Shopping in Eighteenth-Century Europe

Experiences and Identities
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-57443-1
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 222 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Cultures and Societies

This volume explores the practices of shopping in Europe during the long eighteenth century, a period during which consumption choices expanded to encompass much larger groups than before. Shopping functioned as an act of social distinction, where retail practices not only reflected and reinforced social aspirations and identities but also were a means of creating relationships through shared information and exchanges.

Bringing together ten diverse case studies, the collection provides in-depth insights into the transformation of shopping practices across Western and Northern Europe. The production of made-to-order goods gave way to a range of ready-made objects that could be viewed, browsed and touched in shops, booths, workshops and markets. Together, the chapters highlight a crucial historical nuance: the concept of ‘shopping’ as understood in England—with its associations of pleasure and socialising—did not exist in other major European languages during this period. From actors in Stockholm to aristocrats in Paris, this study rigorously contextualises the practice of consumption, leaving readers with an enriched understanding of how shopping shaped identities and social relationships throughout eighteenth-century Europe.

This collection is an essential resource for scholars, students and non-specialists interested in the material culture, economy, everyday life and social dynamics of Europe during the long eighteenth century.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate, Undergraduate Advanced, and Undergraduate Core

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ilmakunnas, Johanna

Hellsing, My

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures

List of Contributors

1. Shopping in European Towns: A Prism of Everyday Life

– My Hellsing & Johanna Ilmakunnas

2. Visiting a Backwater? Consumer Attractions, Shopping Experiences and the Enlightened ‘Tourist Gaze’ in the Low Countries (c.1715–c.1840)

– Ilja Van Damme & Gerrit Verhoeven

3. Courtly Needs and Commercial Instincts: Shopping in Provincial Germany in the Eighteenth Century

– Anne Sophie Overkamp

4. Expense, Obligation, Extravagance: Aristocrats and Shopping in Eighteenth-Century Paris

– Natacha Coquery

5. Shopping and Widowhood at Court: The Case of three French Ladies-in-Waiting at the End of the Eighteenth Century  – Aurélie Chatenet-Calyste

6. Shopping, Life-Stage and Hierarchy: Practices and Experiences of a Household in mid-Eighteenth-Century Stockholm

– Johanna Ilmakunnas

7. Interior Décor and Neutrality Politics in a Time of War: Charlotte Schimmelmann’s Redecorations of Schimmelmann House in Copenhagen, 1789 and 1806

– Kristine Dyrmann

8. Make, Mend, Alter, Share: Shopping Practices of a Swedish Royal Household from the 1780s to the 1800s

– My Hellsing

9. A Performative Act of Shopping: Identity and Self-Image amongst Actors and Actresses in Stockholm, c.1760–1840

– Marie Steinrud

10. Hidden Shopping in the Public Space: Deciphering a Theft and a Shopping Episode in Eighteenth-Century Finland

– Panu Savolainen

11. The Haircare Market in Stockholm, 1770–1850: Hair Fashion and Opportunities for Choice

– Leif Runefelt

Select Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

My Hellsing is a researcher at Stockholm University, Sweden, focusing on the history of European courts, gender and material culture from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. In 2015, her doctoral thesis was published as a monograph as Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotte, hertiginna vid det gustavianska hovet. Since then, she has continued publishing on the political sociability of the elites during the Age of Revolution. She is currently working on the archival practice of the royal court from the nineteenth century to the present.

Johanna Ilmakunnas is a professor of Nordic History at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. Her research interests span from the cultural history of work, lifestyle, consumption and material culture to microhistory, family and gender in eighteenth-century Europe, especially in Sweden. Her recent publications include Flitiga och sysslolösa: Essäer om 1700-talets Europa (2024). Other topics of recent publications include commercial credit and elites, comfort in Swedish country houses, diary-writing practices of eighteenth-century nobility and material and emotional cultures of death in eighteenth-century Sweden and Finland.