Social Reform

This article considers the Greenwich House Handicraft School as an example of a craft workshop that was shaped by contradictory Craftsman and Settlement House ideals, and suggests this duality may account for its longevity. Greenwich House's founder, social reformer Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch, believed that exposure to and instruction in the arts was an effective way to inculcate a sense of community among the diverse population of recent immigrants that Greenwich House served. The Pottery's first program director Maude Robinson (who reported to Simkhovitch) and its lace-making teacher Katharine Lord wanted Greenwich House to operate at a high professional level, and did not share Simkhovitch's sense that art was important at Greenwich House primarily as a means to a social end rather than on its own terms. While other craft schools established at the turn of the century eventually collapsed during the Great Depression, Greenwich House Pottery emerged after the Second World War as the only visual arts program remaining at the settlement house.

Shifts in governance can be conceived of as a response to policy capacities being shared-in a material sense-between centralized and decentralized levels of government. A comparative case study is conducted of three conceptually different shifts in governance. Unclear responsibility relations lead to "paradoxes of decentralization," in which the applied mode of governance blocks the intended improvements. Three case studies are presented to illustrate these mechanisms. There is no "best" way of decentralizing responsibilities; requirements of governance modes are ambiguous. The sharing of policy capacities between central and decentralized levels of governance requires internally inconsistent governance arrangements. Keywords decentralization, administrative reform, shifts in governance Shifts in governance comprise the rational reorganization of government in response to new social and economic pressures, and institutionalizes specific values and beliefs concerning the role of centralized and decentralized state

his paper follows the lives of three generations of a Buckland, Massachusetts family, from the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. The mental illness of one family member, Josiah Spaulding, imprisoned for 57 years in a cage in his parent's and later his sister's home, profoundly affected the experience of his niece Mary Howes, who lived with her caged Uncle for her entire childhood. Mary was one of the first women to graduate from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary and took a teaching position in the antebellum south, opening some of the first colleges for women in Alabama. She later became an abolitionist and mental health reformer, along with her son, Dr. Frederick Goddard. The story of Mary's caged uncle intertwined through her whole life. Based on three years of private archival research, this paper contains the previously unheard, but profound story of nineteenth century mental illness and the reform enacted by those lost to history.

Claudius made substantial changes to the laws governing women as he "upgraded the mother's right to inherit. This concession to her contribution to the family was also a move in line to the 'cognatic' principle of wills, which tended to spread goods beyond the male line of agnatic succession.  Claudius also denied the right of slave owners to kill their slaves because they were old or had a physical impairment.

This article throws new light on the troublesome question ‘what is popular music?’ by pursuing a genealogy of discourse in Britain during a crucial period from 1860 to 1920 in which modernity is increasingly characterised by an antagonistic relationship between intellectual elites and consumer entertainment. Focusing on social reformism, London music halls, and ragtime, I argue that the term fell into two broad categories of use: first, to identify and / or denigrate mass culture; and second, to establish a pathway for edification and to champion ideals of respectability. Although implicated in the construction of binary oppositions and frequently associated with impropriety, the popular was not always associated with lowness. The idea, however, was shot through with contradictions deriving from a view of ‘the people’ as being simultaneously docile and seditious. Ultimately, I demonstrate that the popular is a floating signifier with the potential to reference mutually opposing ideas.

Frances Joseph-Gaudet (1861-1934) was a transformative African American social activist who remains little-known outside Louisiana.  Her autobiography, He Leadeth Me (1911), provides an account of Joseph-Gaudet’s prison reform work and the conditions she encountered in the New Orleans African American community, the city’s courts, local jails, and state prisons.  Joseph-Gaudet accomplished her work while supporting herself as a seamstress and without significant financial contributions, often sewing at night following a day’s work in prisons.  For Joseph-Gaudet as a devout evangelical Christian, prisons represented an opportunity for personal and communal salvation.  She began as a religious counselor for individual prisoners, singing hymns and conducting Bible readings for “our people”. 

