Source: Spyer, Patricia. Border Fetishisms; Material Objects in Unstable Spaces. New York and London: Routledge, 1998.

Tools: Canva

776 beds? Is they actual beds or bedding? Where would you store 776 beds?

Probably not much difference at that time. The typical poor scot probably just had bedding, not a bed.

Before the advent of machine manufacturing for clothes, they were as valuable as jewelry. When they would write back then about some dandy nobleman having 30 pairs of breeches that was like having a closet full of Gucci, Balenciaga etc.

While I recognise that it is being merely used as a general graphic, wrist watches were invented in 1868.

The beds? We keep them in the bedroom.

Ah but Queen Elizabeth the 1st had a wristwatch all the way back in 1571, after one was gifted to her by the Earl of Leicester.

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The difference isn't that big actually, they just broke the men's clothes down into individual items and gave socks and overcoats very "female-looking" icons?

>Queen Elizabeth the 1st had a wristwatch

Indeed she did - I learn something new every day - thank you.

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Apparently people would pawn of their Sunday Best and then buy it back at the end of the week to go to church.

https://visitvictorianengland.com/2019/05/24/victorian-pawnbrokers/

“For the majority of the working classes, pawning was simply a way of life. The only way to make ends meet was to pledge their belongings to raise cash for the week ahead. When in work, they used their clothing, especially their Sunday best, as capital. This was why Saturdays and Mondays were the pawnbrokers’ busiest days. Clothing was frequently pledged on a Monday and redeemed on a Saturday after the breadwinner of the family had been paid. It was worn to chapel or church on a Sunday, and pledged again the next day. This cycle of pledging and redeeming, week in, week out, might continue for years, and pawnbrokers made their profits on the interest charged”

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My Nana used to pawn my Grandad's suit to get the family to pay-day. This was very common in poor families in the 1940's.

Build a structure out of the beds to store the other stuff. Including more beds.

What sort of Men's Rights Activism is this? Women often used to manage household funds on top of managing the housework which, by the way, was much, much more time consuming before the invention of time saving appliances. With the advent of shift work, men would often be given the money and have to disburse it to the wife, and the wife would have to hope there was enough to manage the household after the husband took what he wanted.

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I'm pretty sure those styles of dresses wouldn't have existed in Victorian England.

I scrolled because I figured I was the only one bothered.

This is really cool, but I think it would be even cooler if it used icons closer to the clothing styles of the time.

Part of what bothers me is I can't figure out what the two categories of dresses are supposed to be. It's like a puzzle with very few hints.

Just noticed there's another dress like image that might represent a woman's coat? Even more confusing

Excuse me if Im confused, but isnt this a bad thing? Im understanding it as the same concept as a payday loan? Why continuously pawn the same thing every week and buy it back for more, instead of just saving enough for a weeks expenses? If they cant afford to do that then it doesnt make sense for them to buy it back at all right?

You understand perfectly and it is a terrible thing that unfortunately still exists today in the form of payday loans. This is the brutal cost of being poor. They could have slipped into the cycle of pawning clothes, because they had a week/day without wages and then I imagine it is very hard to get out of. Not sure why they didn’t just not buy the clothes back. Perhaps they just still wanted to be part of the community or perhaps they truly believed that the afterlife was a better option for them so attending church was the best security for a good life after the bad one they are in!

That's definitely a good point. In the same way you see people spending way too much on car payments for vanity, I'm sure the thought of showing up to church and having everybody in the community clearly see that you cant afford Sunday clothes anymore (when you did before) would be crushing enough to make people enter that cycle of pawning.

I bet she didn't have wifi either!

People in 1867 carrying around a whole ass clock with them

I don't know why you have so many downvotes... This is an accurate description of a common domestic relationship for many poor families throughout history.

It even accurately describes part of my childhood in the late 80s, although it was only the two of us kids. Our step-arsehole would get home late with whatever money was left after getting drunk, fall asleep on the carpet and piss himself.

The payday loans of the time. Financially unwise but necessary.

Kids these days don't know that an exclamation point (and context) was used for sarcasm long before "/s". :)

Culturally you wore your Sunday best, you kept up with the Joneses.

Quote from Pratchett is useful here:

"He could here his granny speaking.  ‘No one’s too poor to buy soap.’  Of course, many people were.  But in Cockbill Street they bought soap just the same.  The table might not have any food on it but by gods, it was well scrubbed. That was Cockbill Street, where what you mainly ate was your pride."

DePop is not a new phenomenon.

I would've said the Boots quote. Which I haven't really read Pratchett but seen it floating around:

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two
and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could
afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

At that time, clothes, especially female clothes, were hard to make and very expensive. One dress with a corset could have been worn easily for 10 -15 years after renovations, fixes etc.

The most common miscellaneous item pawned are beds?

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Why mention England?

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Pocket watches were invented far earlier that the wrist watch and were widespread by the 1600s. They weren't replaced by the wrist watch in popularity until World War 1.