Using financial accounts as primary source documents : a case study using the personal accounts of Elizabeth Wentworth, 1655-1664 / author, Elizabeth Spencer (University of York, UK).

Format:

Website/Database

Author/Creator:

Spencer, Elizabeth, author.

Contributor:

Adam Matthew Digital (Firm), contributor, commissioning body, digitiser.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Research.

Methodology.

Genre:

Case studies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Marlborough, Wiltshire : Adam Matthew Digital, 2021.

Summary:

Across the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, increasing numbers of men and women learnt how to keep account, aided in part by the proliferation of printed guides for accounting. This document case study focuses on the personal financial accounts of the seventeenth-century gentlewoman Elizabeth Wentworth, which she used to record details of her income and expenditures between 1655 and 1664. Financial accounts like this include a range of both quantitative and qualitative information and have the potential to be read by the researcher in a number of ways. This case study explores the information that can be extracted from Elizabeth Wentworth's account book and introduces approaches which can be applied to other kinds of financial accounts. It considers who kept account, why, and how and provides a model for reading financial accounts according to different research agendas. By focusing in-depth on Elizabeth Wentworth, it also reveals how lists of income and expenditures can be used to explore the life, relationships, and tastes of a young unmarried gentlewoman in the early modern period.

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on August 15, 2022).

Publisher Number:

10.47594/RMPS_0087

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.