Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network – History
Episode: Joseph Harley and Vicky Holmes, eds. "Objects of Poverty: Material Culture in Britain from 1700" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Host: Yana Byers
Date: December 3, 2025
Guest: Dr. Joseph Harley (Anglia Ruskin University), co-editor (with Vicky Holmes)
Note: Vicky Holmes was not present in the interview.

Episode Overview

This episode focuses on the edited collection, Objects of Poverty: Material Culture in Britain from 1700 (Bloomsbury, 2025), co-edited by Joseph Harley and Vicky Holmes. The episode explores how material culture offers insights into the lives of Britain’s poor from the eighteenth century onwards, challenging longstanding assumptions about poverty, objects, and historical memory. The discussion covers the book’s themes, research challenges, notable chapters, and broader implications for the history of poverty and objects.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Genesis of the Book & Editorial Collaboration

• Academic Partnership: Harley and Holmes first met as PhD students and have collaborated closely on edited volumes since ("...kind of the rest is history...").
• Inspiration: The persistent notion that the poor had "no stuff" spurred their desire to correct the record and address scholarly imbalances (02:53–04:57).
• Aims:
  • Redress imbalance in material culture studies, which focus predominantly on elite possessions.
  • Showcase the variety, creativity, and relevance of poor people's objects through accessible, affordable scholarship.
  • Encourage wider readership by ensuring clarity of writing and price point (04:57–07:49).

“The poor made up the vast majority of populations... what we wanted to do was to create a volume that addressed this imbalance and bring the poor more into the forefront. We wanted to show that their objects too are very interesting...” — Joseph Harley (06:01)

Challenging Assumptions: The Poor and "Stuff"

• Historical Misconceptions: It is often assumed that the poor owned little of note, a view even found in work by eminent social historians (07:49–10:55).
• Reality: Even the poor had varied possessions, necessities and non-essentials, adapted to their circumstances.
• Modern Parallel: Poverty today does not preclude ownership of consumer goods; the nature and necessity of "stuff" evolves (08:18–10:55).

“People have always needed stuff... you could go back all the way through to archaeological finds...” — Joseph Harley (08:18)

Research Challenges: Recovering Material Life

• Source Difficulties: Working-class and poor people's objects often do not survive, unlike artifacts of the wealthy; ephemeral materials like textiles rarely remain.
• Methodologies: The editors and contributors rely on written sources (inventories, diaries, welfare records) and surviving objects (wooden dolls, whistles, etc.) to reconstruct material life (11:04–13:15).

Defining "The Poor"

• Fluidity and Complexity:
  • Definition varies greatly by occupation, age, gender, region, life stage, and social context (14:43–18:21).
  • Encompasses a vast portion of the past population, possibly 50–66% in some periods.
  • Includes wage laborers, dependents, the elderly, children, and recipients of charity or welfare.
• Dynamic experiences: Poverty could be temporary (due to misfortune) or chronic; gender and place played crucial roles.

“It’s a really large complicated group of people... to even try and put a number on it is really difficult because how you define it will vary...” — Joseph Harley (14:43)

The Precariousness of Poverty

• Precarity: The poor’s circumstances could change rapidly due to disaster, death, or unemployment, much as today ("...you are just a few missed mortgage payments away..."; 21:07–21:55).
• State Response: Poor Laws
  • Old Poor Law (1601–1834): Local, parish-based, sometimes flexible, focused on relief in home.
  • New Poor Law (1834+): More punitive, workhouse-centric, influenced by Victorian moralism. Later superseded by welfare state measures (22:10–25:23).

Material Culture: Concepts and Importance

• Definition: Broadly, the relationships between people and objects – not just possessions, but also everyday interactions, meanings, and uses (25:46–27:52).
• Historiographical Gaps: Historians were slow to embrace material culture, compared to anthropologists and archaeologists, but are now addressing these gaps (27:52–29:51).

