Crooked or Straight: Creating the ideal posture in 18th-century Britain

“There are few diseases which afflict the Human Body, attended with greater disadvantages, than those produced by Distortion. It gives not only an unpleasing appearance, but innumerable complaints generally follow”. So ran an advertisement titled ‘Distortion’ in the True Briton newspaper of January 1800.

In the eighteenth century, good posture was becoming an important issue. Sloppy posture which, in John Weaver’s Anatomical and Mechanical Lectures Upon Dancing (!), included ‘holding down the head’, putting out the chin, stooping in the shoulders, bending too much forwards and thrusting out the belly’, were not good signs. The vagaries of early modern life left their mark on the human form in various ways. Various medical conditions could leave bodies in a far worse state than they found them. Diseases in childhood, such as rickets, affected gait, while accidents could lead to poorly formed limbs. Well-meaning but botched medical interventions could leave highly visible traces. Poor diet and harsh living conditions affected health and appearance. In all respects the eighteenth-century body was a product of its time.

A ‘crooked’ body left its owner open to a cruel raillery of insults. David Turner’s excellent book on disability in the eighteenth century details some of the terms of ridicule that could be levelled at those whose bodies did not conform to erect ideals.James Caulfield’s 1793 dictionary of slang included terms such as ‘lord and lady’ to denote a ‘crooked or hump back’d person’. A ‘lame or limping man’ might be referred to as ‘Mr Hopkins or Hopping Giles’. In literature, ‘deformed’ people were treated to highly pejorative terminology from ‘a creeping creature’ to various other plays upon ‘crookedness’, lameness or distortion. Having a ‘crooked’ body could also be a potential social barrier. For a woman marital prospects could be hampered. For men, the emphasis upon hardy male traits such as elegance of form and posture – as well as a general mien – made standing up straight a key consideration.

Image from Wellcome Images

But, as with many other areas of daily life in the eighteenth century, where there was a problem, there lurked a ‘specialist’ to sell you something for it. Georgian newspapers contained a raft of devices designed to help people shape their own bodies. Key to this process were conceptions of ‘correction’ and ‘concealment’. One of the biggest areas of the market was for devices to ‘cure’ hernias. In many ways the eighteenth century was a golden age for the ‘rupture’. New types of industrial processes, the harsh, physical nature of manual labour and even the demands of new environments such as the navy led to a virtual plague of ruptures. The problem with inguinal hernias was the fact that they could lead to large, painful and highly visible swellings in the groin. No surprise then that truss makers often sought to emphasise the strength of their products in concealing the problem.

Guy Nutt

In 1790, Mr Dowling “Improved Patent Elastic Truss Maker’ of St Martin’s Lane, London, begged leave to acquaint the public that he had brought his trusses to ‘so great a degree of perfection that the most troublesome rupture can be kept up with ease and safety’. Unlike tight waistbands which worked by ‘forcing the contents of the abdomen downwards’, making them uncomfortable to the wearer, Dowling’s ‘Improved Elastic Breeches Straps’ were just the ticket to keep everything held up and in place. Timothy Sheldrake’s ‘Double Springed Elastic Truss’ was claimed to ‘keep the largest rupture up with less inconvenience than a small one can be kept up with any other Truss’.

An important consideration for wearers was that of discretion. To be seen wearing an unwieldy truss would merely draw attention to the afflicted parts. As ever, makers were ready. J. Meares of Ludgate Hill reassured customers that his devices were so discrete that ‘even the most intimate companion cannot discover it’. Others designed their products to be ‘indistinguishable from nature’.

