"Dirty Work sheds light on the complex relationships between women employers and their household help in the early 20th century through their representations in literature, including women's magazines, conduct manuals, and particularly female-authored fiction. Domestic service brought together...

"Orson Wells made Citizen Kane, his greatest movie, when he was 25 years old; Frank Lloyd Wright designed Fallingwater, his most famous house, when he was 70. Contrasts as great as this raise the question of whether there is a general explanation of when in their lives great innovators are most...

Introduction. The material (con)texts of global modernity -- I. The empire's new clothes: British publics and imperial politics, 1650-1720 -- Patterns for plantation: New World silk and the natural history of settler colonialism -- Indo-Atlantic modernity: the early cotton trade and the...