“Material culture... allows us to understand everything in the world, from standard living to our emotions to the five senses we use...” — Joseph Harley (27:34)

Structure of the Book

• Eight Thematic Sections:
  1. Objects of Sustenance
  2. Objects of Home
  3. Crafted Objects
  4. Objects of Childhood
  5. Living Objects
  6. Monetary Objects
  7. Workhouse Objects
  8. Objects of Inquiry and Death
• Editorial Choices: Chapters and sections were arranged to guide readers through key aspects of poor people's lives, though topics often overlapped (37:34–39:01).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the realities of editorial work:
  “A lot of it... is project management, a lot of it trying to steer people, getting them to do deadlines...” — Joseph Harley (04:24)
• On breaking assumptions:
  “We want to break down this assumption that the poor clearly didn’t own very much, because that isn’t true whatsoever.” — Joseph Harley (10:30)
• On objects’ afterlives:
  “What Vicky does... is that she shows how these objects can have a life beyond their immediate use... quite often they doubled as cheap beds in the nineteenth century.” — Joseph Harley, on egg boxes (34:57)
• On dolls made from scraps:
  “There’s some fantastic pictures, for instance, of dolls made from old mutton bones or old shoes... even dolls made out of things like potatoes...” — Joseph Harley (39:38)
• On dogs and the poor:
  “The reality is when you dig down into the poor in their own words... you'll see that those dogs are often better fed than they are as well.” — Joseph Harley (44:16)

Segmented Timestamps for Important Topics

• Editorial Partnership and Book Genesis – 02:20–04:57
• Aims of the Volume – 04:57–07:49
• Materialism of the Poor: Challenging Assumptions – 07:49–10:55
• Research Methodology and Sources – 11:04–13:15
• Defining “the Poor” and Their Varieties – 14:43–18:21
• Precarity and Causes of Poverty – 20:34–21:55
• Poor Laws in Britain – 22:10–25:23
• Material Culture: Definition and Importance – 25:46–27:52
• Disciplinary Boundaries and Material Culture’s Late Arrival – 27:52–29:51
• Section on Bread and “Objects of Sustenance” – 30:23–32:40
• Egg Boxes and “Objects of Home” – 34:57–37:05
• Thematic Structure and Editorial Challenges – 37:34–39:01
• Notable Chapters: Dolls, Dogs, and More – 39:38–44:34
• Book’s Audience & Accessibility – 46:01–47:10
• Future Research Directions – 47:27–48:39

Book Highlights: Sample Chapters & Objects

• Bread (Objects of Sustenance): Central to survival, protest, and social meaning; historically ubiquitous (30:23–32:40).
• Egg Boxes (Objects of Home): Repurposed as beds, reflecting creativity and resourcefulness in poverty (34:57–37:05).
• Dolls (Objects of Childhood): Made from bones, shoes, potatoes; exemplify parental love, creativity, the emotional world of poor children (39:38–41:35).
• Dogs (Living Objects): More than working animals, became beloved companions, challenging judgments about the poor’s morality (41:48–45:04).

Book's Approach & Audience

• Accessible Writing: Offers original research in a readable style for both academic and general audiences. Intends to bridge the gap between scholarly and lay readers (04:57, 46:22).
• Affordability: The editors advocated for a reasonably priced edition so that it could reach a broader audience (06:51–07:49).

Closing & Future Directions

• Harley aims next to delve deeper into workhouse material culture before the notorious Victorian reforms, looking at humbler institutions and their objects (47:27–48:39).
• Vicky Holmes is pursuing studies on homelessness and sleeping arrangements.
• Collaborations may continue in the future, but a break from edited volumes is likely for now (48:44–48:55).

Final Thoughts

This episode offers a lively and insightful entry point into the "material turn" in poverty history, demonstrating how everyday objects—however humble—can reveal the creativity, struggle, and humanity of marginalized people. The volume aims to renew both academic and popular understandings of historical poverty, proving that so-called “objects of poverty” are rich sources of meaning, resilience, and culture.