Anne Clendinning , Demons of Domesticity: women and the English gas industry, 1889-1939 , Ashgate Publications, Aldershot , England , 2004.
ABSTRACT Women first found employment with the English gas industry, not as clerical workers, but as professional demonstrators, saleswomen and advertising experts. The first and consistently largest group of female gas industry employees were the 'lady demons', short for lady demonstrators. These certified cookery teachers instructed ladies, servants and housewives of all classes how to use and maintain their gas cookers and appliances. This study has a dual purpose. First, it considers the development of employment opportunities for women in the English gas industry from the 1880s to the 1930s, with a particular emphasis on the city of London and the Home Counties. Secondly, the book addresses the corresponding expansion and diversification of the industry's marketing strategies, and the important role played by women in this process, as both the purveyors and consumers of domestic utility services. Adding women to the history of the English gas industry increases our understanding of the shifting relationships between gender, work and consumerism, moving towards an appreciation of how these discursive relationships construct popular perceptions of new and existing technologies.
Anne Clendinning, 'The Open Sky Enclosed: the world as exhibition' in Trevor Gould's Posing for the Public: the world as exhibition , in press, published by the Art Gallery of Hamilton and the Museum of Contemporary Art , Montreal , September, 2003.
ABSTRACT Given his interest in the social and cultural politics of museum practice, Montreal sculptor Trevor Gould uses his installation of sculpture, paintings, dioramas, film and photography to reflect on the relationship between works of art and the spaces in which they are presented. Read as a critical comment regarding the manner in which specimens of 'natural history' were collected, catalogued and commercialized for the viewing public, Gould shares the concerns of a community of scholars, including historians, anthropologists and cultural theorists. Posing for the Public: the World as Exhibition offers a valuable commentary on the history of world exhibitions. By unraveling the conventions of exhibition and museum display and laying bare the politics of race, gender and class that informed curatorial practice and spectatorship particularly within the colonial context, Gould's work take us full circle by re-presenting the conventions of the world exhibition and questioning their cultural legacy.
Anne Clendinning, '"Deft Fingers and Persuasive Eloquence": The Lady Demons of the English Gas Industry 1888-1918', Women's History Review , vol 9, 3 November 2000.
ABSTRACT In an effort to popularize the gas stove, boost sales and minimize the genuine and perceived dangers of using this volatile domestic appliance, late Victorian gas managers and stove manufacturers employed female cookery teachers to perform public demonstrations at trade exhibitions throughout the country. Eventually, these women comprised a special department of gas sales, calling directly on customers in their homes to offer personal instructions in the proper care and use of gas stoves. Part social workers, part salesgirls, the 'lady demons', short for lady demonstrators, moved between the traditionally gendered spheres of home and work, consciously constructing a professional image that reconciled the social tensions of this new occupation. They offer an example of women's entrance into the corporate business world, the feminisation of consumption, and the combination of customer service with social welfare.
Anne Clendinning, 'Gas and Water Feminism: Maud Adeline Brereton and Edwardian Domestic Technology' , Canadian Journal of History, April 1998.
ABSTRACT In 1911, a group of British gas managers made advertising history by establishing a collective organization dedicated to the promotion of a single industry. The British Commercial Gas Association directed its campaigns at various consumer groups, including builders, architects, homeowners and tenants. To present the 'woman's point of view' to their female customers, the BCGA hired Mrs. Maud Adeline Cloudesley Brereton as editor-in-chief of its monthly publicity magazines. A former teacher and public health activist, Maud Brereton combined business and social reform, anticipating that gas technology had the potential to raise housing and nutrition standards for all classes. Given her preoccupation with public health and domestic architecture, Brereton continues the work of an earlier generation of Victorian feminist designers. Among her contemporaries, she stands out because she chose to work for material change through the corporate sector in an age when few women held positions of influence in the predominantly male business world.