- Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 2003
BIO
A native New Englander, Abby McGowan joined the UVM faculty in the fall of 2004. She received her B.A. from Carleton College in 1993, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999 and 2003. A specialist in modern South Asian history, she teaches courses on modern South Asia, Bombay/Mumbai, and visual/material culture.
McGowan’s research explores the intersection of material culture, politics, and everyday life. Her first book, Crafting the Nation in Colonial India (Palgrave, 2009), examines the politics of craft development in colonial western India, demonstrating why and how crafts became so important during a period of nationalist development. Her second, a co-edited book called Towards a History of Consumption in India (Oxford University Press, 2010), turns to the question of consumption in late colonial India, assembling a variety of articles from scholars around the world to explore new goods and strategies available to consumers in this period, as well as some of the anxieties those opportunities elicited. Exploring related issues of crafts and consumption, she has published articles on the late nineteenth century revivals of traditional Indian design, artisanal education, female leadership of post-independence crafts revivals, textile history, and feminized consumption in colonial India in the Journal of Asian Studies, Journal of Material Culture, Journal of Women’s History, South Asia, a special issue of Marg, the online visual culture journal Tasveer Ghar, and elsewhere.
McGowan’s current research explores how changing ideas about domestic space in early twentieth century India affected town planning, architecture, consumption, and family life. She has published articles and book chapters exploring 1930s modernism in Bombay interiors (Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 2016), demand for home furnishing fabrics (Modern Asian Studies, 2016), perspectives on domesticity in colonial India (American Historical Review, 2019), and histories of retail (2019), house design books (2021), seating (2022), and textiles in Indian architectural reforms (2023).
McGowan builds on this work in her current book project, Home Improvements: Housing Reforms and Home Ideals in Late Colonial India, projected for publication with Pittsburgh University Press in 2026. The book argues that housing and home provided crucial sites for the negotiation of urban modernity in Bombay between 1900 and 1960. No longer a private concern of individuals, housing became central to efforts to remake urban life. Public officials and middle-class reformers alike used housing to discipline the city, sweeping away slums and imposing sanitary habits and proper building practices. Caste and religious groups used housing to redefine community identities, creating cooperative and philanthropic housing projects to strengthen group bonds. Consumers used housing to articulate class ideals, embracing new building styles as well as novel furnishings and products designed to communicate modern aspirations of comfort and cosmopolitanism. And, finally, officials and activists in newly independent India used housing to serve national goals, translating traditional crafts into new domestic accessories while also launching massive housing programs to materialize state concern for population. In Home Improvements, McGowan centers housing and home at the history of late colonial India, arguing for a materially-grounded understanding of the social, cultural, and economic politics of this era.
Building on this interest in house and home, McGowan’s research currently focuses on two areas. First, she is exploring the history of mid-century design in India through the story of the iconic Bombay interiors firm Kamdar, Ltd. And second, she is working with a team of scholars to try to create a digital design archive in India to preserve the work of individuals and firms who have shaped textiles, fashion, furniture, graphic design and more.
McGowan has been the recipient of numerous grants, including from the United States-India Educational Foundation (including a Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship in Mumbai in 2019, the American Institute of Indian Studies, National Endowment for the Humanities, UVM’s College of Arts and Sciences, the Seybolt Faculty Fund, and the UVM Humanities Center.
Area(s) of expertise
South Asia
Bio
A native New Englander, Abby McGowan joined the UVM faculty in the fall of 2004. She received her B.A. from Carleton College in 1993, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999 and 2003. A specialist in modern South Asian history, she teaches courses on modern South Asia, Bombay/Mumbai, and visual/material culture.
McGowan’s research explores the intersection of material culture, politics, and everyday life. Her first book, Crafting the Nation in Colonial India (Palgrave, 2009), examines the politics of craft development in colonial western India, demonstrating why and how crafts became so important during a period of nationalist development. Her second, a co-edited book called Towards a History of Consumption in India (Oxford University Press, 2010), turns to the question of consumption in late colonial India, assembling a variety of articles from scholars around the world to explore new goods and strategies available to consumers in this period, as well as some of the anxieties those opportunities elicited. Exploring related issues of crafts and consumption, she has published articles on the late nineteenth century revivals of traditional Indian design, artisanal education, female leadership of post-independence crafts revivals, textile history, and feminized consumption in colonial India in the Journal of Asian Studies, Journal of Material Culture, Journal of Women’s History, South Asia, a special issue of Marg, the online visual culture journal Tasveer Ghar, and elsewhere.
McGowan’s current research explores how changing ideas about domestic space in early twentieth century India affected town planning, architecture, consumption, and family life. She has published articles and book chapters exploring 1930s modernism in Bombay interiors (Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 2016), demand for home furnishing fabrics (Modern Asian Studies, 2016), perspectives on domesticity in colonial India (American Historical Review, 2019), and histories of retail (2019), house design books (2021), seating (2022), and textiles in Indian architectural reforms (2023).
McGowan builds on this work in her current book project, Home Improvements: Housing Reforms and Home Ideals in Late Colonial India, projected for publication with Pittsburgh University Press in 2026. The book argues that housing and home provided crucial sites for the negotiation of urban modernity in Bombay between 1900 and 1960. No longer a private concern of individuals, housing became central to efforts to remake urban life. Public officials and middle-class reformers alike used housing to discipline the city, sweeping away slums and imposing sanitary habits and proper building practices. Caste and religious groups used housing to redefine community identities, creating cooperative and philanthropic housing projects to strengthen group bonds. Consumers used housing to articulate class ideals, embracing new building styles as well as novel furnishings and products designed to communicate modern aspirations of comfort and cosmopolitanism. And, finally, officials and activists in newly independent India used housing to serve national goals, translating traditional crafts into new domestic accessories while also launching massive housing programs to materialize state concern for population. In Home Improvements, McGowan centers housing and home at the history of late colonial India, arguing for a materially-grounded understanding of the social, cultural, and economic politics of this era.
Building on this interest in house and home, McGowan’s research currently focuses on two areas. First, she is exploring the history of mid-century design in India through the story of the iconic Bombay interiors firm Kamdar, Ltd. And second, she is working with a team of scholars to try to create a digital design archive in India to preserve the work of individuals and firms who have shaped textiles, fashion, furniture, graphic design and more.
McGowan has been the recipient of numerous grants, including from the United States-India Educational Foundation (including a Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship in Mumbai in 2019, the American Institute of Indian Studies, National Endowment for the Humanities, UVM’s College of Arts and Sciences, the Seybolt Faculty Fund, and the UVM Humanities Center.
Areas of Expertise
South Asia