Soap and Water
by Victoria Kelley
From whitened doorsteps to polished boots, starched pinafores to scrubbed floors, this is the compelling story of how Victorians and Edwardians engaged in the pursuit of cleanliness and the battle against grime in domestic life. It is the first book to uncover how cleanliness and dirt were perceived and understood at a period of history when they were an overwhelming preoccupation. Victoria Kelley explores this period of important change, particularly for the working classes when, as Jose Harris comments, 'whole worlds of meaning were conveyed by microscopic household practices, such as whether one washed ...in the bathroom or the bedroom, or at the kitchen sink'. Kelley quotes social surveys, advice literature, autobiographies and soap advertisements, to examine how the extreme poverty of many was being interrogated by the official agencies seeking the means to alleviate it. Cleanliness and dirt became part of both a material and a moral landscape, with working-class women and their domestic work scrutinised in particular. She goes further and examines the spectacular imagery of cleanliness emerging in the soap brands and advertisements that appeared at the heart of early commercial culture. Soap and Water is an important contribution to social and design history, as well as to the history of material culture and gender.
Paperback
English
Brand New
Author Biography
Victoria Kelley teaches posgraduate students at the Royal College of Art, London, and the University for the Creative Arts, Rochester.
Table of Contents
Introduction Chapter OneMonday Washday - class and the ideal organisation of cleanliness 1. Cleanliness, Dirt and Health - Dirty cities- Invisible germs 2. Cleanliness, Dirt and the Boundaries of Class - Cleanliness and anthropology - Observing the dirty poor- Metaphors of purity and filth- Other and unimaginable men- Wives and mothers3. Order and Repetition in the Work of Cleanliness - Ordering the tasks of cleanliness in everyday life - Regularity and order- Rhythms, cycles and the myths of everyday lifeChapter TwoThe Place Where My Mother Could Always be Found - working-class domesticity, gender and cleanliness1. The Material Practice of Cleanliness - An anatomy of dirt- Washing- Bathing- Cleaning2. Mother and Home - Home in everyday life - The idealised mother - For love and money- Children helping- Cleanliness, dirt and the spatial arrangement of the home3. Cleanliness and Working-class Consumption Chapter ThreeNo Rubbing, No Scrubbing - cleanliness in commercial discourse1. Soap - Soap as a product of 'universal consumption' - Soap brands and advertising techniques2. An Analysis of Soap Advertising, 1880-1914 - Advertising and the periodical- Soap, the sea and invisible germs- Thrift, regularity and pleasure- Women's work in soap advertisements- The consuming wife and mother3. A Sunlight Demonstration ConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex
Promotional "Headline"
From whitened doorsteps to polished boots, starched pinafores to scrubbed floors, this title tells the story of how Victorians and Edwardians engaged in the pursuit of cleanliness and the battle against grime in domestic life. It reveals how cleanliness and dirt were perceived and understood.
Feature
The first book to uncover how cleanliness and dirt were perceived and understood in the Victorian and Edwardian periods
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