He Leadeth Me provides an autobiographical exegesis of Jim Crow injustice and prison reform work from the perspective of a working woman who committed her life to social change.  This paper argues that the autobiography’s  significance lies in that it voices a concept of social activism developed within a local African American culture, one that envisioned a communal salvation.

The world is in urgent need of ways to change in order to avert runaway climate change and ecological catastrophe. In this essay I examine the radical alternatives to be found in the utopian visions of two poets and polymaths, one from the East, the other from the West: Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) and William Morris (1834-1896). They were visionaries as well as being politically engaged, and also social reformers and educators. They criticised industrialisation and the pursuit of profit, and advocated culturally rich, self-sufficient local communities. Both failed in their own practical attempts in this direction and wrote utopian stories about the ways of life they longed for, as if they could never come about in the real world. However, if we focus on their ideas on education and skills training, we find they have much to teach us that is highly relevant to the challenges and opportunities of today. That relevance is enhanced if we also consider how these ideas on learning for life could encourage and accelerate the emergence of the kinds of locally selfreliant communities which Tagore and Morris would recognise and welcome. According to the 'Living Planet Report 2020' from The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF): 'The population sizes of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles have seen an alarming average drop of 68% since 1970'. 1 Wildlife and natural habitats are declining globally at rates unprecedented in millions of years, with extinction taking place at over a hundred times the natural rate in the course of evolution.

Dr B R Ambedkar is a multifaceted personality, anything and everything ranging from caste annihilation to constitution framing; water and electricity policy to economic reforms. Babasaheb is prolific and a genius. A public intellectual and a social reformer  in  the  tradition  of  Charvaka,  Buddha, Mahaveera and Vachana poets who dissented against the  brahminical  ideology  which  had  created  the oppressive  caste  system.  Understanding  Babasaheb from his personal, professional life to the contributions and achievements in every possible field is huge and enormous.  I have focussed here on what Babasaheb means to me.

In 1863 Orange County, New York resident Lydia Sayer Hasbrouck refused to pay her city taxes.  Her reasoning was simple; she would not pay taxes if she could not vote. An outspoken hydropthic physician and editor of the dress reform newspaper, The Sibyl, Hasbrouck refused to accept that the husband’s vote represented the wife’s interests. 
Lydia Sayer Hasbrouck’s refusal to pay her taxes in protest of women’s disenfranchisement fits within the larger context of tactics used by the nineteenth-century woman’s suffrage movement. Hasbrouck’s contribution stands out, however, because she used The Sibyl as a tool to describe her personal experiences fighting for the vote. Based on an analysis of articles and readers’ correspondence published in The Sibyl, this article argues that Hasbrouck used her newspaper to create a long-distance community of women and to spark conversations about suffrage. In doing so, Hasbrouck emphasized to her readers that they did not have to be involved in the organized woman’s movement to fight for suffrage; regular women could take action in their daily lives.

General William and Catherine Booth accomplished in practical ways what many social reformers merely dreamed of.  They had 'buy-in' from the residents of East London who 'owned' their own spiritual and social revolution.  Societal changes occurred, involving combatting child sex-trafficking, and bringing match factories to stop using toxic yellow phosphorus.

El 14 de septiembre de 1943, el periódico pro-gobiernista La Tribuna publicó un aviso titulado "Todo Costa Rica en las calles de San José". Con ese título, ese diario se unía a un plan que consistía en tomar las calles de la capital el día de fiesta de la independencia. Así, en mayúscula, La Tribuna apuntó: "MAÑANA, 15 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 1943, LOS COSTARRICENSES COMENZARÁN UNA NUEVA ERA". En esencia, la propaganda se refería a una movilización social liderada por trabajadores sindicalizados que iban a marchar por la capital y a los lugares de los que se apoderarían durante su marcha. Finalmente, La Tribuna anunciaba que algunos líderes sociales se dirigirían a los concurrentes a través de discursos públicos. Entre esos líderes estaban el sacerdote Benjamín Núñez, quien hablaría en nombre de los sindicatos católicos; Rodolfo Guzmán, quien se dirigiría a los trabajadores como Secretario General del Comité Nacional Sindical de Enlace; Miguel Brenes, quien hablaría como Secretario de Estado en el Despacho de Trabajo y Previsión Social; Manuel 1 El libro de Iván Molina Jiménez, Los pasados de la memoria. El origen de la reforma social en Costa Rica (1938Rica ( -1943 (Heredia: Editorial de la Universidad Nacional, 2009) fue consultado profusamente para mi investigación y fundamenta el análisis de algunos de los puntos que desarrolla mi artículo.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the Kandukuri Viresalingam. The past century has seen the rapid social change and social development in many communities in Andhra. However, these rapid changes are having a serious effect on past and present society. One of the most significant current discussion on social contradictions and social change in Andhra. The paper to date has tended to focus on social contradictions in Andhra during colonial period and social capital trends in Andhra. The objective of this research is to determine how the contemporary social reformers rather than community reformer or social reformers is the question. The main issues addressed in this paper are social reform and social contradictions in Andhra.

