The Luchtmans Ladies: Female Customers in an Eighteenth-Century Bookshop

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Media Studies (MA)

Boutellier, Linda (2018)

The Luchtmans Ladies: Female Customers in an Eighteenth-Century Bookshop

Master thesis | Media Studies (MA)

This thesis examines the buying behaviour of Dutch women during the eighteenth century and determines whether a change can be detected in the kinds of works that women bought. The research is based on the female customers that came to Luchtmans, an academic bookshop in Leiden, and thus the main source of this study is the extensive archive that the firm has left behind. At the start of the eighteenth century, a wealthy mother primarily visited the shop to purchase school books for her young children. However, as the century progressed, an increasing number of unmarried women came to buy newspapers and novels, as they had more freedom to pursue their own interests. Although these women were certainly not representative of the general female population in Leiden, an interesting shift presented itself when comparing women from two time periods in the eighteenth century.

Author: Boutellier, Linda

Faculty: Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation: Book and Digital Media Studies

Supervisors: Hoftijzer, Paul

ECTS Credits: 20

Language: en

Leiden University Student Repository

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The Luchtmans Ladies: Female Customers in an Eighteenth-Century Bookshop