An artisan in polite culture: Thomas parsons, stone carver, of bath, 1744-1813

Abstract

Through the case of Thomas Parsons, a stone carver in Bath in the second half of the eighteenth century, Lawrence E. Klein explores the way in which an artisan participated in the larger polite and enlightened culture. He shows how, in practical ways, politeness was a competence demanded in the artisan's work life and how, by extension, politeness provided ideals for the project of self-cultivation. At the same time, he shows the constraints and pressures that limited and shaped Parsons's involvement in polite and enlightened culture and the manifest tensions that surrounded it. © 2012 by Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery.