Kate Smith. Material Goods, Moving Hands: Perceiving Production in England, 1700–1830.

Abstract

In our present era of microchips and outsourced labor, the average consumer is no more knowledgeable about the technology that makes his oven turn on than he is of the working conditions in the factory where his shirt was made. Today the alienation between producer and consumer that Karl Marx described as a condition of capitalist society seems complete, if not entirely unchallenged. However, as Kate Smith shows in Material Goods, Moving Hands: Perceiving Production in England, 1700–1830, the desire to know how things were made, how they work, and what distinguishes them from other, similar types of objects is central to our appreciation and understanding of consumer goods. Smith’s book historicizes this desire, demonstrating how knowledge about production and materials shaped the history of consumption in eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century England, as well as documenting manufacturers’ and retailers’ interests in managing and limiting that knowledge. In exploring the intertwined relationship between production and consumption in the English ceramics industry, it makes an important contribution to histories of material culture, design, consumption, and labor.