Apart from trusses, a range of products was available to encourage the body into a straight, erect form. It was seen as important to catch children early and teach them (by means of forcing them!) to stand properly. Leg irons, to be found amongst the stock of J. Eddy of Soho, were one means of forcing bandy legs into a socially-pleasing form. ‘Elastic bandages’ and stays worn under the garments used their properties to force an errant body into submission. As children got older and went to school, the process accelerated. Parents of girls were especially obsessed with achieving the graceful swanlike neck so desired by artists such as Joshua Reynolds and his ‘serpentine line’. Amongst the products for achieving this were steel collars, that literally forced the chin up into the air. Steel ‘backs’ and ‘monitors’ were strapped to the back and made it next to impossible for a young person to slouch. Exercising with ‘gymnastick’ equipment including dumb bells was advocated to open up the chest. In 1779, one Abraham Buzaglo patented his ‘machines &c for gymnastick exercises’.

Image courtesy of Wellcome Images

Many of these devices were extremely uncomfortable to the wearer. The Reverend Joseph Greene complained that his truss chafed the sensitive skin of his inner thighs and ‘bruis’d ye contiguous parts’. Writing in 1780, Henry Manning commented on the popularity of such devices, which, he argued, were of little practical help. Indeed, according to Manning, the patient frequently became unhealthy and died in an exhausted state, or was forced to live out a miserable existence confined to chair or bed! Makers were forced to respond by stressing how light, durable and comfortable were their products. J. Sleath was at pains to reassure ladies that his steel backs and collars ‘of entire steel’ were ‘peculiarly light, neat and durable’!

The neck swing, from Timothy Sheldrake’s ‘Essay on the Various Causes and Effects of the Distorted Spine’, 1783

By far one of the most painful devices ever marketed was the ‘neck swing’. Swinging was recommended by surgeons as a means of stretching the spine. The ‘neck swing’ operated by encasing the sufferer’s head in a steel cap and frame, by which they were suspended off the ground for hours at a time. A surviving account by a young English girl highlights how uncomfortable this could be.

“I remained suspended in a neck swing, which is merely a tackle and pulley fixed to the ceiling of the room; the pulley is hooked to the head-piece of the collar, and the whole person raised so that the toes only touch the ground” In this position, she spent much of the day. After two decades of treatment, it was reported that her spine had actually decreased by six inches!

People were prepared to go to great lengths to achieve a straight body, even if it meant enduring excruciating pain to do it. The eighteenth century was indeed a period when people were increasing turning to new technologies in order to shape their own bodies, from razors and personal grooming instruments to postural devices and even new types of surgical instrument. Today we still have a strong sense of ‘straightness’ as a bodily ideal and a large market exists for products to help us sit straight, particularly in the workplace. Whilst the ‘neck swing’ may have long gone, we’re still obsessed with body shape and the need to conform to what any given society deems to be ideal.

Sit up Straight! Bad posture and the ‘Neck Swing’ in the 18th century.

Posture is a problematic issue for medicine. Having established a link between ‘bad’ posture and all manner of conditions, from spinal curvature and back pain to nerve damage and headaches, slouching is high on the government’s hit list. Why? Let’s be clear about it, back pain is as much an economic issue as a medical one. While clearly there are many causes for back pain, the BBC recently calculated that it costs the NHS over £1.3 million every day. Add to that the costs to businesses of lost working time and it is painful to the economy as well as the body. It is no coincidence that the NHS website has a number of micro-sites dedicated to suggestions for improving the way we sit and stand.

All manner of devices can be bought with the aim of straightening us up. Leaf through the pages of those glossy little free catalogues that often appear in the post (the ones which routinely have walk-in baths, shooting sticks and things for kneeling on in the garden…you get the picture?) and you’ll notice a panoply of postural devices. There are corsets to force you back into position, as well as all manner of back braces to pull your shoulders back. You can buy cushions for your favourite chair that encourage you to sit in a ‘better’ (for which read less comfortable!) way, as well as special chairs that encourage you to kneel. Even, recently, desks that you stand at, instead of slumping in front of the PC screen. All tested. All clinically proven. All, usually, very expensive. Someone is making money off our drooping shoulders and crooked spines.

