Dressing the Poor: The Provision of Clothing among the Lower Classes in Eighteenth-Century Madrid

Abstract

This article examines the role of clothes in the survival strategies of the labouring poor in eighteenth-century Madrid, as well as the means of supply and distribution of these products, which included both mercantile (including buying and selling, pawning and payments in kind) and non-mercantile relations (including inheritance, charity and theft). This approach aims, firstly, at bringing to light the role of second-hand clothing trades and markets in the eighteenth-century European urban economy, together with the importance of non-mercantile methods of provision; secondly, at providing some clues to explain the increasing consumption of textiles in eighteenth-century towns whose populations were experiencing a loss of purchasing power.

We are grateful to the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN) for providing the funding to undertake this research, which is part of the following wider projects: Permanencias y cambios en la sociedad del Antiguo Régimen, ss. XVI–XIX. Una perspectiva desde Madrid (HAR2011-27898-C02-02) and Cambios y resistencias sociales en la edad moderna: un análisis comparativo entre el centro y la periferia mediterránea de la monarquía hispánica (HAR2011-27898-C02-00), both within the framework of the Plan Nacional I+D+i, 2011–14. We also thank Juan Pardo for his invaluable help in the development of Figure 2, and Rebecca Haidt who kindly revised the text.

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Notes on contributors

Victoria López Barahona

Victoria López Barahona is a research student in the Department of Early Modern History, Universidad Autónoma of Madrid. She specialises in studies of labour, industry and commerce in early modern Madrid, as well as in textile proto-industries in rural New Castile. She is currently undertaking a doctoral thesis on women’s work in eighteenth-century Madrid, has contributed a number of papers and articles to congresses, reviews and books, and has recently published a monograph on the working women confined in the prisons and hospices of eighteenth-century Madrid.

José Nieto Sánchez

José A. Nieto Sánchez is an assistant professor in early modern history in the Department of Early Modern History, Universidad Autónoma of Madrid. He is a specialist in labour, industry and commerce in early modern Madrid, and has published numerous papers, articles and books on urban and rural industries, labour markets and urban trades. His book Artesanos y Mercaderes: Una Historia Social y Económica de Madrid, 1450–1850 (Madrid: Fundamentos, 2006) is a major reference work in Spanish historiography.