Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2007. / Principal faculty advisor: Damie Stillman, Dept. of Art History. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1993. / Also available in print.

This regional study examines the character and pace of change in landed society in the eighteenth century and the impact of change on social stability. It offers new perspectives on why the landed gentry, the 'untitled aristocracy', retained their estates and their influence throughout the period. Members of this distinct social group had to make more careful, strategic choices than the wealthier peerage, and their behaviour served as a barometer of the effects of socio-economic and cultural developments on society as a whole. In spite of this, there have been few regional studies of eighteenth-century landed gentry in recent years. The study's in situ holistic approach builds on the earlier historiography of landed elites but also on more recent scholarship on culture, performance, and polite behaviour. It uses archival records to study the fifty-two landed-gentry families in the New Forest and the Isle of Wight. It shows that the landed gentry of this region was open to newcomers, who added to the numbers rather than displacing established families. Furthermore, there was no evidence of elite withdrawal or of a separation into so-called 'old and local' and 'new and national' groups. This thesis adds an important new dimension by identifying two characteristics of successful families. They were social and cultural amphibians, able not only to move between their estates and London but also to adapt to the polite norms of behaviour of different groups. In addition, they used 'social power', which stemmed principally from their behaviour, to achieve their aims in spite of the greater wealth and status of the peerage. As a group, the landed gentry presented a picture of social continuity and stability in 1800, but they had achieved this through a process of gradual social accommodation. They had changed in order to preserve their place and their power.

No description available.

This thesis explores the burgeoning musical commerce industry in Williamsburg, Virginia between approximately 1716 to 1775. It especially focuses on the gentrification of this industry and the ways in which elite Virginians made use of music to establish themselves as inheritors of British culture and musical entertainment. A diversity of musical businesses appeared in Williamsburg during the eighteenth century, including instrument sellers, music and dancing teachers, and two theaters utilized by theatrical troupes, to name a few. Drawing on evidence from the Virginia Gazette, as well as journals, letters, playhouse reports, and account books, the thesis concludes that music provided an important means for the formation of an elite colonial identity in a time and place heavily influenced by an American consumer revolution and a desire for refinement.

In the Ming dynasty, Ming Taizu had restructured county society by the lijia system, in which the sacrificial organization lishe was incorporated to help maintain social morality and social order. This reform in Hongwu era had influenced Zezhou country in some aspects but the influence did not last. From mid-Ming times on, cunshe, symbolized by the cult of the spirits and the she temple, substituted the lishe as the basic community organization in the countryside again. At the same time, the gentry had become increasingly important in local society. To meet the challenges from commercialization and social mobility, the gentry tried lineage reconstruction in the countryside but they seem not to have been successful as they had desired. They also attempted to reform the organization and the function of cunshe to practice Confucian doctrines in the country. The gentry's compromise with the cunshe in time allowed the cunshe to improve its authority in social affairs. / The gentry of Zezhou and their families, with great success in civil service examinations, became local heroes and saviors during the rebellious and chaotic Ming-Qing transition. In the mid-Qing, they declined service to the government and local society while cunshe became much more active and powerful in country life. Changes in fiscal and tax policies brought changes to local administrations as well. Cunshe, as a non-official system in the rural area, came to control more and more village affairs. In the last years of the Qing dynasty, cunshe had actually become a local self-government organization and was authorized by the county government in various degrees. / The history of cunshe in Zezhou reveals the close relationship between the cult of she and social integration in the rural area. Cunshe there was both a religious and a territorial organization. Its architectural structure also provided a public space for the community. The long interaction among the state, gentry and cunshe in Zezhou gives a typical example of traditional administration in rural China. Religion and cult in a community worked alongside formal institutions of the state for the control of local populace. / Zezhou, at the southern end of Taihang Mountain in the southeast of Shanxi province, has a long history of agricultural civilization. Spirits related to rain-praying were popularly worshipped in localities. When the North Song dynasty made its capital at Kaifeng, Zezhou became much nearer to the political center of the state than before. Official awarding of titles to the local spirits and regulating the sub-county administrative units were two main policies that the government had employed to control local society. These policies were effective in Zezhou. Some changes were obvious in the villages: the sacrificial offerings to the earth god in the village altar every spring and autumn were replaced by the offering to the rain spirits in the village shrine. Villages around the new shrines or temples were organized by this new cult in addition to sub-county level government arrangement. Cunshe (territorial sacrificial association) became the basic social organization outside the family in the countryside. The wars between nomadic and Han regimes in north China broke the lineages in Song times. The Jin and Yuan reigns that followed the Song relied on the cunshe to form the basis of its local administration. / 杜正贞. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 2005. / 參考文獻(p. 286-295). / Adviser: Hung-lam Chu. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-01, Section: A, page: 0296. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts also in English. / School code: 1307. / Lun wen (Zhe xue bo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2005. / Can kao wen xian (p. 286-295). / Du Zhengzhen.

Thesis (doctoral)--University of East Anglia, 1990. / BLDSC reference no.: DX91165.