Essays from four continents by Terry G. Carter, P. Sam Daniel, George Ella, C. P. Hallihan, Vishal Mangalwadi, Bruce J. Nicholls, Thomas Schirrmacher

This volume reprints essays by seven authors from three continents, including two authors from India, who tell the story of British missionary to India William Carey (1761–1834), whose famous ‘Enquiry’, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens (1792), changed history and made him not only the ‘Father of Protestant missions’, but also a forerunner of William Wilberforce, fighting against social injustice and preserving historic Indian languages for the people through research and printing. Even though Carey’s story has been told often, this volume concentrates on areas otherwise neglected: Carey’s theology and vision, Carey’s role as a social reformer, and Carey’s role as a leading linguist of Indian languages..

This essay aims to understand the role of religion in the social work of Pandita Ramabai (1858-1922). By focusing on a twenty-five-year period commencing with her conversion to Christianity in 1883, we argue that religion constructed a political framework for her work in Sharada Sadan and Mukti Mission. There is a lacuna in the conventional scholarship that underplays the nuances of religion in Ramabai's reform efforts, which we try to fill by conceptualising faith and religiosity as two distinct signifiers of her private and public religious presentations respectively. Drawing on her published letters, the annual reports of the Ramabai Association in America, and a number of evangelical periodicals published during her lifetime, we analyse how she explored Christianity not just as a personal faith but also as a conduit for funds. The conversion enabled her access to American supporters, concomitantly consolidating their claim over her social work. Her peculiar religious identity-a conflation of Hinduism and Christianity-provoked strong protests from the Hindu orthodoxy while leading to a fallout with the evangelists at the same time. Ramabai shaped the public portrayal of her religiosity to maximise support from American patrons, the colonial state, and liberal Indians, resisting the orthodoxy's oppositions with these material exploits. Rather than surrendering to patriarchal cynicism, she capitalised on the socio-political volatilities of colonial India to further the nascent women's movement.

