The Home-Making of the English Working Class: Radical Politics and Domestic Life in late-Georgian England, c.1790-1820.
Abstract
This thesis explores how ‘home’, as both an idea and a physical space, operated in the
formation and expression of popular political radicalism in late-eighteenth and early nineteenth
century England. With a regional focus on London and the South Pennine areas
of Lancashire and Yorkshire, the thesis intervenes in a rich historiography of popular
radicalism in this period to argue for the importance of everyday practice in bringing
together and sustaining a beleaguered movement, especially during periods of repression.
In doing so, it offers new perspectives on the importance of the intersections of class and
gender within radicalism, and sheds new light on the crucial and underappreciated role of
women. Home could offer opportunities for political involvement, but could also restrict
the emancipatory possibilities open to women in particular. The thesis unpacks ideas and
practices associated with the home, including family relationships, consumer practice, and
the use of objects, to expose it as an insecure and unstable site from which to launch a
campaign for political legitimacy. Because ‘home’ was embedded in so many moralistic and
political discourses, its deployment could be politically powerful, but could also hinder
attempts to thoroughly rethink the social norms which underpinned classed and gendered
inequalities. Throughout, however, the thesis stresses the continued unknowability of many
aspects of working-class domestic life and the problematic nature of the sources we use to
interrogate it, arguing for continued sustained work to unpick the diversity in the nature
and meanings of home for working-class people in this period.
Authors
Mather, RuthCollections
- Theses [4116]