Shaped by familiarity: Memory, Space and Materiality at Imperial War Museum North

This paper considers Imperial War Museum North’s attempts to disturb popularmemories about British experiences of war through the mobilisation of space andmateriality. However, it is argued that this does not succeed because of the spatial mediation and object placement employed throughout which allow the museum to reinforce bodily, spatial and historical experiences of the outside world. The second part of the paper analyses the neglected place of the museum shop inthis, which contributes to making the IWM visit one of familiarity because of thequotidian consumption practices that are encouraged there

Women, tactility and consumption:middle-class female sensory participation in Victorian shopping environments

This thesis questions the priority that has been afforded to sight in academic analyses of modernity at the expense of the other senses. This has not only had the effect of producing poor knowledge of the multi-sensory understandings of life, but it is also a theory that has been developed by focusing on the experience of white, elite males. As increasingly shown by anthropologists and sensory historians, when this model is transposed onto other segments of the population, this produces inadequate and partial understandings of life. Nowhere is this truer than in studies of nineteenth-century consumerism, which have primarily characterised the female shopping experience as orientated around new visual spectacles. This thesis aims to rebalance this sensory bias and analyses how the sense of touch was used by female shoppers. Drawing on the theories of Merleau-Ponty and phenomenology throughout, it is claimed that the use of any sense must be understood in the wider context of an individual’s life, and the sensory habits that are formed through this. For understanding shopping, this means first attending to the primary female activities within the home, namely needlework, and how these affected the development of the sensorium. Following on from this, the study analyses how those habits of touch were used when shopping. This involved assessments of fabric quality, the marketing of ‘hygienic’ clothing on the basis of its relationship to the skin and the ways in which women related to the new spaces of the department stores through their bodies. In addition to showing the importance of touch for shopping, focusing on tactility brings other issues to light. Understanding tactile habits allows for a reevaluation of the public-private division. Rather than shopping representing a break from the home, habits of touch allowed the two environments to be strongly interlinked, each influencing the other. This raises important questions about how we conceptualise female experiences of modernity and progress

Sensory History and Sociology — Offering a Helping Hand?

Interdisciplinarity has been the focus of much attention across the social sciences and humanities in recent years. In this spirit, the article shows how sociology might be applied to sensory history and how to choose and apply suitable theories to this field. This is supported by a short discussion of the author's own research

Cleric or conman, curate or crook?:understanding the Victorian draper

This article analyses contemporary perceptions of the Victorian draper. While neglected in academic literature, drapers were central to the public imagination, facing criticism for dishonesty in trade and condemnation for taking advantage of the vulnerable female shopper. Placing the focus firmly on the purchase of material goods, rather than shopping as a visual experience, the article argues that, while there was some truth in the negative characterisations, drapers operated in an industry that was rife with fraud and adulteration, made possible by an unregulated market. A strong belief in laissez-faire meant that individual failings were highlighted and condemned, without confronting the failings of the free market itself. The drapers’ own response was to provide an alternative portrayal of themselves, as ministering to women and serving them in an almost religious capacity. They, too, for the most part ranged themselves firmly against regulation, despite the harm that a free market did to their trade and the assaults on their character that resulted. As a consequence, both the public and the draper continued to suffer at the hands of an unregulated market

Profiting from war:Bovril advertising during World War II

This article addresses the lack of research on commercial advertising during wartime. It takes as its focus Bovril ads during World War II, to argue that commercial advertising, rather than diverging from state propaganda consistently drew upon wider representations of war in order to integrate into a society increasingly dominated by the image. To examine this, all of the Bovril ads from World War II appearing in the Times, Daily Express and Daily Mirror are compared in both quantitative and qualitative analyses, which helps to avoid the “cherry picking” problems of relying on a qualitative analysis alone. The main contention is that ads are socially situated media and, as such, cannot strongly divert from other messages being circulated within society because their reception depends upon their message creating an instant identification with the reader. In the 1940s this was especially true because society was confronted with an unprecedented mass of state propaganda