Regulation, Resistence, and Resilience: The Visual and Material Culture of Dublin's Female Street Traders (c.1870s-1920s)

This thesis undertakes an art historical study of street trading in Dublin, investigating both the makeshift economies employed by women in the city, and the range of visual media used to represent them. While a mode of survival for many women, street trading also maps the establishment and movement of enduring labour networks, including organisations and systems in place in contemporary major industrial cities, largely implemented and run by women. While this study primarily considers Dublin within a specific time frame, aligned with the introduction of legislation aimed at informal trading in Ireland from 1871-1926, it does so from a broader historical, geographical, economic, cultural, and social perspective. The visual culture of street trading does not simplistically provide an illustration of historical accounts, but instead suggests an alternative and rich history of the period, one that gives new agency and voice to its subjects. This research combines an analysis of the materiality and economy of images, with an exploration of the social and economic lives of female traders, contextualised within a period of rapid civic change in Dublin. Complexities which surround visual culture as a social, cultural, ethical and historical phenomenon are also considered within this research, contributing to a multi–faceted study which demonstrates the importance of visual documentary sources when researching otherwise-marginalised classes of society during this time frame in Ireland.