But devices to make us sit or stand ‘straight’ are certainly nothing new. As we’ll see, the Stuarts and Georgians got there first with a variety of more or less painful solutions. What have changed are attitudes towards posture. For the Georgians, posture was partly medical, certainly, but perhaps more of a social and cultural issue. Put another way, the ‘polite’ body stood straight and tall; to hunch over was unnatural and uncouth.

In the eighteenth century, the ideal body was straight and well proportioned. But even a cursory glance around the inhabitants of a Georgian town would confirm that many – perhaps the majority – were very far from this ideal. Vitamin deficiency caused by poor diet stunted growth, while a variety of diseases experienced through life could leave their mark. Accidents and bone-breakages might be cursorily treated, but a broken leg could easily leave a person with a limp. Also, many conditions, which today are easily treatable, were then left to run rampant through the body. All this meant that the ‘standard’ Georgian body was often far from the ideal.

It would be easy to assume that people simply accepted their lot and got on with their lives. Doubtless many did. But the eighteenth century also witnessed an increasing willingness to shape the body to try and bring it more in line with this elusive ideal. In 1741, Nicholas Andry published his famous ‘orthopedia’, in which he likened the human body to a tree, which needed support as it grew and, later, as it declined. His famous image of the so-called ‘Tree of Andry’ illustrates this well.

The eighteenth century was a golden age of corrective devices. Just like today you could buy a vast number of corsets and stays, which aimed not only to correct medical deformities, like ruptures, but to help women to try and meet the most fashionable body shape, of a miniscule waist and broad bust. The experience of wearing some of these devices must have been at best uncomfortable and, at worst, excruciating.

There were, for example, steel ‘backs’ – large plates of metal inserted and lashed inside the back of the wearer’s clothing, which ‘encouraged’ them to stop slouching. Metal ‘stays’ gave the illusion of a harmonious form while simultaneously forcing the sufferer’s body back into a ‘natural’ shape. Here’s a typical advert from an eighteenth-century newspaper showing the range of available goods:

“London Daily Post and General Advertiser, February 16th, 1739
‘This is to give NOTICE
THAT the Widow of SAMUEL JOHNSON, late of Little Britain, Near West Smithfield, London, carries on the Business of making Steel Springs, and all other Kinds of Trusses, Collars, Neck Swings, Steel-Bodice, polish’d Steel-Backs, with various Instruments for the Lame, Weak or Crooked.
N.B. She attends the Female Sex herself”

Perhaps some of the most uncomfortable devices were those to correct deformities of the neck. For both sexes, having a straight neck was extremely desirable. For men, keeping the chin up was a sign of masculine strength, poise and posture. Those who slouched were mumbling weaklings, destined never to get on in business or the social sphere. The allure of the soft female neck, by contrast, lay in its swan-like grace; a crooked neck ruined the allusion of femininity and threatened the chances of a good match.

Many makers supplied products to help sufferers of neck problems. Metal collars, hidden under clothing, forced the chin up. If it sagged, it would rest on an uncomfortably hard metallic edge. Perhaps the most extreme of these devices, however, was the ‘neck-swing’ supposedly introduced into England from France by one ‘Monsieur Le Vacher’. This heavy apparatus fitted around, and supported, the wearer’s head and neck, after which they were suspended, feet off the ground, in an effort to elongate the spine and promote a straighter back. We have one unique testimony of someone who tried it. She described how, every morning, she was: “suspended in a neck- swing, which is merely a tackle and pulley fixed to the ceiling of the room; the pulley is hooked to the head-piece of the collar, and the whole person raised so that the toes only touch the ground”. In this awkward position she remained, sometimes for long periods of time.

