Women And The Work Of Benevolence

Nineteenth-century middle-class Protestant women were fervent in their efforts to "do good." Rhetoric--especially in the antebellum years--proclaimed that virtue was more pronounced in women than in men and praised women for their benevolent influence, moral excellence, and religious faith. In this book, Lori D. Ginzberg examines a broad spectrum of benevolent work performed by middle- and upper-middle-class women from the 1820s to 185 and offers a new interpretation of the shifting political contexts and meanings of this long tradition of women's reform activism. During the antebellum period, says Ginzberg, the idea of female moral superiority and the benevolent work it supported contained both radical and conservative possibilities, encouraging an analysis of femininity that could undermine male dominance as well as guard against impropriety. At the same time, benevolent work and rhetoric were vehicles for the emergence of a new middle-class identity, one which asserts virtue--not wealth--determined status. Ginzberg shows how a new generation that came of age during the 1850s and the Civil War developed new analyses of benevolence and reform. By post-bellum decades, the heirs of antebellum benevolence referred less to a mission of moral regeneration and far more to a responsibility to control the poor and "vagrant," signaling the refashioning of the ideology of benevolence from one of gender to one of class. According to Ginzberg, these changing interpretations of benevolent work throughout the century not only signal an important transformation in women's activists' culture and politics but also illuminate the historical development of American class identity and of women's role in constructing social and political authority.

A Violent History of Benevolence traces how normative histories of liberalism, progress, and social work enact and obscure systemic violences. Chris Chapman and A.J. Withers explore how normative social work history is structured in such a way that contemporary social workers can know many details about social work's violences, without ever imagining that they may also be complicit in these violences. Framings of social work history actively create present-day political and ethical irresponsibility, even among those who imagine themselves to be anti-oppressive, liberal, or radical. The authors document many histories usually left out of social work discourse, including communities of Black social workers (who, among other things, never removed children from their homes involuntarily), the role of early social workers in advancing eugenics and mass confinement, and the resonant emergence of colonial education, psychiatry, and the penitentiary in the same decade. Ultimately, A Violent History of Benevolence aims to invite contemporary social workers and others to reflect on the complex nature of contemporary social work, and specifically on the present-day structural violences that social work enacts in the name of benevolence.

For perhaps the first time in novel form, Benevolence presents an important era in Australia’s history from an Aboriginal perspective. Benevolence is told from the perspective of Darug woman, Muraging (Mary James), born around 1813. Mary’s was one of the earliest Darug generations to experience the impact of British colonisation. At an early age Muraging is given over to the Parramatta Native School by her Darug father. From here she embarks on a journey of discovery and a search for a safe place to make her home. The novel spans the years 1816-35 and is set around the Hawkesbury River area, the home of the Darug people, Parramatta and Sydney. The author interweaves historical events and characters — she shatters stereotypes and puts a human face to this Aboriginal perspective.

When a low-income person asks your church for help, what do you do next? God is extraordinarily generous, and our churches should be, too. Because poverty is complex, however, helping low-income people often requires going beyond meeting their material needs to holistically addressing the roots of their poverty. But on a practical level, how do you move forward in walking with someone who approaches your church for financial help? From the authors of When Helping Hurts comes Helping Without Hurting in Church Benevolence, a guidebook for church staff, deacons, or volunteers who work with low-income people. Short and to the point, this tool provides foundational principles for poverty alleviation and then addresses practical matters, like: How to structure and focus your benevolence work How to respond to immediate needs while pursuing long-term solutions How to mobilize your church to walk with low-income people With practical stories, forms, and tools for churches to use, Helping Without Hurting in Church Benevolence is an all-in-one guide for church leaders and laypeople who want to help the poor in ways that lead to lasting change.

When working with Indigenous people, the helping professions —education, social work, health care and justice — reinforce the colonial lie that Indigenous people need saving. In White Benevolence, leading anti-racism scholars reveal the ways in which white settlers working in these institutions shape, defend and uphold institutional racism, even while professing to support Indigenous people. White supremacy shows up in the everyday behaviours, language and assumptions of white professionals who reproduce myths of Indigenous inferiority and deficit, making it clear that institutional racism encompasses not only high-level policies and laws but also the collective enactment by people within these institutions. In this uncompromising and essential collection, the authors argue that white settler social workers, educators, health-care practitioners and criminal justice workers have a responsibility to understand the colonial history of their professions and their complicity in ongoing violence, be it over-policing, school push-out, child apprehension or denial of health care. The answer isn’t cultural awareness training. What’s needed is radical anti-racism, solidarity and a relinquishing of the power of white supremacy.

Bounty and Benevolence draws on a wide range of documentary sources to provide a rich and complex interpretation of the process that led to these historic agreements. The authors explain the changing economic and political realities of western Canada during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and show how the Saskatchewan treaties were shaped by long-standing diplomatic and economic understandings between First Nations and the Hudson's Bay Company. Bounty and Benevolence also illustrates how these same forces created some of the misunderstandings and disputes that arose between the First Nations and government officials regarding the interpretation and implementation of the accords.

David Hanzlick traces the rise and evolution of women’s activism in a rapidly growing, Midwestern border city, one deeply scarred by the Civil War and struggling to determine its meaning. Over the course of 70 years, women in Kansas City emerged from the domestic sphere by forming and working in female-led organizations to provide charitable relief, reform society’s ills, and ultimately claim space for themselves as full participants in the American polity. Focusing on the social construction of gender, class, and race, and the influence of political philosophy in shaping responses to poverty, Hanzlick also considers the ways in which city politics shaped the interactions of local activist women with national women’s groups and male-led organizations.