Barbara Johnson’s Album: Material Literacy and Consumer Practice, 1746-1823

Serena Dyer

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    3 Citations (Scopus)
    14 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    This article examines Barbara Johnson’s Album, a prolific record of the dress consumption of a Reverend’s daughter. The Album contains over one-hundred samples of dress fabrics acquired by Johnson between the ages of eight and eighty-five. Interrogated alongside the Johnson family correspondence, and didactic tools produced by Johnson’s mother, this article argues that the Album acted as a material form of account book: conceived as a moral, financial, and material regulator. Considered within the emerging framework of material knowledge and consumer skill, the Album provides important evidence of how consumers maintained and developed their material literacy.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)263-282
    Number of pages20
    JournalJournal for Eighteenth-Century Studies
    Volume42
    Issue number3
    Early online date20 Mar 2019
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Sept 2019

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Barbara Johnson’s Album: Material Literacy and Consumer Practice, 1746-1823'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this