Ideas about sex and gender were changing in England as the eighteenth century folded into the nineteenth. As medical ideas altered, as the notion of the individual became cemented, and as a consumer culture grew, the way people thought about gender changed. This period saw the creation of separate spheres for men and women and this transformed expectations for each gender and thus influenced people’s family lives, work experiences, and sense of self. This exhibit uses objects from USC Archives and Special Collections and selected primary source databases to explore these themes.
