Shoes and the Georgian Man

Matthew McCormack is talking about his book Shoes and the Georgian Man at York Mansion House on Monday 10 August, from 1:30pm to 2:30pm. It's part of the York Georgian Festival, so it fits right into the city's Georgian summer.

The book itself starts with a simple premise: shoes relate closely to the bodies of the people who wore them. McCormack has worked first-hand with historic shoes in museums, and he's found that worn footwear preserves traces of the wearer in its indentations, stretches and scuffs. Each pair becomes a unique primary source, and he argues that these marks reveal social, occupational and gender roles—and in particular, what it meant to be a man in the eighteenth century.

The session opens with a glass of cloudy lemonade on arrival, and it closes with a Q&A led by Adam Smith of York St John University. Copies of the book will be available to buy there, so if you're interested, you can pick one up and take it home. Doors open at 1:15pm, and the talk runs from 1:30pm to 2:30pm at York Mansion House, St Helen's Square, York, YO1 9QL.