There seemed to be something of a vogue for postural devices in the eighteenth century, to the extent that they even entered popular culture. In the anonymous Village Memoirs: In a Series of Letters Between a Clergyman and his Family in the Country, and his Son in Town, the titular clergyman noted the vagaries of bodily fashions: “To remedy the ill effects of a Straight line, an uniform curve is now adopted – but alteration is not always improvement – and it reminds me of the conduct of the matron, who, to prevent her daughter from dropping her chin into her bosom, threw it up into the air by the aid of a steel collar – Hogarth’s Analysis has as yet been read to very little purpose’

It is therefore interesting to note how the dialogue of posture has changed over time. Georgian postural devices sought to return the body to a state of nature, or meet an ideal of appearance. While they certainly encouraged the returning of sufferers to productivity, this was less important than creating the impression of a harmonious whole. Today it might be argued to be the other way around. While cosmetic appearance is undoubtedly important, the emphasis is firmly upon health and minimizing the pressure on a creaking health servce. Our impressions of the body rarely remain static. How will the bodily ‘ideal’ translate itself in future?

Seeing History: The rise of spectacles in early modern Britain.

The percentage of people in the UK requiring either spectacles or contact lenses has risen over successive decades. It is difficult to put exact figures on this; some estimates suggest that over 68% of the population in Britain currently wear glasses or lenses, and this varies dramatically within age groups. Around 29% of 16-18 year olds require some sort of visual aid; a 2005 report put the figure for the age group 65 and above as high as 98%. It seems that spectacles today have largely shed their pejorative connotations and even become desirable, helped by many high-profile celebrity spec-wearers. Indeed, opticians have even reported a growth in sales of spectacles with blank lenses over recent years, to cater for those who see glasses as a fashion item. This apparent love affair with spectacles is not consistent, however.

A prosthetic eye, possible 17th century.

Until the seventeenth century, eye complaints were troublesome and painful, and effectively seen as a form of disability. The virtual plague of ophthalmic conditions in early modern Britain is attested to by the ubiquity of remedies for eye complaints in remedy collections. Common were remedies for sore eyes, which were often treated (in line with the ‘doctrine of sympathies’) by using substances of a similar constitution to the eye. Remedies using snails were popular; one common example was to impale a garden snail on a pin and let the juice run into the eye. Another recommended using fresh goose dung, its gelatinous consistency resembling the watery eye. Yet another suggested the blowing of dried hen’s dung into the afflicted party’s eye just before they went to sleep. For more on the uses of animal substances in remedies, see Lisa Smith’s excellent blog post on the subject. http://www.wondersandmarvels.com/2012/05/the-puppy-water-and-other-early-modern-canine-receipts.html

Opthalmic surgery was also in its infancy, with a procedure known as ‘couching’ or ‘cooching’ being one of the most invasive operations undertaken, being used for the treatment of cataracts. Here, a small silver instrument called an itinerarium was passed into the sufferer’s eye. The intention was to physically push the cataract film back away from the lens of the eye and thus clear the vision. This was doubtless uncomfortable and seems almost impossible to imagine – bearing in mind the patient was awake and conscious at the time. We shouldn’t assume that it was necessarily dangerous though. The seventeenth-century diarist Walter Powell of Llantilio Crossenny, in Monmouthshire, endured the procedure three times and still carried on with his diary afterwards, so presumably his vision was little worse if it wasn’t much better.

The wearing of spectacles was certainly known in Tudor times. Most typically, these were armless and sat on the bridge of the wearer’s nose. There were other types of device that could be used. Fearing he was losing his sight after years of close working in extremely bad light, Samuel Pepys tried a revolutionary new device in 1668 (the “tubespecticall”) which involved reading through three-inch long paper tubes, which eliminated glare and excess light.  Essentially, however, these were items connected with a physical disability – the same as prosthetic limbs, bandages or trusses.

The 17^th century, though, witnessed the beginning of a shift towards people being more comfortable with what was essentially a form of disability, and this was especially noticeable in portraiture. Fashion was a factor to some extent. In previous blog posts I have noted the use of steel as a desirable material, and shining steel spectacles represented a desirable fashion item. As such, steel spectacles could also be a mark of literacy and wealth.

