British social reformers Emma Cons (1838–1911) and Lucy Cavendish (1841–1924) broke new ground in their efforts to better the lot of the working poor in London: they hoped to transform these people’s lives through great art, music, high culture, and elite knowledge. Although they did not recognize it as such, their work was in many ways an affirmation and display of citizenship. This book uses Cons’s and Cavendish’s partnership and work as an illuminating point of departure for exploring the larger topic of women’s philanthropic campaigns in late Victorian and Edwardian society. Andrea Geddes Poole demonstrates that, beginning in the late 1860s, a shift was occurring from an emphasis on charity as a private, personal act of women’s virtuous duty to public philanthropy as evidence of citizenly, civic participation. She shows that, through philanthropic works, women were able to construct a separate public sphere through which they could speak directly to each other about how to affect matters of significant public policy – decades before women were finally granted the right to vote.

In refreshing our understanding of this obscure but eloquent activism, Ginn approaches cultural philanthropy not simply as a project of class self-interest, nor as fanciful ‘missionary aestheticism.’ Rather, he shows how liberal aspirations towards adult education and civic community can be traced in a number of centres of moralising voluntary effort. Concentrating on Toynbee Hall in Whitechapel, the People’s Palace in Mile End, Red Cross Hall in Southwark and the Bermondsey Settlement, the discussion identifies the common impulses animating practical reformers across these settings. Ginn shows how these were shaped by a distinctive diagnosis of urban deprivation and anomie.

This innovative book challenges many of the widely held assumptions about the place of religion in Victorian society and in London, the world's first great industrial and commercial metropolis. Against the background of Victorian London it explores the religiosity of Londoners as expressed through the dynamic renewal of traditional faith communities, including Judaism and the historic churches, as well as fresh expressions of religion, including the Salvation Army, Mormons, spiritualism, and the occult. It shows how laypeople, especially the rich and women were mobilised in the service of their faith, and their fellow citizens. Drawing on research in social, economic, oral, cultural, and women's history Jacob argues that religious motivations lay behind concerns that subsequently preoccupied people in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These include the changing place of women in society, an active concern for social justice, the sexual exploitation of women and children, and provision of education for all classes and all ages. By examining religion broadly, in its social and cultural context and looking beyond conventional approaches to religious history, Religious Vitality in Victorian London illustrates the dynamic significance of religion in society influencing even the expression of secularism.

British social reformers Emma Cons (1838 -1911) and Lucy Cavendish (1841-1924) broke new ground in their efforts to better the lot of the working poor in London: they hoped to transform these people's lives through great art, music, high culture, and elite knowledge. Although they did not recognize it as such, their work was in many ways an affirmation and display of citizenship. This book uses Cons's and Cavendish's partnership and work as an illuminating point of departure for exploring the larger topic of women's philanthropic campaigns in late Victorian and Edwardian society. Andrea Geddes Poole demonstrates that, beginning in the late 1860s, a shift was occurring from an emphasis on charity as a private, personal act of women's virtuous duty to public philanthropy as evidence of citizenly, civic participation. She shows that, through philanthropic works, women were able to construct a separate public sphere through which they could speak directly to each other about how to affect matters of significant public policy -- decades before women were finally granted the right to vote.

This book covers new ground in its focus on the Anglican Church congresses 1861-1938 as a public space in which the views of notable women were widely disseminated. It celebrates the contribution made by women to public life and discourse on womanhood as platform speakers, and commemorates the presence of the large numbers of women who joined congresses as audience members. Original research draws on extensive primary sources from official records, diaries and the press to capture women's views and voices and to evoke congress as a communicative social space and a window into topical affairs. Women and the Anglican Church Congress 1861-1938 examines the roles of women in the Church and reflects on how women with a sense of vocation negotiated contemporary attitudes to their positions and spirituality. The book also explores how women's secular aspirations towards citizenship in the context of poverty, work, temperance, eugenics, class and suffrage played out at congress.

Charity bazaars were a key method women used to intervene in political, social, and cultural affairs. Bazaar Literature reorients our understanding of Victorian social reform fiction by reading it in light of the copious amount of literature generated for charity bazaars--which shaped the social, political, and literary movements of its time.

Law and Society in England 1750–1950 is an indispensable text for those wishing to study English legal history and to understand the foundations of the modern British state. In this new updated edition the authors explore the complex relationship between legal and social change. They consider the ways in which those in power themselves imagined and initiated reform and the ways in which they were obliged to respond to demands for change from outside the legal and political classes. What emerges is a lively and critical account of the evolution of modern rights and expectations, and an engaging study of the formation of contemporary social, administrative and legal institutions and ideas, and the road that was travelled to create them. The book is divided into eight chapters: Institutions and Ideas; Land; Commerce and Industry; Labour Relations; The Family; Poverty and Education; Accidents; and Crime. This extensively referenced analysis of modern social and legal history will be invaluable to students and teachers of English law, political science, and social history.

Intended as an essential introduction to philanthropy, this book provides a balanced, analytical, interdisciplinary overview of a complex, and often controversial, topic. Using case studies to illustrate the narrative, it covers everything from the history of individual, sometimes eccentric, philanthropists, to the controversies and challenges of ‘philanthrocapitalism’. This book explores philanthropists and their motivations: who are they and why do they give their money away? It explains what philanthropy does: its history and scope, and the impacts it has in areas such as science and the arts. The governance of philanthropy is explored: how decisions are reached about donations and their accountability. The book addresses the major controversies surrounding philanthropy, and discusses the difficulties involved in giving and receiving, e.g. the importance of ensuring that these processes are transparent and accountable. Lastly, the book considers the future of philanthropy, especially its changing role in society and the disruptive impact of digital technologies. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable resource for researchers interested in philanthropy, innovation and entrepreneurship, the motivations for individual and corporate donations, and the business of giving in general.

“Offers . . . a clearer insight into the scope and function of philanthropy in political and private life and the impacts that women writers and activists had.” —Edith Wharton Review From the mid-nineteenth century until the rise of the modern welfare state in the early twentieth century, Anglo-American philanthropic giving gained an unprecedented measure of cultural authority as it changed in kind and degree. Civil society took on the responsibility for confronting the adverse effects of industrialism, and transnational discussions of poverty, urbanization, and women’s work, and sympathy provided a means of understanding and debating social reform. While philanthropic institutions left a transactional record of money and materials, philanthropic discourse yielded a rich corpus of writing that represented, rationalized, and shaped these rapidly industrializing societies, drawing on and informing other modernizing discourses including religion, economics, and social science. Showing the fundamentally transatlantic nature of this discourse from 1850 to 1920, the authors gather a wide variety of literary sources that crossed national and colonial borders within the Anglo-American range of influence. Through manifestos, fundraising tracts, novels, letters, and pamphlets, they piece together the intellectual world where philanthropists reasoned through their efforts and redefined the public sector.

Superbly written and informed by decades of research, Liberal Hearts and Coronets is the first biography to treat John Campbell Gordon as seriously as his better-known wife, Ishbel Marjoribanks Gordon.