Lemire, Beverly
Dr Beverly Lemire
Professor
D. Phil., Oxford University (1985)
M.A., University of Guelph (1981)
B.A. University of Guelph (1979)
Fellow, Royal Society of Canada, Academy I, 2003
2-19 Tory Building
University of Alberta
Edmonton AB T6G 2H4
Tel. (780) 492-3327
| Expertise & Research Interests |
My research is focused on the period from 1600 to 1850 during the advent of the first industrial era. I am fascinated by the changes in material life and cultural practice in this period, particularly the reciprocal affects of Asian trade on Atlantic world societies. I focus on Britain within a comparative Atlantic world context, recognizing the power of global exchanges. I employ economic, social and gender analyses in the study of a changing material world.
In recent projects I integrated extensive object study into a wider investigation of cultural and economic change, with particular attention to variations in practice within Europe. Material evidence provides unique insights into the past and the techniques of material studies are another important element of my research. I frame these projects within gender analyses, which are integral to understanding transformations over time.
My research explores the significance of heterogeneous fashion practices within the Atlantic world, 1600-1800.
Current project, funded by the Social Science & Humanities Research Council of Canada: "Fashioning the British Atlantic World: Fashion Actors, Innovators and Networks in an Era of Global Trade, c. 1600-1800".
Books Authored and Edited:
Cotton. (in the series, Textiles that Changed the World). (Oxford & New York: Berg Publishers, 2011).
Beverly Lemire, ed., The Force of Fashion in Politics and Society: Global Perspectives from Early Modern to Modern Times. (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2010).
http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409404927
- shortlisted for the Milla Davenport Prize, Costume Society of America.
Beverly Lemire, ed., The British Cotton Trade, 1660-1815, 4 volumes (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2009). edited documents on the long-run rise of the cotton trade in Britain. http://www.pickeringchatto.com/cotton
B. Lemire, R. Pearson & G. Campbell, eds., Women and Credit: Researching the Past, Refiguring the Future (Oxford & New York: Berg Publishers, 2002).
Dress, Culture and Commerce: The English Clothing Trade before the Factory, 1660-1800
(Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan/Palgrave, 1997). - Winner of the 1999 Milla Davenport Prize, Costume Society of America.
Fashion's Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain, 1660-1800 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1991).
Selected Articles and Chapters:
“The Secondhand Trade in Europe and Beyond: Stages of Development and Enterprise in a Changing Material World c. 1600-1850” Textile: Journal of Cloth & Culture, 2012.
“History and the consumer: a historian of the West looks to Japan” in Janet Hunter and Penelope Francks, eds., The Historical Consumer: Consumption and Everyday Life in Japan, 1850-2000, (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2012).
“Budgeting for Everyday Life: Gender Strategies, Material Practice and Institutional Innovation in Nineteenth Century Britain” L’Homme: European Journal of Feminist History, 2012.
"Fashion and the Practice of History: A Political Legacy" in Beverly Lemire, ed., The Force of Fashion in Politics and Society: Global Perspectives from Early Modern to Contemporary Times. (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2010).
“Portugal, India and the European Home: Reshaping European Material Culture, c. 1500-1700” in Isabel Mendonça, ed., As Artes Decorativas e a Expansão Portuguesa: Imaginário e Viagem, Actas do II Colóquio de Artes Decorativas, (Lisboa: FRESS/CCCM,i.p.), pp. 195-203.
"The Housewife and the Marketplace: Practices of Credit and Savings from the Early Modern to Modern Era" in Sylvia Chant, ed., The International Handbook of Gender and Poverty (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010), pp. 557-62.
"Draping the Body and Dressing the Home: the Material Culture of Textiles and Clothes in the Atlantic World, c. 1500-1800" in Karen Harvey, ed., History and Material Culture: A Student's Guide to Approaching Alternative Sources (London: Routledge, 2009).
"Revising the Historical Narrative: India, Europe and the Cotton Trade, c. 1300-1800" in Giorgio Riello and Prasannan Parthasarathi, eds., The Spinning World: A Global History of Cotton Textiles, 1300-1850 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
"Fashioning Global Trade: Indian Textiles, Gender Meanings and European Consumers, 1500-1800" in Giorgio Riello and Tirthankar Roy, eds., How India Clothed the World: The World of South Asian Textiles, 1500-1850 (Leiden: Brill, 2009).
- with Giorgio Riello, "East and West: Textiles and Fashion in Early Modern Europe" Journal of Social History 41:4 (2008).
"Plebeian Commercial Circuits and Everyday Material Exchange in England, c. 1600-1900" in B. Blonde, P. Stabel, J. Stobart, and I. van Damme, eds., Buyers, Sellers and Salesmanship in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2006).
“Plasmare la Domanda, Creare la Moda: L’Asia, l’Europa ed il Commercio dei Cotoni Indiani, c. 1300-1800,” Quaderni storici 122 (2006), pp. 481-507.
“Shifting Currency: the Culture and Economy of the Secondhand Trade in England , c. 1600-1850" in Alexandra Palmer and Hazel Clark, eds, Old Clothes, New Looks: Secondhand Fashion (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2004).
“Fashioning Cottons: Asian trade, domestic industry and consumer demand 1660-1780” in David Jenkins ed., The Cambridge History of Western Textiles (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003) vol. 2, chapter 10, 493-512.
“Domesticating the Exotic: Floral Culture and the East India Calico Trade with England , c. 1600-1800” Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture 1:1 (2003),65-85.
“Transforming Consumer Custom: Linen, Cotton and the English Market, 1660-1800” in eds. Philip Ollerenshaw & Brenda Collins, Linen in Europe (Pasold Series in Textile History, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003) 187-208.
“Second-hand Beaux and ‘red-armed Belles’: Conflict and the Creation of Fashions in England, c. 1600-1800” Continuity and Change 15:3, (2000) 391-417. - Editors' Choice, one of the Best 25 Articles on the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of Continuity & Change, 2010.
“‘In the hands of work women’: Cheap Clothes, Women Workers and English Markets, 1650-1800” Costume 33, (1999), pp. 23-35.
“Petty Pawns and Informal Lending: Gender, Households and Small-scale Credit in English Communities” in Kristine Bruland & Patrick O'Brien eds., From Family Firms to Corporate Capitalism: Essays in Business and Industrial History in Honour of Peter Mathias (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) pp. 112-138.
Graduate Supervision: I currently supervise graduate researchers engaged in topics
in British or comparative economic, social, gender and material culture history (1600-1850).
I welcome enquiries from potential graduate students at the MA and PhD levels.