Home and Away: The Flight from Domesticity in Late‐Nineteenth‐Century England Re‐visited

Tosh, John

doi:10.1111/1468-0424.12150

Cited by 12 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…As a much neglected episode in the history of design it does much more than simply highlight the transformation of the so-called masculine 'flight from domesticity' in the late nineteenth century to a 'redomestication' in the years immediately after the First World War. 99 Even if we read it in terms of how it has been critically ignored it reveals just how embroidery did play a role in the social construction of the masculine subject -if largely by exclusion and erasure. 100 Furthermore, aside from the fact that a study of this organisation helps to illuminate masculine subject positions it also reveals much of the complex ways in which disability has been feminized, fetishized and denied.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘The work of masculine fingers’: the Disabled Soldiers’ Embroidery Industry, 1918–1955

McBrinn¹

2016

DESIGN

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Embroidery as a feminising activity for men, as a sign of emasculation and effeminacy that also insinuates sexual inversion, although generally overlooked by historians was widely deliberated in early twentieth century Britain. Operating between 1918 and 1955 the Disabled Soldiers' Embroidery Industry was perhaps the most successful and high-profile scheme that aimed to help disabled combatants, returning from the First World War, back to employment through the smallscale production of domestic and luxury textiles marketed to middle class and aristocratic consumers. Its contribution to the modern revival of interest in embroidery is clear from its widespread promotion in newspapers and women's magazines, its relationship with manufacturers such as Pearsall's sewing threads and Weldon's mail-order sewing patterns, its inclusion in major exhibitions of embroidery in the period and the several major commissions it garnered until after the Second World War. This brief analysis of its history, made possible by the recent discovery of a small archive of its papers and a number of surviving embroideries, affords some insight into how masculine identity and the disabled body have operated as active rather than passive agents in design history. This article, although providing a basic overview of this business, also offers an interrogation of the interrelationship of masculinity, disability, craft and interwar modernity in Britain that draws upon design history, gender and sexuality theory and disability studies.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘The work of masculine fingers’: the Disabled Soldiers’ Embroidery Industry, 1918–1955

McBrinn¹

2016

DESIGN

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“…Literary historian Barbara Black discusses that the clubs of London were social forces, in addition to being significant cultural influencers (Black 2012). They played a central role in constructing an elite class, fostering a community that defined what it meant to be a man in nineteenth century England (Black 2012;Milne-Smith 2011;Tosh 2007). Most historians agree that the club was a masculine escape for the middle-class gentleman of the nineteenth century, a way for them to flee from the domesticity of the Victorian home (Milne-Smith 2006;Sinha 2001;Tosh 2007).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They played a central role in constructing an elite class, fostering a community that defined what it meant to be a man in nineteenth century England (Black 2012;Milne-Smith 2011;Tosh 2007). Most historians agree that the club was a masculine escape for the middle-class gentleman of the nineteenth century, a way for them to flee from the domesticity of the Victorian home (Milne-Smith 2006;Sinha 2001;Tosh 2007). Steinbach (2017, 133) discusses that Victorian culture associated the home as domestic, therefore the physical space of the home was considered as feminine, referred to as the 'domestic ideology.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Members only: the Victorian gentlemen’s club as a space for doing business 1843–1900

Joseph

2019

Management & Organizational History

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This paper examines how the gentlemen's club was a space for facilitating business activities in the Victorian publishing industry. They blurred the boundaries between the social and professional sphere, to the point that many used the club as hub for networking and for providing opportunities. The gentlemen's clubs of London have been examined within gender studies and in studies on social culture, where emphasis has been placed on its role in elite and middle-class society and its influence on gender and class inequality. However, little attention has been dedicated in academic business research to the club's influence on shaping the activities of businesses in the publishing industry. By exploring how individuals engaged with so called "club life," it is possible to analyze the dynamics of how and why gentlemen's clubs were important to literary businesses. Through an exploration of narrative and documentary archival sources, this paper explores the perspective and choices of individuals working in the publishing industry, and the extent to which their choices in business were governed by the cultural influences of the gentlemen's club.

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“…It seems to me that this implied a double paradox: although as natural offspring they were marginalised within their families, they were often strategically placed in the Empire 'to further the family interest'. 54 Additionally, their allegedly civilising mission also implied the exporting of British domesticity, even though their existence was the result of a transgression of the sexual norms built within that domesticity. It was also paradoxical that those men who went to the colonies to flee from domesticity should, at least in theory, recreate this very domesticity in the Empire.…”

Section: Colonies and Matrilineal Societiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Men at Home: Domesticities, Authority, Emotions and Work (Thirteenth–Twentieth Centuries)

Sarti¹

2015

Gender & History

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Home and Away: The Flight from Domesticity in Late‐Nineteenth‐Century England Re‐visited

Cited by 12 publications

References 16 publications

‘The work of masculine fingers’: the Disabled Soldiers’ Embroidery Industry, 1918–1955

‘The work of masculine fingers’: the Disabled Soldiers’ Embroidery Industry, 1918–1955

Members only: the Victorian gentlemen’s club as a space for doing business 1843–1900

Men at Home: Domesticities, Authority, Emotions and Work (Thirteenth–Twentieth Centuries)

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