Janet Y. Chen
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691152103
- eISBN:
- 9781400839988
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691152103.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
In the early twentieth century, a time of political fragmentation and social upheaval in China, poverty became the focus of an anguished national conversation about the future of the country. ...
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In the early twentieth century, a time of political fragmentation and social upheaval in China, poverty became the focus of an anguished national conversation about the future of the country. Investigating the lives of the urban poor in China during this critical era, this book examines the solutions implemented by a nation attempting to deal with “society's most fundamental problem.” Interweaving analysis of shifting social viewpoints, the evolution of poor relief institutions, and the lived experiences of the urban poor, the book explores the development of Chinese attitudes toward urban poverty and of policies intended for its alleviation. The book concentrates on Beijing and Shanghai, two of China's most important cities, and considers how various interventions carried a lasting influence. The advent of the workhouse, the denigration of the nonworking poor as “social parasites,” efforts to police homelessness and vagrancy—all had significant impact on the lives of people struggling to survive. The book provides a crucially needed historical lens for understanding how beliefs about poverty intersected with shattering historical events, producing new welfare policies and institutions for the benefit of some, but to the detriment of others. Drawing on vast archival material, the book deepens the historical perspective on poverty in China and reveals critical lessons about a still-pervasive social issue.Less
In the early twentieth century, a time of political fragmentation and social upheaval in China, poverty became the focus of an anguished national conversation about the future of the country. Investigating the lives of the urban poor in China during this critical era, this book examines the solutions implemented by a nation attempting to deal with “society's most fundamental problem.” Interweaving analysis of shifting social viewpoints, the evolution of poor relief institutions, and the lived experiences of the urban poor, the book explores the development of Chinese attitudes toward urban poverty and of policies intended for its alleviation. The book concentrates on Beijing and Shanghai, two of China's most important cities, and considers how various interventions carried a lasting influence. The advent of the workhouse, the denigration of the nonworking poor as “social parasites,” efforts to police homelessness and vagrancy—all had significant impact on the lives of people struggling to survive. The book provides a crucially needed historical lens for understanding how beliefs about poverty intersected with shattering historical events, producing new welfare policies and institutions for the benefit of some, but to the detriment of others. Drawing on vast archival material, the book deepens the historical perspective on poverty in China and reveals critical lessons about a still-pervasive social issue.
Katherine Beckett and Steve Herbert
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195395174
- eISBN:
- 9780199943319
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195395174.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Law, Crime and Deviance
This chapter tries to explain why banishment reemerged as a leading social control strategy. It lists several developments that contributed to its rise, such as the increase in the homeless ...
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This chapter tries to explain why banishment reemerged as a leading social control strategy. It lists several developments that contributed to its rise, such as the increase in the homeless population and public concern about disorder. It studies broken windows policing and the invalidation of loitering laws and vagrancy. It also identifies some alternative social control mechanisms, including civility and banishment.Less
This chapter tries to explain why banishment reemerged as a leading social control strategy. It lists several developments that contributed to its rise, such as the increase in the homeless population and public concern about disorder. It studies broken windows policing and the invalidation of loitering laws and vagrancy. It also identifies some alternative social control mechanisms, including civility and banishment.
Julie Coleman
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199557097
- eISBN:
- 9780191719875
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199557097.003.0002
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Lexicography
This chapter discusses the historical roots of English cant and slang. The period 1560-1640 was characterized by the agrarian revolution, and the progressive criminalization of poverty; the later ...
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This chapter discusses the historical roots of English cant and slang. The period 1560-1640 was characterized by the agrarian revolution, and the progressive criminalization of poverty; the later part by the transition to a cash culture and by the haphazardly harsh treatment of criminals. The word-lists reflect changing interests and concerns caused by population growth and migration, developments in legal and penal theory and practice, and far-reaching changes in trade and travel.Less
This chapter discusses the historical roots of English cant and slang. The period 1560-1640 was characterized by the agrarian revolution, and the progressive criminalization of poverty; the later part by the transition to a cash culture and by the haphazardly harsh treatment of criminals. The word-lists reflect changing interests and concerns caused by population growth and migration, developments in legal and penal theory and practice, and far-reaching changes in trade and travel.
Peter Ramsay
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199581061
- eISBN:
- 9780191741005
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199581061.003.0009
- Subject:
- Law, Criminal Law and Criminology
This chapter reviews the protection of subjective security interests in the criminal law of an earlier period before the Anti-Social Behaviour Order. It considers vagrancy, nuisance, the bind over, ...
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This chapter reviews the protection of subjective security interests in the criminal law of an earlier period before the Anti-Social Behaviour Order. It considers vagrancy, nuisance, the bind over, threat offences, public order offences, and possession offences. The review of the law is not meant to cover every relevant power but rather to argue that while subjective security interests were protected in different ways, this protection remained piecemeal, implicit or justified in a traditional moralized language quite different from the later more explicit and systematic development of a liability for failure to reassure.Less
This chapter reviews the protection of subjective security interests in the criminal law of an earlier period before the Anti-Social Behaviour Order. It considers vagrancy, nuisance, the bind over, threat offences, public order offences, and possession offences. The review of the law is not meant to cover every relevant power but rather to argue that while subjective security interests were protected in different ways, this protection remained piecemeal, implicit or justified in a traditional moralized language quite different from the later more explicit and systematic development of a liability for failure to reassure.
Catharine Coleborne
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719091537
- eISBN:
- 9781526104120
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719091537.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This chapter examines the mobility of laws in the trans-Tasman colonial world, suggesting that the way colonial subjects both adopted, remade, remodelled and enacted laws reflected the mobility of ...
