Women and Welfare

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vii

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Julia Parker

      Pages 1-7

3. Women’s Work

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 9-9

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   2. Employment and Charity

      • Julia Parker

      Pages 11-30

   3. The Nature of Social Service

      • Julia Parker

      Pages 31-40

4. The Genesis of Social Service

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 41-42

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   2. Family and Social Background

      • Julia Parker

      Pages 43-64

   3. Family Relationships

      • Julia Parker

      Pages 65-93

   4. A Woman’s Place

      • Julia Parker

      Pages 94-117

   5. Religious Experience

      • Julia Parker

      Pages 118-144

   6. Social Problems and their Remedies

      • Julia Parker

      Pages 145-182

   7. Conclusions

      • Julia Parker

      Pages 183-196

5. Back Matter

   Pages 197-220

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The aim of this study is to explain why some middle-class Victorian women took up various kinds of public social service, as social workers, researchers or reformers. The conventions of the time made it difficult for women to move out of family into public life and the nature of the work they chose demanded great physical and mental courage and endurance. The author examines the family and social background and the individual character of ten famous nineteenth-century women to try to identify the social circumstances and personal qualities that encouraged their social service activities and relates her findings to the problems faced by women of the present who endeavour to combine family responsibilities and outside employment.

• bibliography
• experience
• individual
• nature
• present
• reform
• social work
• time
• Victorian era
• women

• University of Oxford, UK

  Julia Parker

JULIA PARKER is a Lecturer in Social Administration at the University of Oxford. She is the author of Portrait of Social Work (with Barbara Rodgers), Local Health and Welfare Services and Social Policy and Citizenship.

Policies and ethics