Tramps, Unfit Mothers, and Neglected Children - by Sherri Broder (Hardcover)

About the Book

Deeply researched and beautifully crafted, this book is an original contribution to the history of American reform, family, and working-class culture.--Barbara Melosh, George Mason University

Book Synopsis

"Profoundly enjoyable and very useful."--Nineteenth-Century Contexts "Deeply researched and beautifully crafted, this book is an original contribution to the history of American reform, family, and working-class culture. Broder's empathic and insightful reading of her evidence opens up new understandings of late nineteenth-century negotiations of class, gender, race, and generation."--Barbara Melosh, George Mason University "Sherri Broder analyzes how the tropes of waifs, tramps, fallen women, and dangerous mothers were used by working people, the labor movement, and reformers to negotiate respectability and family. To show the power of these cultural symbols in shaping the lives of the poor, Broder reads reform tracts, newspapers, and popular literature against samples of case histories."--Journal of Social History "Broder's richly researched and intelligent analysis contributes to our understanding of the effects social policies have on working families.''--Choice "A model study of social welfare policies."--Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 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 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 turn-of-the-century America. In the decades after the Civil War, Philadelphia was an important center of charity, child protection, and labor reform. Drawing on the rich records of the Pennsylvania Society to Protect Children from Cruelty, Broder assesses the intentions and consequences of reform efforts devoted to women and children at the turn of the century. Her research provides an eloquent study of how the terms used by social workers and their clients to discuss the condition of poverty continue to have a profound influence on social policies and develops a complex historical perspective on how social policy and representations of poor families have been and remain mutually influential. Sherri Broder is affiliated with the Women's Studies Scholars Program at Brandeis University.

Review Quotes

""Broder's richly researched and intelligent analysis contributes to our understanding of the effects social policies have on working families.''"-- "Choice"

"A model study of social welfare policies."-- "Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography"

"Deeply researched and beautifully crafted, this book is an original contribution to the history of American reform, family, and working-class culture. Broder's empathic and insightful reading of her evidence opens up new understandings of late nineteenth-century negotiations of class, gender, race, and generation."-- "Barbara Melosh, George Mason University"

"Sherri Broder analyzes how the tropes of waifs, tramps, fallen women, and dangerous mothers were used by working people, the labor movement, and reformers to negotiate respectability and family. To show the power of these cultural symbols in shaping the lives of the poor, Broder reads reform tracts, newspapers, and popular literature against samples of case histories."-- "Journal of Social History"

About the Author

Sherri Broder is affiliated with the Women's Studies Scholars Program at Brandeis University.