Social clubs as they existed in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Scotland were varied: they could be convivial, sporting, or scholarly, or they could be a significant and dynamic social force, committed to improvement and national regeneration as well as to sociability. The essays in this volume examine the complex history of clubs and societies in Scotland from 1700 to 1830. Contributors address attitudes toward associations, their meeting places and rituals, their links with the growth of the professions and with literary culture, and the ways in which they were structured by both class and gender. By widening the context in which clubs and societies are set, the collection offers a new framework for understanding them, bringing together the inheritance of the Scottish past, the unique and cohesive polite culture of the Scottish Enlightenment, and the broader context of associational patterns common to Britain, Ireland, and beyond.
Foreword
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Part I: The Theory and Practice of Associational Life
Chapter 1: Politeness, Sociability, and the “Little Platoon”: Associational Theory
in the Scottish Enlightenment
David Allan
Chapter 2: Buildings, Associations, and Culture in the Scottish Provincial Town, c.1700‒1830
Bob Harris
Part II: Professional Men and Their Societies
Chapter 3: Medical Societies and the Scottish Enlightenment
Jacqueline Jenkinson
Chapter 4: Professors, Merchants and Ministers in the Clubs of Eighteenth-Century Glasgow
Ralph McLean
Part III: Clubs, Societies, and Literary Culture
Chapter 5: “Soaping” and “Shaving” the Public Sphere: James Boswell’s “Soaping Club” and Edinburgh Enlightenment Sociability
James J. Caudle
Chapter 6: The “Bohemian Club”: A Study of Edinburgh’s Cape Club
Rhona Brown
Chapter 7: “Caledonia’s Bard, Brother Burns”: Robert Burns and Scottish Freemasonry
Corey E. Andrews
Chapter 8: Inventing the Public Sphere: Fictional Club Life in Ireland and Scotland
Martyn J. Powell
Part IV: Gender and Associational Culture
Chapter 9: Achieving Manhood in Associational Culture: Student Societies and Masculinity
in Enlightenment Edinburgh
Rosalind Carr
Chapter 10: Women’s Associations in Scotland, 1790‒1830
Jane Rendall
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index
