Dear Ginger:
In recent years there has been a considerable amount of research on the
'middling sort' in the eighteenth century. An excellent introduction to this
literature may be found in John Smail, THE ORIGINS OF MIDDLE-CLASS CULTURE:
HALIFAX, YORKSHIRE, 1660-1780 (Cornell UP, 1994).
Joe Ward
Wayne State University
jward@cms.cc.wayne.edu