Picturing Consumption: An Examination of Drinking Establishments Through Images and Material Culture from Late 17th Century London

Summary

This paper aims to explore the impact of globalization and immigration on late seventeenth-century London.  Through the examination of patters of consumption practiced within various drinking establishments –  alehouses, taverns and coffee houses –  a striking relationship is revealed between social issues/identities and the importation of exotic goods. The imprints of these consumables are represented in both the material and historical records. Frequent depictions of these spaces through illustrations in popular pamphlets, circulars and newspapers of the time allow for a combined analysis of materials found both at the sites and represented in these primary depictions of the spaces. I aim to demonstrate how the materials, their place of manufacture, what they contained and symbolically represented all contributed to the construction of distinct social identities. Those identities taken in concert with the symbolic significance traditionally attribute to the interpretations facilitated transformations brought about by the processes of global expansion. 

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Money: Studies of Trade and Consumption   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 519