At Home With the Poor - Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in England, C.1650-1850

This fascinating book takes us inside the homes of the forgotten poor in the period before, during and after the industrial revolution. Using a wide range of sources, it gets to the heart of what it meant to be 'poor' by examining the residences of the impoverished and mapping how various household goods became more widespread over time.

As the book shows, poverty did not necessarily equate to owning very little and living in squalor. Most poor people strove to improve their homes by making them more comfortable, convenient and respectable through new consumer goods. These important findings illustrate that the poor were not left behind while the middling sort and the elite became obsessed with new goods and the home. In fact, demand for goods from the poor was so great that it became a driving force of the industrial revolution.

For too long historians have downplayed the role of poor consumers, assuming that they had neither the desire nor the means to buy anything beyond necessities. But as At home with the poor reveals, with each generation, more and more people from poor labouring backgrounds came to own possession their grandparents could only have imagined.

About the author

Joseph Harley is a Senior Lecturer in History at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge

Product details

• Authors: Joseph Harley
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 20.01.2026
• EAN: 9781526194749
• ISBN: 978-1-5261-9474-9
• No. of pages: 272
• Series: Studies in Design and Material Culture
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economic History, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Consumer Behavior, HISTORY / Social History, Social & cultural history, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / Georgian Era (1714-1837), HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / Stuart Era (1603-1714), Poverty & unemployment, 18th century, c 1700 to c 1799, Material Culture, Social and cultural history, Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700, 16th century, c 1500 to c 1599, Early 19th century c 1800 to c 1850, Poverty and precarity, Later 17th century c 1650 to c 1699