The Solidarities of Strangers: The English Poor Laws and the People, 1700-1948

by Lynn Hollen Lees (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1998

  $14.15

  A study of English policies toward the poor from the 1600s to the present, showing how clients and officials negotiated welfare settlements.

• New

  Paperback
  2007

  $59.37

  The 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. 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. The long-term history of welfare in England and Wales has not been a story of continued progress and improvement but one determined by continually changing attitudes toward poverty.