Eighteenth-century spectacle makers also needed to adapt to the times, and produce items that could fit with current fashions. One of the most important exponents of this, and indeed in many ways a forefather of the modern spectacle designs, were ‘Martin’s Margins’, invented by the London maker Benjamin Martin. These were fairly revolutionary. Rather than sitting on the wearer’s nose, they had spring-loaded arms which enabled them to adhere seamlessly to the head, with less chance of falling off and being damaged.

Martin’s Margins

The eighteenth century was in fact an age of innovation in opthalmics. The optical instrument maker James Ayscough invented frames with long, folding arms to reach around the head, also known as ‘railway spectacles’. ‘Wig spectacles’ were designed with arms to slide into the fibres of a wig, and keep them in place – especially important given the increasingly ebalorate coiffeurs of the elites. The gradual introduction of steel springs in nose-pieces also helped fitting. The lenses of spectacles also developed through the eighteenth century. Around a third of the lens in a pair of ‘Martin’s Margins’, was filled with ox horn, to restrict light. Other developments included D-shaped spectacles in the 19^th-century, which had side visors which provided protection from dust and light. A self-portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds depicts him wearing a pair of wig-spectacles:

Reynolds Self Portrait © PCMAG

To be depicted in spectacles drew attention to the eyes, and the vision of the subject, perhaps literally or notionally. Conversely, though, spectacles could also be used in morality paintings to emphasise undesirable traits, such as miserliness. This portrait of Benjamin Franklin shows him squinting to read a document through his new-fangled spectacles:

There was also a medical aspect to the use of spectacles: too much light was seen as potentially injurious to vision, and spectacles were sometimes designed to restrict the amount of light entering the eyes. Tinted lenses, especially green, were considered to be therapeutic in the 17^th century (note the green lenses in the ‘Martin’s Margins’ above too).

So today’s fashion for spectacles has a long gestation, and it is interesting to see how perceptions of eye complaints have shifted over time. In fact, opthalmics has tended to move away from a strictly ‘medical’ field; the optician is now a common feature of the high-street and eye-tests and fittings can be done virtually on a drop-in basis. It is also interesting to note that the wearing of spectacles for fashion is not new. I heartily recommend a visit to the MusEYEum in the Royal College of Optometrists in London, where there is a fascinating library of artefacts and books about the history of spectacles, as well as some rare portraits of spectacle-wearers through history. The blog of its curator, Neil Handley, can be found here: http://www.college-optometrists.org/en/knowledge-centre/news/blog/index.cfm/id/199E66BA-4091-4C98-A53907402DE66669

Reviving the ‘apparently dead’ in Georgian Britain

In the course of my research, I often come across great sources which, although they might not be directly relevant to what I’m looking for at the time, make great ideas for future topics. One that I encountered recently, while looking into the history of steel surgical instruments, was the following:

Charles Kite, An Essay on the Recovery of the Apparently Dead (London: 1788) containing “A Description of a Case of Pocket Instruments for the Recovery of the Apparently Dead”.

The question of whether it was possible – and indeed ethical – to revive the dead was certainly a hot topic towards the end of the eighteenth century. On the one hand, an increasing interest in the possibilities created by scientific and technological advances was increasingly rendering the impossible possible. This was the age of technological innovation and artisanal skill. Industrial luminaries such as Benjamin Huntsman, Josiah Wedgewood, James Watt and Matthew Boulton were all investing massively in new technologies, and their creations – from steam engines and pumps to everyday household items – were themselves heralding a new age. Scientific societies offered prizes to inspire would-be inventors to create useful products. Useful, in this case, often meant something that could advance agricultural or military prowess. But, with the creation of the Royal Institution, and an emphasis upon experimentation, endeavours towards the advancement of science for its own sake were also promoted. Science, it seemed, had the potential to unlock many of the mysteries of life and the universe…even death.

