Unsentimental reformer

Description:

Such was the massive and pitiless industrialization of the nation after the Civil War that Josephine Shaw Lowell (1843-1905) recoiled and sought a new way to approach poverty. She rationalized charity toward hapless families and children in ways that established social responsibility for the welfare of the poor. A Brahmin, member of an illustrious family, sister of the martyred Robert Gould Shaw, who led his proud black troops against Fort Wagner, and, later, a war widow, Lowell constantly responded to changing ideological and economic conditions affecting the poor. This book challenges all previous interpretations of Lowell as a "genteel" reformer mostly interested in social control of the underclass. Rather, her aim was to cure pauperism, and her strategies eventually led her to support higher wages and full employment.

subjects: Charity Organization Society of the City of New York,  Biography,  Women philanthropists,  Women social reformers,  History,  Lowell, josephine shaw, 1843-1905,  Philanthropists,  New york (state), biography,  Sociale hervormingen,  Liefdadigheid,  Biographie,  Armoede

People: Josephine Shaw Lowell (1843-1905),  Josephine Shaw Lowell

Places: New York (State)