The essays in this collection explore both organizational intentions and inhabitants' experiences in a diverse range of British residential institutions during a period when such provision was dramatically increasing.

Material relations tells the story of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century middle-class families by exploring the domestic spaces they inhabited and the material goods they prized. By opening the doors of the house, the book sheds new light on aspects of family life including love, marriage, sex, childhood and death. Historians have argued that as the nineteenth century waned, domestic spaces became increasingly private. Material relations challenges this, contending that domestic space created a complex series of family intimacies. Drawing upon novels, advice manuals and magazines,...

The essays in this collection explore both organizational intentions and inhabitants' experiences in a diverse range of British residential institutions during a period when such provision was dramatically increasing.