Pernah pula salah seorang muridnya telah berkata: (Wahai Abu 'Abdullah: Apakah pendapat kamu terhadap syair yang mengandungi sebutan syurga dan neraka? Beliau berkata: Seumpama apakah syair itu? Muridnya menjawab: Mereka berkata: (membacakan syair) Maksudnya: ‫ﺭﰉ‬ ‫ﱃ‬ ‫ﻗﺎﻝ‬ ‫ﻣﺎ‬ ‫ﺇﺫﺍ‬ ‫ﺗﻌﺼﻴﲎ‬ ‫ﺍﺳﺘﺤﻴﻴﺖ‬ ‫ﺃﻣﺎ‬ ‫ﺧﻠﻘﻰ‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍﻟﺬﻧﺐ‬ ‫ﻭﲣﻔﻰ‬ ‫ﻭﺑﺎﻟﻌﺼﻴﺎﻥ‬ .. ‫ﺗﺄﺗﻴﲎ‬ Ketika berkata tuhan kepadaku Tidakkah malu maksiat terhadapku, Menyembunyikan dosa dari makhlukku Dengan penuh noda mengadapku? Lalu beliau berkata: Ulangi sekali lagi. Berkata muridnya: Lalu aku ulangi sekali lagi, lalu ia (Imam Ahmad) bangun dan memasuki rumahnya serta menutup pintu. Ketika itu aku mendengar suara tangisannya dari dalam dan beliau mengulangi syair tadi. 7 Dengan penjelasan tentang faedah dan keharusan menggunakan syair ini, aku memetik banyak puisi daripada antoloji penyair terdahulu, kemudian daripada antoloji Waliid al A'zami, Mahmud Aali Ja'far, al Amiiriy, Abdul Wahhaab Azzaam dan lainnya. 6 Manaaqib Ahmad -Ibnul Jauzi: 205 7 Talbiisu Ibliis -Ibnul Jauzi: 218 Semangat pemuda Islam di permulaan abad baru.. Seterusnya.. Kurun yang lepas telah menyaksikan luka-luka yang memeritkan pada seluruh dunia Islam. Serangan musuh Islam telah sampai ke kemuncaknya. Tetapi sungguhpun begitu, cubaan untuk menanganinya semula telah dilakukan oleh mereka yang mempertahankannya. Walaupun kemenangan belum diperolehi, tapi sekumpulan pemuda Islam telahpun terdidik dan bangkit sedar. Keazaman mereka telah mantap. Ini semua meyakinkan lagi kepada kita bahawa Islam pasti menang dalam kurun ini .. Insya Allah ! 13 Wahyul qalam: 3/213 Al-Munthalaq_________________________________________________________________ 9

Middlemarch, in contrast to Adam Bede, represents the accomplishment of two apparently irreconcilable tasks. George Eliot succeeded in creating both a realistic novel about contemporary conditions and a Victorian romance. In her monograph The Triptych and the Cross Felicia Bonaparte is concerned with-to quote the book's subtitle-"the central mythos of George Eliot's Imagination." 1 Yet, as F. Bonaparte herself is well aware, George Eliot shows throughout her work a predilection for concrete historical settings and a keen interest in all that impinges on historical and societal reality. In unraveling this paradox, Bonaparte rejects the general line in Eliot criticism when she contends that Eliot is first and foremost a poet, that is, a writer who sees the world in essentially poetic terms even though her chosen literary medium belongs formally to the domain of prose fiction. 2 This paper will focus on Bonaparte's claims in relation to a comparative study of some of the mythical and historical references found in Adam Bede and Middlemarch A brief review of Northrop Frye's definition of "myth" will serve to provide a "history." In terms of popular usage-but only in such terms-myth and history are antithetical concepts: The Battle of Hastings really took place, Jupiter's rape of Europe did not. On a philosophical level myth and history present two ways of looking at and interpreting the same object, the succession of phenomena in time. In the historical view such phenomena compose a series of unrepeatable events, which is

In this chapter, the points of intellectual consonance between Jane Addams and John Dewey are explored, specifically their (1) shared belief that philosophy is a method, (2) parallel commitments to philosophical pragmatism and (3) similar convictions that philosophy should serve to address social problems. Also highlighted are points of divergence in their thinking, particularly their positions on U.S. entry into World War I and, more generally, the value of social conflict. Finally, the chapter concludes with what the author believes is Addams's and Dewey's most significant joint contribution to the contemporary philosophical landscape: a vision of practically engaged pragmatism.

The paper studies the notion of class in D H Lawrence’s last novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover. It argues that Lawrence offers his vision of social and cultural reform in the aftermath of the Great War.  The paper sheds a rehabilitative look at the novel and establishes a theoretical framework where the issues of sex and class are reconciled. Lawrence transgresses class boundaries through the Connie/Mellors liaison.  The narrative is organized in two stages.  The first stage of the narrative exposes the emptiness of the pre-war social values, with the purpose of destroying the reader’s sense of class. In this stage, Lawrence attacks the old class system and draws a bleak image of the upper class, as represented in the Character of Sir Clifford Chatterley.    Once the destructive stage is over, the writer introduces his new class markers, and thus initiates the reader into a fresh class consciousness.

Key words: class consciousness, transgression, sensuality, constructive, upper class, social reform.

