accountants, legal advisors, warehouse keepers, shopkeepers, apprentices, and miscellaneous servants.Less

They Lived and Saved: Examining the Savings Motives of Shopkeepers in Late Nineteenth-Century Britain

Mary Beth Combs

in Men, Women, and Money: Perspectives on Gender, Wealth, and Investment 1850-1930

The chapter examines the saving and investment decisions of nineteenth-century British shopkeepers using data on 332 census-linked probated decedents dying between 1859 and 1891. Previous research ... More

The chapter examines the saving and investment decisions of nineteenth-century British shopkeepers using data on 332 census-linked probated decedents dying between 1859 and 1891. Previous research indicates that the nineteenth-century US agricultural sector experienced a transition from bequest saving to life-cycle saving. The chapter tests the potential impact of bequest, life-cycle, and deferred compensation motives on wealth-holding to determine whether late nineteenth-century British shopkeepers reached the transition stage between bequest and/or deferred compensation to life-cycle saving, as shown by Roger Ransom and Richard Sutch for the case of the US agricultural sector. The results reveal evidence of an altruistic bequest motive.Less

Nonagricultural Labor

René Hayden

in Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867: Series 3, Volume 2: Land and Labor, 1866-1867

This chapter describes other forms of labor besides those involving the land. The experience of those freedpeople working in nonagricultural settings differed significantly from those of laborers on ... More

This chapter describes other forms of labor besides those involving the land. The experience of those freedpeople working in nonagricultural settings differed significantly from those of laborers on plantations and farms. The nonagricultural sector encompassed a broad array of work and workers. It includes domestic workers, unskilled day laborers, artisans, shopkeepers, and professionals. Within the ranks of nonagricultural laborers were men and women who produced and repaired goods, conveyed goods along networks of transportation, sold goods to others, engaged in extractive industries or construction, and provided services of all sorts. After the Civil War, most former slaves returned to the fields but many continued in nonagricultural pursuits.Less

Trading with Traders: The Wonders of Cantonese Shopkeepers

Maria Kar-wing Mok

in The Private Side of the Canton Trade, 1700-1840: Beyond the Companies

Most of the traders in the foreign community at Canton were capable businessmen and tough negotiators with specific and precise demands, and consequently not easy to please. But even in this ... More

Most of the traders in the foreign community at Canton were capable businessmen and tough negotiators with specific and precise demands, and consequently not easy to please. But even in this environment, many of them greatly enjoyed the local shopping experience and held both the service and the products provided in high regard. The shopping alleys in the area of the factories and the streets on the periphery made the southwestern suburb of Canton where they were located one of the greatest shopping centres in Asia. The shops offered a staggering selection of Chinese goods that were made exclusively for a western clientele and were available only in Canton. In addition, they were a model of efficiency. The shopkeepers, recognizing the value of awe-inspiring displays, competitive pricing, fine craftsmanship, and customer service, employed marketing strategies that dazzled the western traders. Shops were often a combination of a shop and a workshop, and a number of them offered visitors behind-the-scene demonstrations of the production process. Such tours were more than entertainment; they were undoubtedly given to entice customers to make purchases. While negative reports of the shopping experience exist, they were the exception rather than the rule. The many accounts that exist, regardless of the nationality of the writer, present a very positive view of traders’ shopping experience in China and show a high regard for Cantonese shopkeepers.Less

Measuring Begging and Alms-Giving

Ciarán McCabe

in Begging, Charity and Religion in Pre-Famine Ireland

Attempts to measure the extent of beggary and the amount doled out in alms to mendicants was part of a desire among the ‘respectable’ middling classes to understand the ‘problem’ of mendicancy. ... More

Attempts to measure the extent of beggary and the amount doled out in alms to mendicants was part of a desire among the ‘respectable’ middling classes to understand the ‘problem’ of mendicancy. Merchants and social commentators sought to reduce the financial burden of beggary, and the Poor Law debates of the 1830s devoted much energy to the impact of indiscriminate alms-giving. The casual giving of alms far outweighed the amount subscribed to anti-begging charitable societies, yet the significance placed on the monetary impact of beggary was not shared by all social classes.Less

From Shopping to Schopenhauer: Huysmans, A vau-l'eau

in Consumer Chronicles: Cultures of Consumption in Modern French Literature

Joris-Karl Huysmans's 1882 novella, A vau-l'eau, tells the story of an old man named M. Folantin who witnesses the demolitions and new constructions in his neighbourhood, only to be replaced by ... More