This thesis studies the history of a family whose later generations were to become quintessential members of the gentry and how they managed their lands and lives. It is based on the early-fourteenth century cartulary left by Sir Roger of Okeover. The cartulary was probably motivated by Roger's childhood experience of the disputes over the wardship of himself and his lands. The cartulary is supplemented by cognate sources including the cartulary of the Abbey of Burton upon Trent and original documents. These provide an exceptional record stretching back to the early twelfth century and beyond. Chapter 3 argues that the origins of the Okeovers and their occupation of the manor of Okeover, held from the Anglo-Saxon Abbey of Burton, probably predate the Conquest. The Okeovers held lands from several individuals and institutions. Most of the land probably had origins before the Conquest and was held on a basis that later came to be categorised as socage tenure. This differs from land held by military service, a tenurial practice probably introduced by the Normans. This distinction was particularly important in cases of wardship. Chapter 4 shows that the Okeover's vertical social relationships with local magnates, particularly the Ferrers of Tutbury Castle, varied with the strength of the head of the Ferrers family at the time. Chapter 5 argues that the obligation to pay services in cash and to generate a cash income increased the relative independence of the family. Chapter 6 shows that support of younger siblings was an important objective resulting in horizontal alliances with other local families. Chapter 7 examines the problems of financial over-extension the family faced. This history of the Okeovers makes no claim to have produced results that necessarily apply more generally. It does, however, suggest that it would be productive to undertake further research into early twelfth-century deeds distinguishing tenures by socage from those by military service.

清朝末期大稻埕是台灣北部的商業中心,馬關條約後為了因應日人與台灣本地的紳商階級對飲食的新要求,大稻埕興起了許多大型的餐館,而江山樓正是其中著名的佼佼者.由於江山樓本身建築物氣派,樓主吳江山雅好風流,交友廣泛,且善用商業策略加以經營,江山樓成為推廣台灣菜的重要餐廳,同時也成為紳商與統治階級社交的重要地點.許多商業及文化組織如瀛社,南友會經常於江山樓舉行例會,許多當時的名人如陳天來,杜聰明也都曾於江山樓宴請朋友.當日本裕仁皇太子訪台時,他的餐飲皆由江山樓負責,可見江山樓之重要,此論文將從不同的角度探討江山樓的重要性及其與當時紳商的關係,藉此提供台灣研究一個新的切入角度. / Dadaocheng was the business center in northern Taiwan in the late Qing Dynasty. After the Shimonoseki Treaty, many large restaurants were built in Dadaocheng to meet the new demands of the Taiwanese gentry as well as Japanese officials and businessmen. Under Japanese rule, businessmen were the main component of the Taiwanese gentry. The new gentry class required a place to socialize with each other as well as with Japanese officials. Large restaurants like the Jiangshanlou were established at their request and profitable information and favors were exchanged. The gentry frequented Jiangshanlou because the restaurant was outstanding in various ways, including the magnificence of its building, its refined cuisine, and the good management of the owner, Wu Jiangshan. Wu invited the gentry to leave their literary works in the restaurant thereby creating a chic-image for Jiangshanlou so that it could attract customers of the upper social class. Many business and cultural associations such as the Yingshe and the Nanyouhui chose this restaurant to hold meetings and banquets; many famous members of the gentry such as Chen Tianlai and Du Congming held welcome parties and weddings in Jiangshanlou, too. In human society, an individual’s culinary habits and means are a good reflection and measurement of their position in that society and this was certainly true of Taiwanese society under Japanese rule. After the 1920s, Jiangshanlou represented the highest level of culinary standards in Taiwan. The popularity and importance of Jiangshanlou can be proved by the fact that when the Japanese Prince Imperial, Hirohito, the future emperor of Japan, visited Taiwan, the restaurant was designated to serve his meals. This thesis will examine the Jiangshanlou from various aspects as well as its relationship with the gentry.

The broad aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that the Victorian letter is more than the sum of its parts. By focusing on the archival collection of a gentry family from Derbyshire, it asserts that the material remains of a nineteenth-century letter are as important as the words and, as such, have a valuable contribution to make to the understanding of letters and letter writing culture of the period. Furthermore, throughout it is demonstrated that the nineteenth-century familial letter was important as an emotional and material object to both the reader and the sender but, as yet, is an undervalued tool in historical research. It argues against the dominant historical trend to read only the text of letters, and in so doing offers a model that can be adopted and adapted to investigate the nineteenth-century letter. The thesis applies James Daybell’s argument that, in order to understand an early modern manuscript, the historian must be directed both to the physical characteristics as well as to the social contexts of its composition, delivery, reception and latterly its archiving. By taking a case study approach, this thesis examines the unpublished nineteenth-century letters of the Turbutt family collection. Each chapter focusses on a particular aspect of letter writing which affords a greater understanding of the nineteenth-century letter as literary culture as well as material culture. Taking this approach uncovers a wide range of uses for the familiar letter and demonstrates that the letter was vital to the nineteenth-century Turbutt women of the Ogston estate. It is demonstrated that the Turbutt women used letters to perform their role as gentry women, to navigate courtship and the emotional and relational divide, and also determine how the letter writer used the material properties to their advantage and, if so, did the material and literary qualities of letters converge to further this. In so doing this thesis bridges the gap between text and materiality, two areas that have tended to be treated separately and, as such, it contributes to the scholarship of letter writing in the nineteenth century as both literary culture and material culture and also to the letter writing culture of nineteenth-century gentry women.