On the other hand, however, there was still a lingering tension between science and its relationship with religion. Could, and indeed should, man interfere in the natural processes and cycles of life. In many ways he already did. At the most basic level, medicine itself sought to prevent or delay death, or at least to palliate symptoms. There was some degree of uncertainty about when death actually occurred, and how to discern the point beyond which revival or resuscitation was possible.

Charles Kite’s book was part of a new interest in the question of death, approached from a scientific and essentially detached point of view. Among the types of death that men like Kite were interested in preventing were those caused by drowning. There was, indeed, even a whole society dedicated to the subject!

Accidental drowning represented a large percentage of causes of death, whether by accident or intention. It was also recognised, however, that this was a state that had the potential to be reversed. The opening sentence of Kite’s book reveals something of attitudes towards death by drowning.

“THAT the principle cause of the want of success in the recovery of the apparently dead, is the length of time that elapses before the proper remedies [my emphasis] can be applied, will admit of no doubt. It is equally certain, that this too frequently depends on circumstances wholly out of our power to prevent: but it is no less true, that cases terminating unfavourably often occur, to which, if proper and timely assistance could have been given, it is extremely probable they might have had a more fortunate conclusion”

It is firstly interesting to note that death is something potentially to be “remedied”; this immediately places it out of the metaphysical and into harsh corporeal reality. It is reversible. But more importantly, as Kite recognised, time was of the essence. If speedy assistance could be rendered, then more people could be saved.

The answer, as Kite saw it, was a device that could restart the respiratory process. Such devices were already in existence. In 1775, one “Dr Cogan” had contrived an apparatus and brought it to the attention of the Royal Society. According to Kite, “it soon came into common use and has remained so until the present day”. The problem, though, was one of size. Cogan’s apparatus was unwieldy and the delay in moving it from place to place often meant that the patient was dead (properly dead!) by the time it arrived. It involved, for example, an ‘electrical machine’ which was too impractical to use in the field and could not be scaled down. This image of the proposed apparatus highlights the problem!

Kite’s answer was a set of ‘pocket-sized’ instruments that could be carried from place to place with more ease, reducing the delay and thus raising the chances of successfully reviving the drowned person. Standard practice involved taking blood from the jugular vein of the patient but, depending on the length of time they had been in the water, getting blood from their rapidly deteriorating venal system could be tricky. The solution was to use Kite’s handy small instruments along with anything else at hand – even coffee cups – to draw off the requisite amount of blood, which was seen as the first stage in the process of revival.

Secondly, and more interestingly, though, was the recognition that the “suspended action of the lungs” had to be reversed. This was “of the utmost importance in our attempts to recover the apparently dead, let the original cause be whatever it might”. But how was this to be achieved?

Kite suggested an elastic tube, about twelve inches long, which had an ivory or silver mouthpiece, or bellows, attached to a conical screw. The other end had an ivory appendage to allow it to be passed into the deceased’s nostrils.  One person was to be stationed at the head of the body to insert the tube into the nose, and then to blow air “with force” through the tube. It was the job of the other person (the “medical director”) to keep the deceased’s mouth closed whilst also maintaining pressure on the windpipe to ensure that the air went into the lungs, rather than the stomach.

What is essentially being described here is artificial respiration. Perhaps less conventionally, however, Kite recommended the use of tobacco as a stimulant to further jolt the person back to life. This could be administered either as smoke passed through the tube and into the lungs, or passing it in solution to the stomach.

What can we learn from this source? Firstly, it highlights the sometimes remarkably ‘modern’ attitudes towards the body, and of reviving the dead, thought about and adopted by eighteenth-century medical practitioners. The application of sustained scientific enquiry into the body, together with the knowledge gained from anatomical studies was beginning to have a profound effect on medicine; some see this as the change to a ‘medicalised’ view of health and the body.