Joris-Karl Huysmans's 1882 novella, A vau-l'eau, tells the story of an old man named M. Folantin who witnesses the demolitions and new constructions in his neighbourhood, only to be replaced by barrack-like apartment and office blocks that line the broad boulevards. The small businesses patronised by M. Folantin are transferring to the new commercial areas, where the character of the shops and the manners of the shopkeepers are profoundly different from what he used to know. Initially resisting the evolution of shopping habits, M. Folantin would soon appear to be dreaming of a new era where more money can buy more happiness even if he remains cognizant of the limitations of consumer satisfaction.Less

The Emporium Strikes Back: Dutourd, Au Bon Beurre

in Consumer Chronicles: Cultures of Consumption in Modern French Literature

The economic crisis of the 1890s forced France's small shopkeepers to organise a powerful lobby in order to defend their interests. During the period, age-old tensions intensified among trade, the ... More

The economic crisis of the 1890s forced France's small shopkeepers to organise a powerful lobby in order to defend their interests. During the period, age-old tensions intensified among trade, the marketplace, and, increasingly, shops. Aside from the strong competition from big department stores, small business owners were beleaguered by the continuing depradations of urban development. Small shops would eventually regain their place at the heart of the community, as reflected in Pierre MacOrlan's 1925 collection of poems entitled Boutiques in Poèmes documentaires. Jean Dutourd's 1952 satirical novel Au Bon Beurre provides evidence of the persistent presence of small shops in France. Dutourd depicts the history of a small shop during the Nazi Occupation of France and highlights the reversal of power relations between customers and shopkeepers. He also chronicles the corruption of small business under the Occupation.Less

“In this Increasing Commercial Emporium”: Buying, Selling, and the Anglicization of Quebec

Nancy Christie

in The Formal and Informal Politics of British Rule In Post-Conquest Quebec, 1760-1837: A Northern Bastille

From the perspective of governing elites on both sides of the Atlantic, the expanding world of goods was seen as a civilizing and assimilative process, but using an analysis of litigation this ... More

From the perspective of governing elites on both sides of the Atlantic, the expanding world of goods was seen as a civilizing and assimilative process, but using an analysis of litigation this chapter shows that while enticing French Canadians into the marketplace did integrate them into global networks of trade and credit, they nevertheless sought to don British dress and purchase British manufactured goods to articulate and enhance their own identities. Not only does this chapter shift the historical gaze from production to consumption, but it greatly expands the term merchants beyond those large overseas merchants who have been well studied, to incorporate the vital world of licit and illicit trade by shopkeepers, artisans, women, and peasants, to draw attention to the importance to the internal circulation of goods. My exploration of the regulatory apparatus of government as well as the everyday understanding of goods, credit, and debt shows, however, that the eighteenth century was not a pivot to modernity; rather, conceptions of the marketplace remained tied to an older moral economy outlook.Less

Criminal Investigation

David Churchill

in Crime Control and Everyday Life in the Victorian City: The Police and the Public

The chapter explores the role of the public in discovering and investigating criminal offences in the Victorian city. It reveals that civilians (rather than the police) were responsible for ... More

The chapter explores the role of the public in discovering and investigating criminal offences in the Victorian city. It reveals that civilians (rather than the police) were responsible for discovering most offences, through practices of everyday surveillance in communities, homes, and workplaces. By contrast, the balance of initiative in investigating crimes was more evenly divided between the police and public. Contrary to accounts that stress the decline of civilian activity in modern criminal investigation, the chapter argues that members of the public continued to play a vital role, especially in property-based (rather than suspect-based) modes of detection, which relied upon victims’ intimate familiarity with their belongings. In tracing stolen goods, ordinary people harnessed local pawnbrokers, shopkeepers, and the press; while the police too exploited these investigative networks and resources, it seems that increasing police involvement was not correlated with diminishing public activity.Less

Blackburn Goes Pop: City-Centre Redevelopment in a Provincial City

Otto Saumarez Smith

in Boom Cities: Architect Planners and the Politics of Radical Urban Renewal in 1960s Britain

This chapter illustrates how modernist ideas related to local concerns and aspirations, through a representative case study of the building of a new central-area shopping centre in the Lancashire ... More

This chapter illustrates how modernist ideas related to local concerns and aspirations, through a representative case study of the building of a new central-area shopping centre in the Lancashire city of Blackburn. The first section introduces the scheme and its architect-planners, Building Design Partnership. The second section discusses aspects of Blackburn’s political culture that were influential in such a drastic approach being taken, stressing especially the background of deindustrialization. And the third section argues for the importance of local shopkeepers in how schemes panned out in local contexts, contrasting different conceptions of civic pride that were perceivable in Blackburn at this date. Blackburn’s city-centre development is then compared with similar schemes in Salisbury and Leicester, where local contexts led to different outcomes.Less