A date for your diaries

On Friday 28th September 2012 we will be holding a colloquium at CRASSH to round off the year and host some colleagues from a parallel programme in California.

More information will go onto the CRASSH website as we plan the programme, so
keep an eye on the page.

It’s all in the Advertising

Our second session of the term saw us moving into the material culture of text, with two stimulating papers around the theme of ‘Advertising’. We heard about interactions of text and image, and how these paper representations interacted with the objects that they portrayed. We, again, discussed issues of museology, collecting and display.

Dr Philippa Hubbard (Adam Matthew Digital) opened the session with a discussion of ‘Trade Cards in Eighteenth-Century Consumer Culture: Movement, Circulation and Exchange.’ We learnt that calling such objects ‘trade cards’ is, in fact, misleading, as they existed in a range of sizes and styles much wider than we would imagine from our contemporary image of a business card. Likewise, their use was much more varied, as they stood in for a range of interactions between customer and tradesman, from displaying potential wares like a shop window, to acting as an early form of branding, to serving as the space to record and enact credit and billing arrangements. Aspects like blemishes, tears, annotations and signatures on these ephemeral objects can give us a wealth of information about how they were used. Yet, collecting practices associated with trade cards from the late eighteenth century onwards, have obscured some of these functions. Trade cards have come to be prioritised for their engraved images, collected as small art works, and therefore trimmed and mounted divorced from text explanations, annotations and financial context. Are these, again, wounded objects?

Jenny Basford (University of York) also introduced us to issues of survival and collecting of objects with her paper, ‘If the package is right, the pills are right’: Proprietary medicines, branding and advertising, 1650-1850.’ We learnt how embossed glass bottles, and especially paper wrappers, signatures and seals were used to give credibility and authenticity to new medicines in this period. Packaging helped to brand products and therefore both to guard against counterfeiting and, also, in conjunction with wider advertising, to train consumers what marks to look for. The signature of the proprietor, in particular, helped to establish ‘thick’ trust in a product, and also played an important role in the standardisation of both medicines and their packaging as handwritten signatures made way for printed ones and, in time, logos. As Jenny’s work comes out of her collaborative role with the York Archaeological Trust, we heard about the perils and pleasures of working outwards from the ephemeral survivals of bottle shards to establish this story of packaging and branding.

The question session brought out the interesting overlap in the talks over the idea of advertising standing in for a face-to-face interaction between customer and seller, working to establish both the attractiveness and credibility of a product without personal contact. As ever, then, I feel we came back to the idea of ‘assemblages’ as both trade cards and proprietary packaging marshal both the objects and people behind them to act as channels for consumer culture.

The podcast will follow soon.

Fashion at Things

LET’S TALK ABOUT FASHION!

To start us off with the Lent programme of ‘Things’ here at CRASSH  John Styles and Amy Miller came to speak about all things FASHION. Together they provided the audience with two complimentary perspectives on materials and fashion in the long eighteenth century, exploring concepts of identity along with the production and consumption of fashion.  John Styles spoke on the technological production of cotton and pattern printing whilst the importance of officer uniform style and identity in the creation of public perceptions of the Royal Navy was considered by Amy Miller.

John Styles opened the session with a revisionist discussion of what cotton actually is and how this came to change and in turn define the industrial revolution in Britain. With a fascinating level of detail concerning the construction of different calicos and cottons, across various parts of the British Empire, John’s talk gave insight into the literal material culture of the eighteenth century! Other highlights of John talk included a new understanding of the significance of certain technological innovations within loom design and productivity in addition to the very slow democratisation of fashion with the evocation of high fashion stich work in the printed designs found on cheaper fabrics.

Amy Miller contrasted John’s talk nicely with a discussion of fashion being at the heart of the Royal Navy’s iconic place in British Society at the start of the nineteenth century. Navy uniform in this period was used by the Admiralty Board to remodel Naval Officers as idols of masculine identity during a time filled with accusations of decline in the Navy after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. With increases in the level of standardisation, naval uniforms attempted to reflect the moral condition of the officers. Ending with a fabulous portrait of Captain Ross clad in a bearskin from his adventures during voyages for polar exploration, Amy showed clearly the attempts to depict the masculinity of the Navy in the uniform of its officers, and therefore portraying their ability to keep safe British waters.

Following the talks there was a good discussion of how practicality is an essential consideration for both the production of fabrics and consumption of fashion in this period and Maxine Berg provided insight into the secrecy surrounding Indian spinning technology.

Please do check out the podcast: http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1211244;jsessionid=9B19C8AECA467AA114C90D81E6671998

A reminder of this term’s stellar line-up

Please note the change to the time and location of the seminar.

