Material setting and reform experience in English institutions for fallen women, 1838-1910 : inside the 'Homes of Mercy' / Susan Woodall.
Woodall, Susan, author.
2023
HV9647
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Title Material setting and reform experience in English institutions for fallen women, 1838-1910 : inside the 'Homes of Mercy' / Susan Woodall.
Author Woodall, Susan, author.
ISBN 9783031405716 PDF ebook
3031405714 PDF ebook
3031405706
9783031405709
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40571-6
Published Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.
Language English
Description 1 online resource (323 pages) : illustrations (black and white, and colour).
Item Number 10.1007/978-3-031-40571-6 doi
Call Number HV9647
Dewey Decimal Classification 365.43094209034
Summary Tracing the history of four English case studies, this book explores how, from outward appearance to interior furnishings, the material worlds of reform institutions for fallen women reflected their moral purpose and shaped the lived experience of their inmates. Variously known as asylums, refuges, magdalens, penitentiaries, Houses or Homes of Mercy, the goal of such institutions was the moral rehabilitation of unmarried but sexually experienced fallen women. Largely from the working-classes, such women some of whom had been sex workers were represented in contradictory terms. Morally tainted and a potential threat to respectable family life, they were also worthy of pity and in need of saving from further sin. Fuelled by rising prostitution rates, from the early decades of the nineteenth century the number of moral reform institutions for fallen women expanded across Britain and Ireland. Through a programme of laundry, sewing work and regular religious instruction, the period of institutionalisation and moral re-education of around two years was designed to bring about a change in behaviour, readying inmates for economic self-sufficiency and re-entry into society in respectable domestic service. To achieve their goal, institutional authorities deployed an array of ritual, material, religious and disciplinary tools, with mixed results. Susan Woodall is a Staff Tutor and Lecturer in History at the Open University, UK.
Note 1. Introduction.2. Mission, Critique and Development.3. A Chaste and Pleasing Elevation': Making Moral Spaces.4. Crossing the Threshold.5. Too Bad for Anything Better?.6. Material Religion.7. 'Short' Homes, Afterlives and Material Continuities.8. Conclusion.
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Series Genders and Sexualities in History Series.
Available in Other Form Print version: 9783031405709
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Intro
Series Editor's Preface
Acknowledgements
Contents
Abbreviations
List of Figures
List of Charts
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Introduction
Glorified or Demonised? Rethinking Victorian Institutions
Objects, Spaces and Feelings
Religious Experience, Resilience and Agency
The Case Study Institutions
Sources
The Structure of This Book
Chapter 2: Mission, Critique and Development
Part I: Printed Matter, Message and Professionalisation
The Word on the Street
Part II Critique, Inspection and Development

'A Rallying Point': The Magdalen's Friend and Improving Practice
Domesticity and Discipline
Chapter 3: 'A Chaste and Pleasing Elevation': Making Moral Spaces
The Limits of Space
Chaste Elevations: Building Style and Moral Meaning
Visibility and Reception
Expanding and Reinventing Spaces
Chapter 4: Crossing the Threshold
Admission: Trials of Scrutiny
Experiencing Probation
Rituals of Taking Off and Taking On
Chapter 5: Too Bad for Anything Better?
Material Values
Authority: The Materiality of Status
Laundry Spaces: 'Stir and Zest'
Workrooms

Dining Rooms
Kitchens
Chapter 6: Material Religion
'Mere Hiding Places of Evil'
Sacred Objects in Sacred Spaces
Encountering the Word
Learning the Word
Chapter 7: 'Short' Homes, Afterlives and Material Continuities
Prospects
Material Continuities
Afterlives
Chapter 8: Conclusion
Bibliography
Manuscript Primary Sources
Barnardo's Archive
Berkshire Record Office
Community of St John the Baptist, Clewer
British Library
Cambridgeshire Archives
Cambridge Female Refuge
Cambridgeshire Collection, Cambridge Central Library

Cambridge University Library
Essex Record Office
Lambeth Palace Library
Lincolnshire Archives
Lincoln Central Library
London Metropolitan Archives
Museum of Cambridge
Norfolk Record Office
Norwich City Mission
Suffolk Record Office
Trinity College Cambridge
Printed Primary Sources
Parliamentary Papers and Official Sources
Directories
Household Manuals
Church Ornament, Furniture and Design Catalogues
Articles, Memoirs, Pamphlets, Papers and Tracts
Newspapers and Periodicals
Periodicals and Rescue Literature
Parliamentary Papers

Secondary Sources
Reference Works
Websites
Index

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