Search Results

Unmarried Mothers in the ‘Welfare State’

Pat Thane and Tanya Evans

in Sinners? Scroungers? Saints?: Unmarried Motherhood in Twentieth-Century England

Real improvements for poorer unmarried mothers in the Welfare State created by the post-war Labour Government, building on the wartime experience of inadequate public services for mothers and ... More

Real improvements for poorer unmarried mothers in the Welfare State created by the post-war Labour Government, building on the wartime experience of inadequate public services for mothers and children. The new NHS brought safer childbirth. Benefits improved, but housing was hard to find and they were often excluded from council housing. Many voluntary Mother and Baby Homes remained grim and women avoided them where possible, but they gradually improved. The NC worked with state agencies to bring about these improvements and to help mothers negotiate the benefit system and to train for and find work, as most mothers wanted. Many were better educated and more confident than before the war. Most lived on their earnings and/or help from the father or their family. NC also helped mothers of children whose father was an overseas serviceman who had returned home and women who had babies by British servicemen abroad.Less

A Finer Future?

Pat Thane and Tanya Evans

in Sinners? Scroungers? Saints?: Unmarried Motherhood in Twentieth-Century England

The first thorough account of the work of the Finer Committee on One-Parent Families, set up by the Labour Government in 1969, reported in 1974. The most detailed study, then or since, of the past ... More

The first thorough account of the work of the Finer Committee on One-Parent Families, set up by the Labour Government in 1969, reported in 1974. The most detailed study, then or since, of the past and present of single parenthood in Britain, its causes and outcomes. Examines the membership, the evidence, conclusions, and recommendations: the difficulties of mothers in being self-supporting, given gender inequalities in pay and work opportunities and inadequate childcare; of fathers, especially when low-paid and with two families; the inadequacies of the legal system and the benefit system; lack of suitable housing and continuing forbidding conditions in Homes. They recommended a new state benefit for lone-parent families, which the Labour Government rejected, though child support was improved. It led to lasting improvement in the legal system. From 1977 improved access to council housing for lone mothers.Less

Protecting Homes and Other Types of Property

Stephanie M. Stern and Daphna Lewinsohn-Zamir

in The Psychology of Property Law

This chapter questions the tendency of property law to bestow more generous protection against dispossession due to debts or other losses to residential property than to personal or commercial ... More

This chapter questions the tendency of property law to bestow more generous protection against dispossession due to debts or other losses to residential property than to personal or commercial property or leasehold interests (i.e., renters). Contrary to this pattern in property law, the empirical psychology research on homes suggests only moderate psychological importance to maintaining ownership of one’s particular home, and substantial attachments and psychological interests in personal and commercial property. From the perspective of psychological loss, the strong property protection afforded to homes under tenancy by the entirety and homestead exemptions may be outsized. Conversely, the more limited protection of personal property and compensation for its loss under laws such as bankruptcy exemptions and bailment may be inadequate.Less

Defending the ‘Invisible World’: The Campaign against ‘Saducism’

Euan Cameron

in Enchanted Europe

This chapter considers those writers who vigorously defended the idea of an ‘invisible world’ of spirits. These include Nathaniel Homes, Meric Casaubon, Henry More, Joseph Glanvill, and John Aubrey.

Tenant Transitions: From Geographic to Social Mobility

Douglas S. Massey, Len Albright, Rebecca Casciano, Elizabeth Derickson, and David N. Kinsey

in Climbing Mount Laurel: The Struggle for Affordable Housing and Social Mobility in an American Suburb

This chapter considers whether the move to the Ethel Lawrence Homes (EHL)—and the improved neighborhood conditions it enabled—were sufficient to change the trajectory of people's lives. Systematic ... More

This chapter considers whether the move to the Ethel Lawrence Homes (EHL)—and the improved neighborhood conditions it enabled—were sufficient to change the trajectory of people's lives. Systematic comparisons between project residents and members of the nonresident control group indicated significant improvements in mental health, economic independence, and children's educational outcomes as a result of moving into the project. It discusses whether residents have been able to use the safe setting of the EHL as a platform for broader success in life—whether inhabiting a secure, nonthreatening environment indeed provided residents with a springboard to move onward and upward on the socioeconomic ladder. By moving into the EHL in Mount Laurel, Jersey, low- and moderate-income families from throughout the region were able to trade inferior housing in high-poverty, predominantly minority, city neighborhoods for well-appointed town houses located in an affluent white suburb. In doing so, they dramatically lowered their exposure to social disorder and violence and reduced the frequency with which they experienced negative life events; and these benefits did not come at the cost of social interactions with family members or access to essential services. As a bonus, evidence suggests that residents may even have experienced an increase in interaction with neighbors as a result of the move.Less

