Spectacles and the Victorians: Measuring, defining and shaping visual capacity

by Gemma Almond-Brown

Overview

This is the first full-length study of spectacles in the Victorian period. It examines how the Victorians shaped our understanding of functional visual capacity and the concept of 20:20 vision. Demonstrating how this unique assistive device can connect the histories of medicine, technology and disability, it charts how technology has influenced our understanding of sensory perception, both through the diagnostic methods used to measure visual impairment and the utility of spectacles to ameliorate its effects. Taking a material culture approach, the book assesses how the design of spectacles thwarted ophthalmologists’ attempts to medicalise their distribution and use, as well as creating a mainstream marketable device on the high street.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781526194855
Publisher:	Manchester University Press
Publication date:	01/20/2026
Series:	Social Histories of Medicine , #47
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	5.43(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Gemma Almond-Brown is an Honorary Research Fellow at Swansea Universityand Research Development Officer at National Museum Wales

Table of Contents

Introducing Victorian spectacle wear
1 Early Victorian understandings of vision and spectacles, 1830–50
2 The ‘normal eye’ as seen through technology: a quest for medical control, 1850–1904
3 Challenging (ab)normalcy: expansion in manufacture, design, and access, 1851–1904
4 The limits of professionalism: medical practitioners, opticians and popular responses to sight loss, 1880–1904
5 Fashioning the eye and seeing, 1830–1904
Conclusion
Index