L'étude de la Société générale des prisons, lieu de production des réflexions sur les pénalités à la fin du XIXème siècle, mi-société savante, mi-commission extra-parlementaire, territoire privilégié de ce groupe socio-professionnel important que sont les juristes, permet d'entamer une réflexion qui tente de retracer la généalogie de la construction sociale du fait criminel, se veut une contribution à l'histoire des savoirs et de leurs usages sociaux, s'interroge sur les tentatives de recomposition des rapports Etat-société civile à travers ce prisme particulier et complexe qu'est le monde de la justice, de l'ordre et du désordre. Ce projet s'inscrit également dans une orientation générale de recherche où il s'agit, à partir de l'objet pénal, de contribuer à l'analyse des modes socio-politiques d'élaboration du droit ainsi qu'à celle du rôle des savoirs et de ce qui les constitue dans les stratégies sociales en exercice, et de s'attacher aux processus sociaux, politiques complexes à l'oeuvre dans cette Troisième République. L'objet pénal est généralement pratiqué ou traité dans le cadre d'une assignation des savoirs, instrument au service de la connaissance du fait criminel permettant de le cerner. Il y a ici un renversement de perspectives : le pénal devient un objet de recherche qui introduit de façon privilégiée l'analyse du politique, l'analyse du social.

Costa Rica experienced tremendous social tension from 1940 to 1948.  President Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia, who won the 1940 presidential elections with almost 85 percent of the votes, organized the first and clearest instance of a populist movement in Costa Rica, which mobilized thousands of people.  This dissertation explores the construction of a populist discourse about Calderón Guardia and the means through which his followers transformed him into a caudillo.  Then, this study analyses the contribution of the Catholic Church and the Communist Party in spreading the official populist discourse concerning Calderón Guardia and his social legislation.  In the next section, it explores the links between Calderón Guardia’s administration and the increasingly organized workers’ movement.  As the populist rhetoric was shaped, workers took advantage of the moment to found new unions and a confederation of workers.  In determining how this populist movement constructed a political frontier to shape the “people,” this dissertation analyses the constitution of the opposition to Calderonismo. 
Using theory concerning the constitution of collective violence, this dissertation explores how social tensions evolved into an unsolved conflict.  In studying the social unrest that produced the presidential ballots of 1944, I offer evidence which explains why the political opposition did not recognize Teodo Picado’s presidency.  Next, this work explores the way in which symbolic actions contributed to increase relational distance between populists and their opponents until the social links between them were broken.  To complement the analysis, my dissertation describes the main events during the Civil War but also contrasts official versions with ex-combatants’ testimonies to reveal terrible accounts of wartime atrocities.  Finally, this work describes the post-1948 repression, the route to general amnesty, the traumas of losers and their children, and how Costa Rican politicians sanitized their versions of the 1940s during the period 1948-2008.

Teaching Resources: William Blake and the Campaign Against Cruel Treatment of Children.
"So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm."
Many social and political reformers sought to improve the lives of animals and children through legislation:
1788 Chimney Sweepers Act. Aimed to prevent use of children under the age of eight as chimney sweeps.
1789, 1794 The Chimney Sweeper is the title of a poem by William Blake, published in two parts in Songs of Innocence (1789) Songs of Experience (1794, see image below).
This resource provides examples drawn from the real lives and deaths of chimney sweepers, drawn from "The Chimney-Sweeper’s Friend, and Climbing-Boy’s Album" (1824). 
See also "Slavery - Black and White"    https://www.academia.edu/63590877/Slavery_Black_and_White

Elizabeth Cady Stanton is widely regarded as one of the most important women’s rights orators of the 19th Century. She is credited with opening new rhetorical spaces for women through brilliant rhetorical appeals. In her 1854 speech to the Legislature of New York, however, her brilliant rhetorical appeals were also appeals to the racist, classist, and paternalistic biases of her white male audience. A paradox of social reform is the need to simultaneously assert difference and sameness with the dominant classes, and Cady Stanton’s efforts to negotiate this paradox ultimately reinforced the social hierarchy she hoped to undermine.

