From 1600 to 1900 a growing consumerism fired the English economy, shaping the priorities of individuals, and determining the allocation of resources within families.

Everyday business might mean making a trip to the pawnbroker, giving a loan to a trusted friend of selling off a coat, all to make ends meet. Both women and men engaged in this daily budgeting, but women's roles were especially important in achieving some level of comfort and avoiding penury. In some communities, the daily practices in place in the seventeenth century persisted into the twentieth, whilst other groups adopted new ways, such as using numbers to chart domestic affairs and turning to the savings banks that appeared in the nineteenth century. In the material world of the past and in the changing habits of earlier generations lie crucial turning points. This book explores these previously under-researched patterns and practices that gave shape to modern consumer society.

Beverly Lemire is professor and Henry Marshall Tory Chair in the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta.

Beverly Lemire's profile page

"Lemire's discussion of fashion, saving, and accounting is excellent, and the book captures practices that are central to historians' understanding of western culture, but seldom explored in such an engaging way."

--Robin Ganev, University of Regina (Labour/Le Travail) Labour/Le Travail

"Professor Beverly Lemire has provided a well-argued, solidly researched, and clearly written interpretation of the English material world from pre-industrial to industrial times. This highly accessible study merits close scrutiny by economic and social historians as well as as general readers.

--Michael J. Galgano, James Madison University (Canadian Journal of History)

"Lemire's contribution to so-called marginal and economic activities, already significant, is further enhanced by this welcome monograph. [an] imaginatively researched study Lemire has produced an exemplary gender business history"

--Katrina Honeyman, University of Leeds (Business History)