Affordable Housing: Suburban Solutions to Urban Problems

Douglas S. Massey, Len Albright, Rebecca Casciano, Elizabeth Derickson, and David N. Kinsey

in Climbing Mount Laurel: The Struggle for Affordable Housing and Social Mobility in an American Suburb

This chapter reviews the foregoing results and traces out their implications for public policy and for social theory. It argues that neighborhood circumstances do indeed have profound consequences ... More

This chapter reviews the foregoing results and traces out their implications for public policy and for social theory. It argues that neighborhood circumstances do indeed have profound consequences for individual and family well-being and that housing mobility programs constitute an efficacious way both to reduce poverty and to lower levels of racial and class segregation in metropolitan America. Whatever the precise reason for its success, the Ethel Lawrence Homes (EHL) offers a proof of concept for the further development of affordable family housing, both as a social policy for promoting racial and class integration in metropolitan America and as a practical program for achieving poverty alleviation and economic mobility in society at large. Results very clearly show that affordable housing for low- and moderate-income minority families can be built within an affluent white suburban environment without imposing significant costs on the host community or its residents, while simultaneously increasing the economic independence of project residents and improving educational achievement among their children, all with little or no cost to taxpayers in general. It is a win-win prospect for all concerned.Less

Towards a Solution to the Eurasian Question: Child Removal and Juvenile Emigration

Satoshi Mizutani

in The Meaning of White: Race, Class, and the 'Domiciled Community' in British India 1858-1930

This chapter concerns the wider historical implications of the limitations upon the system of general school education meant for Eurasian and Domiciled-European children. It argues that, by the turn ... More

This chapter concerns the wider historical implications of the limitations upon the system of general school education meant for Eurasian and Domiciled-European children. It argues that, by the turn of the century, British education authorities became strongly attracted by an extraordinary idea of sending abroad problematic groups of domiciled children. The removal of domiciled children from impoverished families is the main focus of the chapter, which discusses in particular an orphanage-like institution called St Andrew’s Colonial Homes at Kalimpong. The educational model of the Homes, founded by the Scottish missionary John Graham, was often praised as the most effective in solving the Eurasian Question. The chapter analyses how this educational institution sought to discipline and train its pupils, while exploring the underlying ideologies of race and class under British imperialism. The various reports, essays, and letters published in the school journal, St. Andrew’s Colonial Homes Magazine, are the main primary sources.Less

Lifetime Homes

Mary Kelly

in Inclusive housing in an ageing society: Innovative approaches

People's differences — such as their levels of income, culture, ethnicity, age, and mobility, and whether they have responsibilities for children or other dependants — create different priorities for ... More

People's differences — such as their levels of income, culture, ethnicity, age, and mobility, and whether they have responsibilities for children or other dependants — create different priorities for them. This indicates that a choice of types of accommodation should be available. This chapter analyses existing housing standards and definitions of housing, which allow differing levels of accessibility and liveability. It considers the position of some major players in housing development: The Housing Corporation, Scottish Homes, and local authorities. The continuing problems of access to and within homes, the gradual erosion of space standards over the years, and the adverse effect that this has had on the usability of different dwellings, have contributed to the fourteen criteria developed by the Lifetime Homes Group. This chapter profiles Lifetime Homes criteria and describes the benefits that could be derived from their wider implementation to the general housing stock.Less

Suburban Showdown: The Mount Laurel Controversy

Douglas S. Massey, Len Albright, Rebecca Casciano, Elizabeth Derickson, and David N. Kinsey

in Climbing Mount Laurel: The Struggle for Affordable Housing and Social Mobility in an American Suburb

This chapter describes in great detail the Mount Laurel court case and the controversy it generated. It takes a closer look at the emotion and controversy surrounding Mount Laurel's opposition to the ... More

