History in Focus

Saltaire, built by Sir Titus Salt for his factory workers. British Library Board©

Articles

Welfare

History in Focus invited ten academics to write short pieces on various aspects of the history of welfare from their own research perspectives. The resulting articles cover a broad range of issues, including historical attempts to reduce inequality between citizens - either in health, income, education or general quality of life; how different societies have fulfilled duty of care to their citizens historically; how notions of 'entitlement' to welfare have developed over time; and the different means that have been utilised in the provision of welfare (for example, government-led public services, trade unions, charities and mutual aid-organisations). We hope they will be of interest to historians and students of social, economic and political history.

Articles index

• Juvenile delinquency and the evolution of the British juvenile courts, c.1900-1950

  By Kate Bradley

• Child migration: philanthropy, the state and the empire

  By Stephen Constantine

• The Poor Law in Ireland, 1838-1948

  By Virginia Crossman

• STDs and welfare in East Africa

  By Shane Doyle

• Why did the post-war welfare state fail to prevent the growth of inequality?

  By Howard Glennerster

• The American Welfare State

  By Michael B. Katz

• Welfare development in the Netherlands: the primacy of politics

  By Chris Nottingham

• Welfare provision in Finland in the 19th and early 20th Centuries

  By Pirjo Markkola

• The welfare of the vulnerable in the late 18th and early 19th centuries: Gilbert's Act of 1782

  By Samantha Shave

• Philanthropy in Imperial Russia from the 18th to the early 20th century

  By Galina Ulianova

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Created October 2008 by the Institute of Historical Research.
Copyright notice.