Tramps, Unfit Mothers, and Neglected Children
Subtitle: Negotiating the Family in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: April 2002
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 259
ISBN-13: 9780812236545
Subjects: History; Sociology, Social Studies; Social Science; Pennsylvania; Family social work; Politics / Current Events; Public Policy - Social Services & Welfare; Sociology; USA; Philadelphia; History & Theory - General; Ethnic Studies - General; 19th century; Child welfare; Poor families
First sentence: IN THE LAST QUARTER OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, charity and child welfare reformers and labor advocates across the nation all used the troubled laboring family as the object of their sharply conflicting assessments of American society.
Description: "In late Victorian America, few issues held the public's attention more closely than the allegedly unnatural family life of the urban poor. In Tramps, Unfit Mothers, and Neglected Children, Sherri Broder brings new insight to the powerful depictions of the urban poor that circulated in newspapers and novels, public debate, and private correspondence, including the irresponsible tramp, the "fallen" single mother, and the neglected child.

Broder considers how these representations contributed to debates over the nature of family life and focuses on the ways in which different historical actors - social reformers, labor activists, and ordinary laboring people - made use of the available cultural narratives about family, gender, and sexuality to comprehend changes in late Victorian America."--BOOK JACKET.