This paper looks at Vidyasagar's programme for widow marriage while also discussing his campaign against Kulin Brahmin polygamy, child marriage and prostitution – some of the evils that plagued nineteenth-century Bengali society. Vidyasagar's diligent effort for the legalisation of widow marriage ultimately paid off in 1856 as the British colonial administrators drafted widow marriage into law. The two tracts that Vidyasagar published in 1856 in favour of widow marriage have been looked into some detail as well as opposition to his programme from none other than Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, arguably the greatest Bengali novelist till date. Statistically speaking, not many widows married under the Hindu Widow's Remarriage Act, making the Act, according to some critics, almost a dead letter. However, whether statistics alone does justice to the long-term impact Vidyasagar's movement has had on Bengal's social and intellectual life is also discussed.

Based on an extensive exploitation of the ILO archives, this book analyzes the emergence of a development discourse and practices at the international level between 1930 and 1946. It challenges several presumptions with regard to the chronology of development and its ideological origins. By focusing on the actors and practices of development, this book offers new depth to the concepts of "epistemic communities" and "experts".  www.degruyter.com

As Putnam’s title suggests, he attempts to indicate how the USA once came together (beginning in the Progressive Era) and how now in the midst of our polarized age we can so again. The post-Civil-War Gilded Age “was startlingly similar to today. Inequality, political polarization, social dislocation, and cultural narcissism prevailed.” But then during the Progressive Era (1890-c. 1910) “the institutional, social, and cultural seeds” of what Putnam labels the “Great Convergence” were sown. Out of those seeds emerged more than six decades (up until the late 1960s) of “imperfect but steady upward progress toward greater economic equality, more cooperation in the public square, a stronger social fabric, and a growing culture of solidarity,” in which we “became more focused on our responsibilities to one another and less focused on our narrower self-interest.” But “then suddenly and unexpectedly . . . the Great Convergence was reversed in a dramatic U-turn, to be followed by a half century of Great Divergence,” in which the “I” was emphasized much more than the “we.” Putnam traces these developments in separate chapters on economics, politics, society, and culture. He also has individual chapters devoted to race and gender, where he indicates that the “we” of the Great Convergence was often meant for white males more than for all Americans. The book’s penultimate chapter summarizes earlier findings and pays special attention to historical causation and the 1960s that brought about the switch from the Great Convergence to the Great Divergence. The final chapter concentrates on the lessons that can be learned from the Progressive Era, and what we can do today to once again focus less on the “I” and more on the “we” or common good. In summary, this is a useful and important book.

A pioneer with a number of firsts to his credit, he is the first Indian to write extensively on Hinduism in English as well as the first Hindu with the recorded use of the word "Hindu" in English language to refer to his own religion. Arguably, he is also the founder of the first Indian society with a trust deed to establish "a place of public meeting of all sorts and descriptions of people without distinction" [1]. This society, the Brahmo Sabha, will later develop into the Brahmo Samaj, one of the most important forces of social, religious, and cultural transformation of a large section of Indian society during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

В статье проводится сравнительный анализ двух крупных приватизаций в российской истории ХХ в. – крестьянских наделов в ходе столыпинской аграрной реформы 1906–1916 гг. и жилья в начале 1990-х гг. Делается попытка объяснить черты сходства, обнаружившиеся между этими процессами.

The Victorian era lasted during the reign of Queen Victoria, establishing the foundations for social, cultural and moral ideologies. The British rule in India during the19th century witnessed the peak of their rule, as India was considered the crown jewel of the Empire. Jyotirao Phule, an Indian social activist, a thinker, anti-caste social reformer (leader) and a writer from Maharashtra, worked for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system; women`s emancipation and the reform of Hindu family life. Phule`s works were a reflection of his ideology, which is an influence of The Victorian era lasted during the reign of Queen Victoria. Phule campaigned against the authoritarianism of the upper caste people and urged the peasants and others to defy the restrictions imposed on them. Phule`s dissidence against caste discrimination began as a revolution. Phule made it his life`s goal to ward off this caste discrimination and prejudices related with caste.