Victorian Dundee: Image and Realities

This volume represents a scholarly challenge to Dundee’s traditional image as a town overshadowed by the jute industry, abandoned by its wealthy middle classes and characterized by social strife and architectural ugliness. The book brings together new research on the activities of Dundee’s businessmen, civic elites, intellectuals, social reformers, urban planners and working classes to reveal a civic image that differs radically from the “juteopolis” myth. Jute’s domination of the local economy was shortlived, and its influence on modern perceptions of the city has been over-played. This book, exploring the development of Dundee before and after the heyday of jute, offer a contribution to the history of urban society and its management in Scotland in the 19th century and to a growing body of work on textile and manufacturing towns in this period.