School of History, Classics & Archaeology

Artisans and the Craft Economy c.1780-1914

Professor Stana Nenadic, and postdoctoral researcher, Dr Keren Protheroe, have created an online exhibition about Scottish artisans, their work and working lives between 1780 and 1914.

Photographs, portraits and hand-made objects held in Scotland’s museums and archives tell the story of Scotland’s artisans, and how their skills and working practices survived and adapted in an era more commonly associated with industrialisation. These materials have now been made accessible as part of a three year Leverhulme Trust funded project, Artisans and the Craft Economy in Scotland c.1780-1914 (RPG-2012-247). An online exhibition has been created and curated by a team of researchers, led by Professor Stana Nenadic at the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh.

In five themed sections – Handmade and Design, Vernacular and Place, Portraits, Workshops, and Trades and Communities – the exhibition shows how a skilled workforce and individual craft-producers responded to changing social conditions by adapting, evolving and sometimes inventing new traditions to produce products, buildings and places that captured the imagination of Scotland’s visitors and home consumers.  Images of Scottish jewellery, textiles, metalwork, glass and ceramics illustrate the enduring economic and cultural significance of the hand-made in the nineteenth century, and more particularly the resonance of traditional craftsmanship that was associated with Scottish production.

For more information

The Artisans and Craft-Production in Nineteenth-Century Scotland online exhibition is available to view:

http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/

More information on the project can be found here:

https://artisansinscotland.wordpress.com/

 

Professor Stana Nenadic’s profile page