Preliminary Programme

Middle-class childhood in nineteenth-century France was transformed by the consumer revolution. Where children in previous periods might have owned a few toys, middle-class children after 1850 were the targets of advertising and marketing campaigns designed to sell them playthings of all sorts – from traditional ones like dolls and toy soldiers to newfangled mechanical and scientific toys – that intensified during holiday periods, especially Christmas. Book and magazine publishers also offered differentiated children’s products for the first time, such as the Bibliothèque Rose by Hachette or the many doll magazines offered by the fashion press. Even the spiritual rituals of Catholic childhood such as First Communion were increasingly accompanied by purchases of clothing and religious objects. Industrial production and new retailing practices, such as department stores and mail order catalogues, made toys less expensive to produce and easier to sell. New attitudes towards children, especially in France where the size of middle-class families had contracted in the second half of the nineteenth century, made the happiness of children a key element in the bourgeois household, and that happiness was increasingly linked to material objects. Yet although the history of consumption is well developed for France, most histories have ignored the role of children’s material culture; at the same time, most histories of childhood in France have not focused on children as consumers.
This paper will examine the role of children as consumers as well as the sheer variety and novelty of the playthings they were offered by manufacturers, merchants, and ultimately parents and other adults. It will argue that even though children did not purchase most goods directly, they were nonetheless important actors in the emerging consumer world of late nineteenth-century France. Although the target market was clearly middle class, many toys were sold in different versions at multiple price points, suggesting that lower-class children could aspire to the same consumer desires. By the early twentieth century, the toy-strewn world in which we live today had already taken shape in hearts and minds if not in reality for every child. (Show less)

The late 19th century and early 20th witnessed a revolution in retailing in the UK: most obviously the appearance and spread of department stores (even if definitions are problematic); and the explosion of multiple stores. The gradual but persistent spread of co-operative shops has, perhaps, been less well documented. Yet in many towns, particularly in the north and midlands, the Co-op was one of the most visible retailers with its ‘Central Stores’ being a substantial department store in all but name.
Yet the Co-op was much more than just a store. Members benefitted from the dividend and were encouraged to save. They were offered a wide range of social and educational opportunities. The Women’s Guild both empowered female members and promoted talks and activities that went well beyond the conventional view of women’s interests in the late 19th century. In many towns the Co-op could represent a lifestyle choice as well as a shop.
Maybe because of its disparate nature, the Co-op has attracted less interest from historians, particularly those focussed on retailing and consumption, than might have been expected. Perhaps this is partly because it has been hard to categorise. Also, while archival evidence is plentiful, trawling through minute books to find nuggets among much dross is time-consuming.
This paper aims at redressing this balance by looking at the Co-op movement in general but with a particular focus on four locations: Bolton (Lancashire), Sheffield (Yorkshire), Derby (Derbyshire), and Braintree (Essex). The first two were very much in the Co-op heartland of north-west England and Yorkshire; Derby in the East Midlands slightly less so; and Braintree in the South-East very much an outrider. Each sold a wide range of goods, not just food, to its customers; and each offered a ‘dividend’ (up to 20% cash back on purchases by members). This compensated for the arguably high prices charged by Co-ops. But each also rewarded membership with a variety of non-retail options. In particular, there was an active and well-documented Women’s Guild at Bolton; and the Sheffield society was interested in promoting arts and crafts. The Co-ops in Derby and Braintree were primarily retailers, but each had a significant presence in their respective towns. This paper will explore the role of Co-operative retailing, both in terms of the shopping experience and ‘extras’, with a particular emphasis on the four locations mentioned above.
There is an element of ‘work in progress’ about this paper, the research for which is one part of a larger project on shops and shopping in the period 1870-1914, with a particular emphasis on the north and midlands. (Show less)

This dissertation investigates the socio-cultural, economic, political and technological circumstances that stimulated the burgeoning of children’s hospitals in the East End of London, between 1850 and 1900. The campaigning by social reformers, as well as professionals from different disciplines, led to the creation of a space that fulfilled the function of decreasing infant mortality. Pursuing the core research question of what the relationship was between the founders, the designers and the users of children’s hospitals, this research investigates the foundation of two children’s hospitals that emerged in the most deprived area of London during the second half of the nineteenth century, the North-Eastern Hospital for Children and the East London Hospital for Children. These two pioneering institutions foreshadowed the idiosyncrasies of modern hospitals, where the cure and treatment of sick children takes place, and where medical training and research is developed. They witnessed the emergence of a more analytical design philosophy, which was applied to designing a purpose-built building where the rationale of its distribution and the innovation of its materials served a function. A new sterilised space was prescribed by the design research of professionals in architecture and medicine, and it was applied to create a simple and efficient child-centred space. However, these places were as much a medical enterprise as a social one, combating illnesses as much as poverty. Although both of the institutions were set up by medical experts, the fundamental problem that they were addressing was the disease of pauperism. As social reformers, their founders were catalysing both the material production of space and a structural change in institutional ideology that promoted a more holistic understanding of childhood wellbeing. (Show less)

This paper examines the trade in human hair in Finland, which from 1809 was an autonomous Grand Duchy within the multinational Russian Empire. In similarity to other regions in Europe and North America, the demand for human hair as an impersonal commodity increased in Finland around the year 1870. The Finnish newspapers report that itinerant peddlers from Russian Karelia (so called “Rucksack Russians”) female hair artists from the region of Dalarna in Sweden (hårkullor) and peddling Finnish and Swedish Jews, among others, roamed the countryside and town fairs in search for human hair.

Based on theories on trading practices, gender and transnational flows of goods, the main aim of this paper is to discuss how and why trade in human hair was carried out in Finland in the late nineteenth century. The paper examines the activities of the buyers and sellers, the various roles of hair in petty trade and the practices that surrounded the trade. Furthermore, I discuss the cultural and religious values associated with human hair and how such notions become visible in the sources. The analysis is based on contemporary newspaper articles and ethnographical sources.

The paper illuminates the multifaceted role of petty trade in the late nineteenth century society. Previous studies within the field of the history of consumption have suggested that petty trade in general was flexible and that those involved in the trade could easily react to changes in demand and supply. By demonstrating how hair purchased in Finland was part of both national and transnational flows of goods, the paper also shows that hair traded in Finland in the end of the nineteenth century was part of a European fashion market. While recent scholarship (e.g. Emma Tarlo, Susan J. Vincent, Helen Sheumaker and Nicole Tidemann) has shown an interest in the history of hair, neither the encounters between buyers and those who sold their hair nor the flows of human hair have so far received major scholarly attention. Therefore, this paper contributes to the current research on human hair trade as an impersonal commodity. (Show less)