The Solidarities of Strangers: The English Poor Laws and the People, 1700-1948The Solidarities of Strangers is a study of English policies toward the poor from the seventeenth century to the present that combines individual stories with official actions. Lynn Lees shows how clients as well as officials negotiated welfare settlements. Cultural definitions of entitlement, rather than available resources, determined amounts and beneficiaries. Cultural definitions of entitlement, rather than available resources, determined amounts and beneficiaries. Indeed, industrialization and growing wealth went along with restricted payments to the needy, while universal allowances and insurance systems expanded as the economy faltered and world wars crippled budgets and drained resources. Although the English poor laws were a "residualist" system, aiding the destitute when neither family nor charities covered needs, they went through cycles of generosity and meanness that affected men and women unequally. |
Contents
RESIDUALISM TAKEN FOR GRANTED 17001834 | 19 |
The Welfare Process Under the Old Poor Laws | 21 |
Welfare Laws and Welfare Practice | 22 |
The Making of a Pauper | 24 |
Pauper Meets Overseer | 33 |
The Poor Become Paupers | 39 |
Weekly Doles Communal Support in the Eighteenth Century | 42 |
Numbers of Paupers | 43 |
Amounts of Aid | 185 |
Targets of Relief in the Cities | 190 |
Women and Welfare | 196 |
The Dubious Entitlement of Males | 210 |
No Irish Need Apply | 217 |
RESIDUALISM REEVALUATED AND REJECTED 18601948 | 231 |
Reevaluating the Urban Poor 186090 | 233 |
Reconstructed Communities | 238 |
Boundaries | 46 |
Relief to the Deserving | 52 |
Work and Welfare | 60 |
Welfare in Countryside and Town | 64 |
By Right | 73 |
Excluding Paupers 17801834 | 82 |
Poverty and Economic Change | 83 |
A Rhetoric of Vice and Virtue | 88 |
Representing the Poor | 93 |
Work Boys Work and Be Contented | 100 |
Discipline Deterrence and the Workhouse | 106 |
RESIDUALISM REFINED AND RESTRICTED 183460 | 113 |
Classifying and Confining Paupers 183460 | 115 |
New Knowledge | 116 |
Reimagining the Poor | 126 |
Gender Family and Work | 135 |
Implementing the New Regime | 145 |
Through Poor Im a Gentleman Still | 153 |
Why Am I Poor? | 154 |
A Right to Relief | 162 |
Popular Greetings to the Overseers | 166 |
Circles of Obligation | 169 |
Pauperism in Practice 183470 | 177 |
Numbers of Paupers | 179 |
Reconstructed Knowledge | 242 |
Reconstructed Images | 250 |
The Multicampaign War on Pauperism 18701906 | 259 |
Discipline and Efficiency 187090 | 260 |
The Charity Organization Societys Therapy for the Destitute | 268 |
The States Specialized Treatment of the Poor | 275 |
Therapeutic Interventions | 281 |
Work for a Fraction of the Unemployed | 287 |
Popular Rejection of the Poor Laws | 294 |
A Fate Worse Than Death | 295 |
Consumer Dissatisfactions | 298 |
Demands by the Unemployed | 305 |
New Principles for Social Action 190648 | 310 |
Statistics and Minimum Standards | 312 |
The Last Chance for Poor Law Reform | 317 |
National Efficiency and Social Insurance | 323 |
Pauperism and Public Assistance 191448 | 327 |
Workhouses and Welfare Between the Wars | 333 |
Life on the Dole | 337 |
Residualism Redux 194895 | 343 |
Collection and Analysis of Settlement Examinations | 355 |
Bibliographic Essay | 358 |
365 | |
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The Solidarities of Strangers: The English Poor Laws and the People, 1700-1948 Lynn Hollen Lees No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
able-bodied administrators adult applicants argues Beatrice Webb became Board of Guardians Britain British Cambridge University Press charity claimed collected cost destitute E. P. Thompson Economic History elderly England and Wales English Poor Law entitlement female gender Gertrude Himmelfarb grants groups Hennock households Ibid income industrial institutions Irish Joseph Arch Kirkby Lonsdale labor market Lancashire lived London male ment migrants moral Moreover numbers offered Old Poor Law outdoor relief outrelief overseers Oxford parish Parliament paupers payments pensions percent policies political poor law aid Poor Law Board Poor Law Commission poor law officials poor law unions poor relief population poverty practice problem Record Office reform Report Royal Commission rural settlement settlement laws shift sick Sidney Webb social society statistics Stepney tion trade unemployed unemployment urban Victorian wages welfare widows women workers workhouse York