We meet alternate Tuesdays 12.30-2.30pm in the CRASSH Seminar Room at 7 West Road on the Sidgwick Site.

Each seminar features two talks considering the same type of object from different perspectives.

24 Jan 2012 – ‘Fashion’

Professor John Styles, University of Hertfordshire and Amy Miller, National Maritime Museum

7 Feb 2012 – ‘Advertising’

Dr Philippa Hubbard, Adam Matthew Digital, and Jenny Basford, University of York

21 Feb 2012 – ‘Porcelain’

Dame Rosalind Savill, Wallace Collection, and Dr Anne Gerritsen, University of Warwick

6 Mar 2012 – ‘Artist’s Things’

Dr Katie Scott, Courtauld Institute of Art, and Dr Hannah Williams, University of Oxford

 

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,100 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 18 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

‘Money’ at ‘Things’

Our last ‘Things’ session of the term – and the final to be held in the old home of CRASSH before its move to a shiny new building on the University’s Sidgwick site – brought together two national experts on coinage – Dr Catherine Eagleton of the British Museum and Dr Martin Allen of our own Fitzwilliam Museum. Rather than dry presentations touching on Smithian silver quantities and the money supply, our curatorial duo delivered a fascinating pair of papers which romped between entrepreneurship, politics, monarchy, greed, partnerships, networks, exploration, and more. Dr Allen introduced us to Matthew Boulton (1728 – 1809), the man recently re-made famous for appearing on the new £50 note with his partner James Watt, but whom, among numismatists and historians of money, is better known as ‘the most famous figure in the history of money production’. In Birmingham’s Lunar Society he palled around with figures including Erasmus Darwin, Joseph Priestley, Josiah Wedgwood, and Joseph Banks. His mechanisation of minting – using the steam-powered engines he brought to prominence with Watt –revolutionised coin production in the U.K., after his long solicitations of Westminster finally yielded contracts to mint the coin of the realm.

From Dr Eagleton we heard the fascinating story of Sarah Sophia Banks (1744–1818), sister of Sir Joseph and a near-fanatical collector of coins and medals. After presenting the woman and her collection – the subject of Dr Eagleton’s current research, based on the portion of the collection which remains at the Museum, and soon to be presented in a book about Sarah Sophia’s life – we learned how Banks used networks to amass her vast, meticulously catalogued survey, with help from characters ranging from Sir Joseph to her agent Dryander, and ultimately to Boulton, who agreed to send her one copy of everything produced by his mints. The overriding purpose of the coin and medal collection, Dr Eagleton postulates, was to create a catalogue of and testament to the royalty of the globe, ‘the world in one room’, in a turbulent time for crowned heads.

Discussion topics ranged from the problems of counterfeiting (less than a year after coins from Boulton mint began circulating, Banks sent him a fake she had discovered), to the contents of our subjects’ library (Boulton had read Smith; Banks seemed unconcerned about the economic aspects of the coinage). I am certain you will enjoy listening to the podcast of ‘Money’, available here.

Spoils of War

Thanks to Jason Scott-Warren for alerting us to this upcoming exhibition at the Ashmolean. It certainly says something about the complicated life of objects!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/nov/20/grand-tour-loot-presa-inglesa

Third Session on the Telescope avaliable

In the third meeting of Things we had a cracking session on the “telescope”. This seminar saw us move away from discussions of museology, display and broken-things, themes that dominated the past two sessions; instead both the talks and discussion this week were more concerned with the historical importance of telescopes in the long-eighteenth century.  

Dr Alexi Baker, despite a terrible cold, gave an insightful and inspiring talk on the variety of uses and symbolic roles the telescope held for a cross-section of European Society in the eighteenth century. From teaching, navigating and surveying to display and spectacle, Alexi’s talk gave great insight into the quite unexpected level of penetration the telescope had in European society in that period. With stunning pictures of instrument manufacturers’ trade cards, Alexi used the range of items for sale and of interested cliental in optical items to demonstrate the popularity and importance of the pastime and research as well as make insightful comments on the ubiquity of the telescope as a non-specialised item. Alexi was also keen to highlight that, despite many preconceived ideas, the telescope demonstrates that there is no need to divorce utility from aesthetics in eighteenth century ‘things’.  