This chapter describes in great detail the Mount Laurel court case and the controversy it generated. It takes a closer look at the emotion and controversy surrounding Mount Laurel's opposition to the Ethel Lawrence Homes as a prelude to the systematic study on the effects of neighbors, the community, and tenants. In 1967 Ethel Lawrence joined with other local residents to form the Springville Community Action Committee, which was established with the explicit goal of bringing subsidized housing to Mount Laurel. The non-profit obtained seed money from the State of New Jersey and in 1968 optioned a 32-acre parcel in Springville, along Hartford Road, and began drawing up plans to build thirty-six two- and three-bedroom garden apartments affordable to low-income renters. This was the genesis of the suburban showdown that became regional and then national news and led to the landmark New Jersey Supreme Court ruling establishing what became known as “the Mount Laurel Doctrine.”Less

Field of Dreams: Ethel Lawrence Homes Come to Mount Laurel

Douglas S. Massey, Len Albright, Rebecca Casciano, Elizabeth Derickson, and David N. Kinsey

in Climbing Mount Laurel: The Struggle for Affordable Housing and Social Mobility in an American Suburb

This chapter describes the construction, organization, and physical appearance of Ethel Lawrence Homes (EHL) and assesses the aesthetics relative to other housing in the area. Bringing affordable ... More

This chapter describes the construction, organization, and physical appearance of Ethel Lawrence Homes (EHL) and assesses the aesthetics relative to other housing in the area. Bringing affordable housing to her hometown of Mount Laurel was very much Ethel Lawrence's dream. She never gave up the fight for affordable housing in Mount Laurel and the entire state of New Jersey has benefitted from it. Although Ethel Lawrence participated in all of the litigation and court hearings and was active in the early phases of project planning, her health declined in the 1990s and she passed away in July of 1994 at the age of sixty-eight, with her dream of affordable housing in Mount Laurel still unrealized. In her honor the future housing project was baptized the “Ethel R. Lawrence Homes.”Less

Rhetoric and Reality: Monitoring Mount Laurel

Douglas S. Massey, Len Albright, Rebecca Casciano, Elizabeth Derickson, and David N. Kinsey

in Climbing Mount Laurel: The Struggle for Affordable Housing and Social Mobility in an American Suburb

This chapter outlines the study's design and research methodology, describing the specific data sources consulted to determine the effects of the project on the community and the multiple surveys and ... More

This chapter outlines the study's design and research methodology, describing the specific data sources consulted to determine the effects of the project on the community and the multiple surveys and in-depth interviews conducted to gather information on how the opening of the homes affected residents, neighbors, and the community in general. In the earlier review of the political economy of place, the chapter presents a theoretical rationale for anticipating high levels of emotion in debates about land use, and in the specific case of the Ethel Lawrence Homes the residents of Mount Laurel certainly did not disappoint. Whether it was the majority who expressed strong misgivings about locating an affordable housing project within the township, or the minority who offered sympathy and support for the venture, emotions generally ran high. Feelings seemed to be especially raw among those who opposed the project, judging by the invective hurled at public hearings. The record of subsidized housing in the United States is hardly unblemished.Less

Neighborly Concerns: Effects on Surrounding Communities

Douglas S. Massey, Len Albright, Rebecca Casciano, Elizabeth Derickson, and David N. Kinsey

in Climbing Mount Laurel: The Struggle for Affordable Housing and Social Mobility in an American Suburb

This chapter evaluates the outcomes that were of such grave concern to local residents and township officials prior to the project's construction, using publicly available data to determine the ... More

This chapter evaluates the outcomes that were of such grave concern to local residents and township officials prior to the project's construction, using publicly available data to determine the effects it had on crime rates, tax burdens, and property values. It reveals that white suburban residents generally oppose the location of affordable housing developments within their communities, at least those intended for poor families as opposed to the elderly, and that such opposition is at least partially rooted in racial and class prejudice. Apart from prejudice, however, the chapter also argues that suburbanites have legitimate practical reasons to be skeptical about the influence of “public housing” on their communities, given the lamentable record of the projects built throughout the country during the 1950s and 1960s. Both skepticism and prejudice were evident in the rhetoric employed by Mount Laurel residents in opposing the construction of the Ethel Lawrence Homes in their township. Although it is doubtful that many of these local critics were well grounded in the social science literature, there are nonetheless defensible theoretical and substantive reasons to expect social problems to follow from the insertion of a 100% affordable housing project into a white, affluent suburban setting.Less