Secondly, though, it is a fascinating glimpse into an eighteenth-century medical treatise, written by a practitioner for practitioners. The sharing of essential knowledge, the questioning of accepted truths and the willingness to test new theories all come together to make the eighteenth-century a rich and absorbing period in the history of medicine.

Advertising razors in Georgian Britain

This seemingly mundane advertisement appeared in the General Advertiser in May 1752. Daniel Cudworth was one of the many London business owners to take advantage of increased advertising opportunities to push his ‘flat razor strap’. On the surface, there seems little unusual here; a product, some notes about its quality and durability and a list of suppliers. And yet Cudworth’s advertisement actually pinpoints a turning point in male personal grooming. His advert is, as far as I can ascertain, the first example of a product targeted at men who ‘shave themselves’.

Up to this point, the barber was the main source of shaving for the majority of men. There aren’t many personal records to suggest how often men actually visited barbers, but it seems likely that many did so every week, if not every few days. Surviving barber’s accounts also tend to point towards a frequency of every few days, often done on an account settled monthly or even annually.

But, around the mid eighteenth-century, shaving – and male toilette in general, was beginning to attract a range of new products. The availability of cast steel meant sharper, more durable razors. Older steel razors were sometimes brittle and easily blunted; shavers complained about inept barbers whose lack of concentration could prove painful!

But now men could buy their own, high-quality shaving equipment from specialist retailers, who also sold a range of ancillary goods. Cudworth’s main line were razor-straps (strops), long pieces of leather which were used to keep razors in pristine, sharp condition. Shaving with blunt razors was an extremely uncomfortable experience. He makes reference to the poor quality (“thin things”) passed off as steel razors, requiring repair every few months, and notes the importance of maintenance in keeping a sharp edge. Clearly, a razor was becoming something to keep, rather than a throwaway item – disposable razors were not in vogue.

But Cudworth also sold shaving powders, the point of which was to soothe a smarting face but also to give it a smoother appearance. On one level these are clearly functional items. But they also represent something of a sea-change in attitudes towards male grooming. Rough masculinity was beginning to be displaced by a predilection for pampering.

At the upper levels of society, it is likely that servants performed the task. A whole set of shaving paraphernalia also became available for gentlemen who travelled, including sets of instruments and even portable shaving cases, including a mirror and bowl to allow the man to perform his task in comfort. Cudworth’s advert makes reference to this new trend; his ‘travelling boxes’ were small enough to be carried in a pocket, allowing businessmen and Grand Tourists alike to take their razors, scissors etwees and so on with them on their peregrinations.

Examples like this remind us that even the mundane and everyday can be fascinating. Even individual advertisements can be revealing about not only products for sale, but changing popular attitudes and social mores. It is often through these little snapshots of history that we can gain a better understanding of the bigger picture.

Steel and the body in the Enlightenment:

Whilst I was a research fellow at the University of Glamorgan, working with Professor Chris Evans, I was lucky enough to be part of a project far away from my usual research on Welsh medical history, but one which opened my eyes to an extraordinarily fruitful and fascinating area of research.

As the sociologist Richard Sennett commented, the eighteenth-century body was a ‘mannequin’ upon which were hung conventions of fashion, taste and politeness. Historians, however, have been slow to recognise the important influence of ‘enlightened’ manufactured goods in this process. New industrial technologies yielded products aimed specifically at the body, of which articles made from steel were central. Steel is not often thought of in terms of its contribution to culture, but rather as a prosaic industrial material. Technological breakthroughs between the 1680s and 1740s (such as Huntsman’s crucible steel) made steel an increasingly abundant and important good. It was, however, a material that could actually play a role in the fashioning of a new, refined self, and was indeed vital for some of the most personal rituals of everyday life. It was the metal with which people had the closest, even the most intimate, physical contact.

