Constructing the mobile city
gendered mobilities in London fiction
pp. 57-77
in: Lesley Murray, Sara Upstone (eds), Researching and representing mobilities, Berlin, Springer, 2014Abstract
In the period leading up to the 1851 Great Exhibition in Crystal Palace, London, George Shove designed a mobile device for navigating the city (Janes, 2012), a leather glove printed with a map of London landmarks designed for mobile women (illustrated on the front cover). This was a key time for world cities like London, competing, in this early period of modernity, on a global stage. It was also a significant era in relation to gendered mobilities as (middle-class) women became increasingly visible in "public" spaces such as shopping arcades, department stores and the Great Exhibition itself. Shove's design, however, was not produced commercially. It may well have been considered too dangerous.