All Things Considered: Neighbors’ Perceptions a Decade Later

Douglas S. Massey, Len Albright, Rebecca Casciano, Elizabeth Derickson, and David N. Kinsey

in Climbing Mount Laurel: The Struggle for Affordable Housing and Social Mobility in an American Suburb

This chapter considers the effects of Ethel Lawrence Homes (EHL) on the ethos of suburban life. It draws on a representative survey and selected interviews with neighbors living in surrounding ... More

This chapter considers the effects of Ethel Lawrence Homes (EHL) on the ethos of suburban life. It draws on a representative survey and selected interviews with neighbors living in surrounding residential areas, which show that despite all the agitation and emotion before the fact, once the project opened, the reaction of neighbors was surprisingly muted, with nearly a third not even realizing that an affordable housing development existed right next door. The chapter takes a closer look at community perceptions of the EHL project ten years after its controversial origins. It considers not what actual data and statistics tell about the project's consequences for the community but focuses instead on what those who live in surrounding neighborhoods believe the consequences to have been. It analyzes the responses from the neighborhoods that commented about the EHL and explores their perceptions of its inhabitants, but before doing so the chapter provides information on the contrasting social backgrounds of community residents and EHL tenants.Less

Greener Pastures: Moving to Tranquility

Douglas S. Massey, Len Albright, Rebecca Casciano, Elizabeth Derickson, and David N. Kinsey

in Climbing Mount Laurel: The Struggle for Affordable Housing and Social Mobility in an American Suburb

This chapter focuses on a special survey conducted of the residents of Ethel Lawrence Homes (EHL) and nonresidents to assess how moving into the project affected the residential environment people ... More

This chapter focuses on a special survey conducted of the residents of Ethel Lawrence Homes (EHL) and nonresidents to assess how moving into the project affected the residential environment people experienced on a day-to-day basis. The design of the survey compares neighbourhood conditions experienced by EHL residents both before and after they moved into the project, as well as to compare them with a control group of people who had applied to EHL but had not yet been admitted. Both comparisons reveal a dramatic reduction in exposure to neighbourhood disorder and violence and a lower frequency of negative life events as a result of the move. By the time EHL finally opened in 2000, it was no longer a test case about the rights of longtime residents not to be forced out of their hometown. Instead, it became a test case for whether affordable housing developments could provide a path out of poverty for the urban poor, and what kinds of costs such programs might impose on suburban residents.Less

Cleaving to the Scene of Shame: Stigmatised Childhoods in The End of Alice and Two Girls, Fat and Thin

Kaye Mitchell

in Writing Shame: Gender, Contemporary Literature and Negative Affect

Chapter 2 discusses two contemporary American writers, A.M. Homes and Mary Gaitskill – whose literary engagements with shame, in relation to sexuality in particular, have been notably provocative and ... More

Chapter 2 discusses two contemporary American writers, A.M. Homes and Mary Gaitskill – whose literary engagements with shame, in relation to sexuality in particular, have been notably provocative and disturbing. The chapter first discusses childhood and/as the scene of shame and considers the idea of the ‘queer child’; it then analyses the unsettling, contradictory admixture of desire, disgust and shame to be found in Homes’s The End of Alice (1996) and Gaitskill’s Two Girls, Fat and Thin (1991), both of which present stories of child abuse, both of which resist any straightforwardly redemptive or consolatory conclusion. In these novels, the childhood scene of shame is something that cannot be definitively vanquished – hence the double meaning of ‘cleave’ (to cling to, to separate from) in this chapter’s title. Chapter 2 also considers the movement of shame through and beyond the texts: the self-reflexive emphasis on deviant or unreliable narration; the displacement of shame upon the reader, whose disconcerting complicity is thereby invited; and the unease evident in the novels’ reception, regarding the de-feminising implications of female authors writing about apparently ‘shameful’ topics.Less

Genius in a Box

Alexi Worth

in Comic Art in Museums

This chapter includes a 2017 article by artist and art critic Alexi Worth wherein he reviews two exhibitions centered on the work of the “King of Comics” Jack Kirby: Comic Book Apocalypse: The ... More