The National Maritime Museum’s Dr Richard Dunn followed with a talk that contrasted Alexi’s perspectives effectively. Looking at the iconography, utility and technological development of the telescope and other optical devices, Richard gave insight into the eighteenth century concept of useful and moral knowledge and reminded us that in order to increase our historical understanding of the objects discussed by Alexi we must consider their contemporary interpretation and uses. One particularly interesting question was raised; to what extent did the increasing power of telescopes in the long eighteenth century factor in their consumption by society? Richard’s discussion of the iconography showed that the increasing enhancement of telescopic sight was certainly reflected in popular depictions of telescopes and would have therefore most likely factored in their consumption by gentlemen and men of science alike. Richard also simplified a lot of his specialised technical knowledge in order to highlight that an understanding of the technology behind telescopes is fundamental to our ability as historians to unpick the iconography and social importance of them and other lens-instruments in the long eighteenth century.   

The discussion session was not dominated by any particular aspect of the talks, such was the diversity of the audience and their perspectives, but worked instead as an extension of the two talks. There was though some focus on the idea of morality and polite knowledge as contrasting with the production of scientific truth in the period. The concept of reading error and accuracy also entered into the debate with a reference to John Herschel’s warning to his fellow men of science that they should expect “masterpieces not miracles” form the instrument-makers workshop.

Hopefully you’ll enjoy listening for yourself at: http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1186872;jsessionid=1A69A09A4DC36F31AFC04DBD4708E718

 

Second Session on ‘Botany’ now available

Our second session focused in on our first specific object type ‘Botany,’ carrying on some of the key themes from the first session. Again questions of museology and display were discussed, but we also once-more considered ‘wounded objects’ and objects as ‘assemblages.’ These elements particularly came out in a stimulating question session.

Dr Charlie Jarvis (Historical Researcher, Botany Department, Natural History Museum) opened the session for us by looking at Herbarium Collections. He showed us the different ways in which specimens were preserved, arranged, recorded and stored within Herbaria, focusing especially on the wonderful Sloane herbarium at the Natural History Museum. He raised questions of arrangement and representation, highlighting the multiple ways in which specimens were displayed on the page, and the different constraints posed by mounting them within loose or bound collections. He considered how Linnaean ideas of classification changed such practices, and how looking at Herbaria today gives us not just useful scientific data but ‘a picture of how 17^th and 18^th-century botanists kept their plants.’

Kim Sloan (Curator of British Drawings and Watercolours before 1800 and Francis Finlay Curator of the Enlightenment Gallery, British Museum) followed this with a discussion of ‘The Lives of Mrs Delany’s Paper Plants’ looking not only at how this collection of cut-paper botanical pictures relates to a Herbarium volume, but also at how we should look at the changing ‘lives’ of such objects. She started with a discussion of the Portland Vase and how interpretations of this as an object changed during and since the eighteenth century, and from this looked at the changing ‘life’ of Mrs Delany’s Flora Delanica in the British Museum. She considered how these were not just accurate botanical images, but actors in multiple social and museological narratives.

What emerged in the discussion session was the question of whether we should consider either collection as simple ‘botanical’ objects at all, or rather as complex assemblages of material determined by natural philosophical, social, aesthetic and gendered, not to mention practical, considerations. To make up your own mind, listen to the complete recording here: http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1183734

The Programme for the Year is now complete

We have now filled our slots for the whole year! Here are the dates, subjects and speakers for Lent and Easter terms, an exciting bunch we hope you’ll agree:

(Please note that from January the seminars will take place 12.30-2.30pm and will be in CRASSH’s new building at 7 West Road on the Sidgwick Site, Cambridge)

Lent Term 2012

Tuesday, 24 Jan 2012 - Fashion - Prof John Styles (University of Hertfordshire and Amy Miller, National Maritime Museum)

Tuesday, 7 Feb 2012 - Advertising - Dr Philippa Hubbard (Adam Matthew Digital) and Jenny Basford (University of York)

Tuesday, 21 Feb 2012 - Porcelain - Dame Rosalind Savill (Wallace Collection) and Dr Anne Gerritsen (University of Warwick)

Tuesday, 6 Mar 2012 - Artist’s Things - Dr Katie Scott (Courtauld Institute of Art) and Dr Hannah Williams (University of Oxford)

Easter Term 2012

Tuesday, 1 May 2012 - Food - Dr Melissa Calaresu (University of Cambridge) and Dr Emma Spary (University of Cambridge)

Tuesday, 15 May 2012 - Decorative Textiles - Dr Mary Brooks (York Museums Trust) and Dr Tara Hamling (University of Birmingham)

Tuesday, 29 May 2012 - The Ship - Dr James Davey, Dr John McAleer and Dr Quentin Colville (all National Maritime Museum)

Tuesday, 12 Jun 2012 - The Body - Dr Faramerz Dabhoiwala (University of Oxford) and Dr Simon Chaplin (Wellcome Library)