Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

In their own write : contesting the new poor law 1834-1900 / Steven King, Paul Carter, Natalie Carter, Peter Jones, and Carol Beardmore.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextSeries: Publication details: Montreal ; Kingston ; London ; Chicago : McGill-Queen's University Press, (c)2022.Description: 1 online resourceContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • computer
Carrier type:
  • online resource
ISBN:
  • 9780228015369
  • 9780228015352
Subject(s): Genre/Form: LOC classification:
  • HV245 .I584 2022
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
Contents:
PART ONE Finding and Hearing "Voices" -- 2 Navigating and Measuring -- 3 Advocating for the Poor -- 4 Responding to Paupers and Advocates: The Central Authority -- PART TWO Pauper Agency -- 5 Rhetoric and Strategy: A Corpus View -- 6 Knowing the Poor "Law" -- 7 The Female Voice -- 8 Becoming Old -- 9 The Able-Bodied Poor -- PART THREE Contestation -- 10 Punishing the Pauper Complainant -- 11 Limits to Agency? The Sick Poor -- 12 Experiencing the Poor Law -- Appendix: Sampling
Subject: "Few subjects in European welfare history attract as much attention as the nineteenth-century English and Welsh New Poor Law. Its founding statute was at once considered the single most important piece of social legislation ever enacted, and the coming of its institutions - from penny-pinching Boards of Guardians to the dreaded workhouse - has generally been viewed as a catastrophe for ordinary working people. Until now it has been impossible to know how the poor themselves felt about the New Poor Law and its measures, how they negotiated its terms, and how their interactions with the local and national state shifted and changed across the nineteenth century. In Their Own Write exposes this hidden history. Based on an unparalleled collection of first-hand testimony - pauper letters and witness statements interwoven with letters to newspapers and correspondence from poor law officials and advocates - the book reveals lives marked by hardship, deprivation, bureaucratic intransigence, parsimonious officialdom, and sometimes institutional cruelty, while also challenging the dominant view that the poor were powerless and lacked agency in these interactions. The testimonies collected in these pages clearly demonstrate that both the poor and their advocates were adept at navigating the new bureaucracy, holding local and national officials to account, and influencing the outcomes of relief negotiations for themselves and their communities. Fascinating and compelling, the stories presented in In Their Own Write amount to nothing less than a new history of welfare from below."--
Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title. Log in to add tags.
Star ratings
    Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

Includes bibliographies and index.

"Few subjects in European welfare history attract as much attention as the nineteenth-century English and Welsh New Poor Law. Its founding statute was at once considered the single most important piece of social legislation ever enacted, and the coming of its institutions - from penny-pinching Boards of Guardians to the dreaded workhouse - has generally been viewed as a catastrophe for ordinary working people. Until now it has been impossible to know how the poor themselves felt about the New Poor Law and its measures, how they negotiated its terms, and how their interactions with the local and national state shifted and changed across the nineteenth century. In Their Own Write exposes this hidden history. Based on an unparalleled collection of first-hand testimony - pauper letters and witness statements interwoven with letters to newspapers and correspondence from poor law officials and advocates - the book reveals lives marked by hardship, deprivation, bureaucratic intransigence, parsimonious officialdom, and sometimes institutional cruelty, while also challenging the dominant view that the poor were powerless and lacked agency in these interactions. The testimonies collected in these pages clearly demonstrate that both the poor and their advocates were adept at navigating the new bureaucracy, holding local and national officials to account, and influencing the outcomes of relief negotiations for themselves and their communities. Fascinating and compelling, the stories presented in In Their Own Write amount to nothing less than a new history of welfare from below."--

1 Thinking about the New Poor Law -- PART ONE Finding and Hearing "Voices" -- 2 Navigating and Measuring -- 3 Advocating for the Poor -- 4 Responding to Paupers and Advocates: The Central Authority -- PART TWO Pauper Agency -- 5 Rhetoric and Strategy: A Corpus View -- 6 Knowing the Poor "Law" -- 7 The Female Voice -- 8 Becoming Old -- 9 The Able-Bodied Poor -- PART THREE Contestation -- 10 Punishing the Pauper Complainant -- 11 Limits to Agency? The Sick Poor -- 12 Experiencing the Poor Law -- Appendix: Sampling

COPYRIGHT NOT covered - Click this link to request copyright permission:

https://lib.ciu.edu/copyright-request-form

There are no comments on this title.

to post a comment.