This chapter includes a 2017 article by artist and art critic Alexi Worth wherein he reviews two exhibitions centered on the work of the “King of Comics” Jack Kirby: Comic Book Apocalypse: The Graphic World of Jack Kirby at California State University Northridge and What Nerve! Alternative Figures in American Art, 1960 to the Present at Rhode Island School of Design Museum. This chapter focuses on the relationship between comics and Pop Art, discussing the use of Kirby’s cover for Young Romance #26 in Richard Hamilton’s groundbreaking Pop Art collage Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing (1956) and Kirby’s place in art history. This chapter discusses Dream Machine,Kirby’s dynamic drawing style and influences, and the twists and turns of his career at Marvel Comics.Less

Navigating the Maze

Leonard A. Jason

in Principles of Social Change

In Chapter 3, I provide an overview of the complex network of health care systems, and why working with community-based coalitions is critical. This is our next principle for social change: the ... More

In Chapter 3, I provide an overview of the complex network of health care systems, and why working with community-based coalitions is critical. This is our next principle for social change: the importance of working with or creating like-minded groups who are affected by the current situation. I begin with a reflection on the closure of mental hospitals in the 1960s, which many heralded as a serious effort to bring patients back to the community. Unfortunately, this was a case of the best intentions with unintended consequences years later. It wasn’t until years afterward that researchers realized that the number of patients with mental disorders had not decreased. Worse, they were now either in prison, in nursing homes, or homeless. In this chapter, I provide a glimpse into the Oxford House coalition of recovery homes to demonstrate the potential for giving people who are disenfranchised through drugs, prison records, or mental illness the chance to take decision-making responsibilities and authority into their own hands.Less

The Bulls as “Good Business”: The United Center and Redeveloping Chicago’s Near West Side

Sean Dinces

in Bulls Markets: Chicago's Basketball Business and the New Inequality

Chapter 3 chronicles the Chicago Bulls' efforts to navigate the neighborhood politics involved in constructing the United Center during the late 1980s and early 1990s in the northwestern part of the ... More

Chapter 3 chronicles the Chicago Bulls' efforts to navigate the neighborhood politics involved in constructing the United Center during the late 1980s and early 1990s in the northwestern part of the Near West Side community area. A diverse group of activists led neighborhood residents, most of whom were low-income and black, in a struggle to wrest a community benefits agreement from the team owners that would guard against gentrification. In the end, the deal hashed out between the teams and local residents brought some important benefits to the community, but failed to meaningfully discourage displacement of the poor. In fact, the agreement marked the beginning of a protracted collaboration between Earnest Gates, a longtime neighborhood activist and local businessman, and United Center executives which ultimately prioritized attracting new middle- and upper middle-class homeowners to the detriment of most longtime residents. Public housing tenants at the nearby Henry Horner Homes, whom the arena owners and Gates saw as liabilities in the context of neighborhood revitalization, established a more effective defense against gentrification on their own by appealing to the courts to guarantee their right to subsidized housing in the neighborhood. The result was a new public housing development called West Haven.Less

Introduction Black and White

Julia A. Stern

in Bette Davis Black and White

The introduction considers Bette Davis as a vehicle for thinking about American racial fantasy in classic Hollywood. The book's author, who grew up in a Jewish neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side ... More

The introduction considers Bette Davis as a vehicle for thinking about American racial fantasy in classic Hollywood. The book's author, who grew up in a Jewish neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side and then an all-white suburb, describes two significant encounters with African Americans. The first involved an invitation at age four to meet the children of her family’s Black house cleaner, who lived on the South Side in the Henry Horner Homes. After a joyful afternoon of playing house, the author never saw the children again, leaving her saddened and confused. The second encounter came at fourteen, at a fund raiser held for the Black Panther Party at the Lincoln Park townhouse of Lucy Montgomery, a white southern anti-racist activist. Gazing on the three Panther guests of honor, the author became a spectator to their charisma and celebrity, but only at a distance. Soon after, discovering Davis’s movies on late-night television, she could not understand why Black actors in Jezebel, playing enslaved persons, sounded nothing like her friends on the South Side or members of the Panther Party. Davis’s movies were revealing something about “race” that she did not believe to be true.Less