Sweet and Clean?

Reviews / Votes

This carefully researched and detailed book is important reading, and not just for those with specific interests in dress or textile history, or the history of washing and hygiene. It encourages historians and student historians with broader interests to think about everyday routines and actions in the past, and how we might seek to recover them despite minimal evidence. * Sarah Fox, The Journal of the Social History Society * Sweet and Clean? provides a detailed reexamination of long-held assumptions about bathing and cleanliness in 16th-18th century England. North, who is curator of fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum, takes specific aim at the idea that bathing was rare and considered risky, and that changing linen undergarments was the primary method of keeping clean. Summing Up: Highly recommended * CHOICE * What constitutes cleanliness? Or, more relevantly, what constituted personal cleanliness in early modern England? A hint is offered in the cover illustration to Susan North's most recent and thought-provoking book, Sweet and Clean, which depicts James Gillray's 1779 print, The Whore's Last Shift. The woman in question, naked apart from her worn stockings, shoes, and the feathers in her neatly dressed hair, washes her shift in a chamber pot. The use of the pot for washing highlights several things-the desire to have clean linens and, as North notes, a possible reference to the use of the urine in the chamber pot as part of the washing process. * Maria Hayward, University of Southampton, Journal of Modern History * The book is not only a must read for anyone interested in the history of linen and cotton clothing and textiles, but also historians of the body, of cleanliness and of medicine in relation to hygiene and disease. * Sarah A. Bendall, The Costume * There are many things to admire in this original and thoughtful book. The author's use of primary material is especially impressive. From the start, she is realistic about the challenges of her subject, pointing out the difficulties of recovering evidence of washing and 'shifting' (i.e. 'changing') linen clothing, and especially the more intimate acts ofcleaning the body. However, the quantity of evidence that she presents and her skilful and nuanced analysis of it has produced an illuminating and persuasive account of the labour-intensive efforts made by early modern people to stay 'sweet and clean'. The inclusivity of her study is also admirable: from the rich to the poor, from babies toadults, and considering both rural and urban dwellers. * Danae Tankard, Textile History * There are many things to admire in thisoriginal and thoughtful book. The author's use of primary material is especially impressive. From the start, she is realistic about the challenges of her subject, pointing out the difficulties of recovering evidence of washing and 'shifting' (i.e. 'changing') linen clothing, and especially the more intimate acts of cleaning the body. However, the quantity of evidence that she presents and her skilful and nuanced analysis of it has produced an illuminating and persuasive account of the labour-intensive efforts made by early modern people to stay 'sweet and clean'. * Danae Tankard, Textile History *