Pennell, Sara ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2594-4601 (2014) Making the Bed in Later Stuart and Georgian England. In: Stobart, Jon and Blondé, Bruno, (eds.) Selling Textiles in the Long Eighteenth Century: Comparative Perspectives from Western Europe. Palgrave Macmillan UK, London, UK, pp. 30-45. ISBN 9781137295200 (doi:10.1057/9781137295217_3)

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Abstract

This is a chapter that deals with perhaps the most important item of furniture and its soft furnishings that any early modern probably invested in and owned. In 2001 Roger Ekirch suggested that the 'elusive realm of sleep' had been long ignored by historians of most stamps; only now are we 'waking up' to what he calls the 'profound role pre-industrial sleep played in the lives of ordinary men and women' being of concomitant importance as investigating what they did in their waking hours. And yet this is not a chapter about sleeping or dreaming or conversing with God or sexual congress, in bed. It is rather an examination of the material making and maintaining of the bed – from frame to cord to 'bed' or mattress, linens and 'furniture' or curtains and valences – and their routes into and out of the consuming lives of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century householders.

Item Type:	Book Section
Uncontrolled Keywords:	eighteenth century, history, textiles, beds, retailing, second-hand, auctions
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences > School of Humanities & Social Sciences (HSS)
Last Modified:	13 Dec 2020 00:52
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/15166

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