1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910821908303321

Autore

Lewis Brian <1965->

Titolo

So clean : Lord Leverhulme, soap and civilisation / / Brian Lewis

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York : , : Distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave Macmillan, , 2008

Baltimore, Md. : , : Project MUSE, , 2020

©2008

ISBN

1-5261-3043-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (x, 246 pages) : illustrations

Disciplina

338.766812092

Soggetti

Soap trade - Great Britain

Philanthropists - Great Britain

Industrialists - Great Britain

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [226]-240) and index.

Sommario/riassunto

This book is an unorthodox biography of William Hesketh Lever, 1st Lord Leverhulme (1851-1925), the founder of the Lever Brothers' Sunlight Soap empire. Unlike previous biographies, which have focused on the man's life story and eccentricities, or just considered one aspect of his career, So clean places him squarely in his social and cultural context and is fully informed by recent historical scholarship. Much more than a warts-and-all biography, the book uses Lever as an entry-point for contextualized and comparative essays on the history of advertising; on factory paternalism, town planning, the Garden City movement and their ramifications across the twentieth century; and on colonialism and forced labour in the Belgian Congo and the South Pacific. It concludes with a discussion of his extraordinary attempt, in his final years, to transform crofting and fishing in the Outer Hebrides.Written in an engaging and accessible style, So Clean will appeal to academics and students working in business, social, cultural and imperial history.