Razors were a prime example of this. Better steel enabled razor-makers to produce blemish-free, durable and more comfortable blades. Pre-crucible steel razors tended to blunt quickly and, although sharp, were not superbly keen. Part of the reason for this was the use of pre-Bessemer cementation steel, which was more brittle due to the less than uniform distribution of carbon. Crucible (or cast) steel razors were far superior; not only could they carry a much sharper edge, they could be polished to a mirror-like shine, making them far more aesthetically pleasing for consumers.

Indeed, when advertising their wares in popular publications, it was to domestic consumers rather than professional barbers that they most often appealed. Personal razors allowed their owners to meet expectations of refinement and social order. Shaving the face evinced gentlemanly neatness and elegance, while shaving the head prepared it for the wearing of a wig – an expression of genteel masculinity.

Cast steel had effects in other ways. Its ability to take a sharp edge also influenced the design of surgical instruments, for example, and this led to changes in operative techniques, which had implications for both the patients and practitioners of surgery. The amputation knife was one such instrument. The standard amputation knife around the mid eighteenth century was long and straight – something resembling a chef’s knife today! But advances in steel allowed a new, curved design. This allowed surgeons to use a more natural cutting stroke around the leg, cutting through the soft tissues more quickly, before sawing through the bone. Given the risk of losing a patient through hypovolemic shock in pre-anaesthetic surgery, speed was of the essence.

The springy strength of steel was likewise indispensable for medical paraphernalia from trusses to deportment collars. Here, steel was a pure Enlightenment good, scientifically honed to improve or correct nature’s vagaries. As makers of ‘elastic steel trusses’ frequently emphasised, steel was the only material with which they could claim to cure hernias or ruptures. Steel ‘neck swings’ could be used to force the body back into its ‘natural’ shape, while deportment collars and steel ‘stays’ encouraged young ladies and gentlemen to stand up straight.

Other devices benefitted from the development of new types of steel. It could, for example, be employed in fixing correctional devices to the body, such as the flexible springs in spectacles’ side arms. Spectacles became a permanent part of costume, with an aesthetic value in their own right. In this process, they ceased to be indicators of bodily deficiency and acquired more positive associations (learning and sagacity), as archival and artefactual collections at the College of Optometrists can demonstrate.

One of the most visible uses of steel, though, was in costume jewellery. By the mid eighteenth-century, jewellery was strongly in vogue amongst the upper echelons of society. As Marcia Pointon has noted, diamonds were the very height of luxurious and conspicuous consumption, and costume jewellery reflected a range of social mores and rituals related to society ritual and appearance. Prohibitively expensive, the potential market for these precious stones was therefore extremely limited.  But steel offered new possibilities as an ersatz precious metal; here was a material which could offer all the decorative allure of diamonds, but at a fraction of the price. Cut and faceted into imitation stones known as ‘brilliants’, cast steel sparkled. With flat surfaces polished, it shone like a mirror.

By the late eighteenth-century demand for cut-steel jewellery reached across Europe and appealed to royalty as well as affluent middling sorts with disposable income to match their social aspirations. Fashionable gentlemen increasingly bought cast steel watch chains, both to support their newly modish gold and silver watches, but also as a costume adornment in their own right. Added to these chains were a further range of accoutrements such as seals and lockets, which further served to draw attention to the means of the wearer. In the 1760s, chatelaines made from ‘blued steel’ presented a ‘gamut of metallic hues’. Glistening steel buttons also became an essential part of the dress of the Beau Monde, so much so that their effulgence was satirised in cartoons such as Coups de Bouton, showing a society lady cowering in the face of the blinding light reflected in the buttons of her rakish companion. But this perhaps also worked on a deeper level. Steel jewellery reflected the light but, in doing so, it also perhaps somehow reflected the spirit of the age – literal enlightenment.

It is often surprising what even the most basic of materials can reveal about society and culture, as well as the technological processes involved in making them. Steel was in many ways a ‘crossover’ between technology and culture; it was both a product of the enlightenment, and something that acted as a vector for enlightened ideals, through the various uses to which it was put.