Material Lives

Eighteenth-century women told their life stories through making. With its compelling stories of womens material experiences and practices, Material Lives offers a new perspective on eighteenth-century production and consumption. Genteel womens making has traditionally been seen as decorative, trivial and superficial. Yet their material archives, forged through fabric samples, watercolours, dressed prints and dolls garments, reveal how women used the material culture of making to record and navigate their lives. Material Lives positions women as makers in a consumer society. Through fragments of fabric and paper, Dyer explores an innovative way of accessing the lives of otherwise obscured women. For researchers and students of material culture, dress history, consumption, gender and womens history, it offers a rich resource to illuminate the power of needles, paintbrushes and scissors.