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This chapter examines the mobility of laws in the trans-Tasman colonial world, suggesting that the way colonial subjects both adopted, remade, remodelled and enacted laws reflected the mobility of both people and ideas, and also anxieties about mobility itself. It revisits some Australian and New Zealand legal history scholarship which has been central to understanding the transmission and uptake of imperial ‘laws’ in new colonial sites, raising questions about the cultural malleability of legality in colonial settings and reflecting on the question of mobility as a social problem which had to be addressed by colonial legislators. The chapter considers the laws that were formulated to regulate the movement of colonial populations, including vagrants and transients, Indigenous peoples, and new immigrants.Less
This chapter examines the mobility of laws in the trans-Tasman colonial world, suggesting that the way colonial subjects both adopted, remade, remodelled and enacted laws reflected the mobility of both people and ideas, and also anxieties about mobility itself. It revisits some Australian and New Zealand legal history scholarship which has been central to understanding the transmission and uptake of imperial ‘laws’ in new colonial sites, raising questions about the cultural malleability of legality in colonial settings and reflecting on the question of mobility as a social problem which had to be addressed by colonial legislators. The chapter considers the laws that were formulated to regulate the movement of colonial populations, including vagrants and transients, Indigenous peoples, and new immigrants.
Catharine Coleborne
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719087240
- eISBN:
- 9781526104250
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719087240.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This chapter argues that ethnicity found expression through gender in the patient case records, and it uses the tool of gender to explore the function and representation of ethnicity, at the same ...
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This chapter argues that ethnicity found expression through gender in the patient case records, and it uses the tool of gender to explore the function and representation of ethnicity, at the same time finding out more about constructions and expectations of masculinity for nineteenth-century male inmates and their doctors. It is through the exploration of these two categories in relation to each other that we might begin to understand the central preoccupations of contemporaries in their context. It uses case materials in both qualitative and quantitative modes and examines diagnoses against the backdrop of discursive formations of colonialism and masculinity. For instance, I want to show how the dominant medical diagnoses, evinced through the data, tell us something about constructions of colonial masculinity and gender relations.Less
This chapter argues that ethnicity found expression through gender in the patient case records, and it uses the tool of gender to explore the function and representation of ethnicity, at the same time finding out more about constructions and expectations of masculinity for nineteenth-century male inmates and their doctors. It is through the exploration of these two categories in relation to each other that we might begin to understand the central preoccupations of contemporaries in their context. It uses case materials in both qualitative and quantitative modes and examines diagnoses against the backdrop of discursive formations of colonialism and masculinity. For instance, I want to show how the dominant medical diagnoses, evinced through the data, tell us something about constructions of colonial masculinity and gender relations.
Catharine Coleborne
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719087240
- eISBN:
- 9781526104250
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719087240.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This chapter argues that ethnicity found expression through gender in the patient case records, and it uses the tool of gender to explore the function and representation of ethnicity, at the same ...
More
This chapter argues that ethnicity found expression through gender in the patient case records, and it uses the tool of gender to explore the function and representation of ethnicity, at the same time finding out more about constructions and expectations of femininity for nineteenth-century female inmates and their doctors, through both quantitative and qualitative evidence. Read together, chapters four and five show gender in relationship and tease out some of the dominant strands of historiographical inquiry about gender and asylum confinement over the past few decades. In particular, it shows that some recurring themes/aspects of the case record material require further explication in the colonial context, such as the emphasis on reproductive health and the presence of imbecile women.Less
This chapter argues that ethnicity found expression through gender in the patient case records, and it uses the tool of gender to explore the function and representation of ethnicity, at the same time finding out more about constructions and expectations of femininity for nineteenth-century female inmates and their doctors, through both quantitative and qualitative evidence. Read together, chapters four and five show gender in relationship and tease out some of the dominant strands of historiographical inquiry about gender and asylum confinement over the past few decades. In particular, it shows that some recurring themes/aspects of the case record material require further explication in the colonial context, such as the emphasis on reproductive health and the presence of imbecile women.
Bridget Anderson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199691593
- eISBN:
- 9780191752421
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199691593.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics
Chapter 1 locates contemporary immigration within the historical concern of rulers with the mobility of the ruled, the relation between geographical and labour mobility and settlement and claims on ...
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Chapter 1 locates contemporary immigration within the historical concern of rulers with the mobility of the ruled, the relation between geographical and labour mobility and settlement and claims on the community. It examines the attempts to control the mobility of the poor in England from the fourteenth century onwards and how this was related to labour and an anxiety about social order. For centuries, it was the vagrant rather than the immigrant who was seen as a threat to social cohesion, the breeding ground for an anti-society of rogues and witches. The chapter explores the contemporary relevance of insights derived from this history of mobility in which control of movement which would now be characterized as ‘internal’ eventually became displaced on to national borders.Less
Chapter 1 locates contemporary immigration within the historical concern of rulers with the mobility of the ruled, the relation between geographical and labour mobility and settlement and claims on the community. It examines the attempts to control the mobility of the poor in England from the fourteenth century onwards and how this was related to labour and an anxiety about social order. For centuries, it was the vagrant rather than the immigrant who was seen as a threat to social cohesion, the breeding ground for an anti-society of rogues and witches. The chapter explores the contemporary relevance of insights derived from this history of mobility in which control of movement which would now be characterized as ‘internal’ eventually became displaced on to national borders.
Hsuan L. Hsu
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479880416
- eISBN:
- 9781479843404
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479880416.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This chapter examines the legal and cultural connections between vagrancy and racialization by focusing on the ways in which the relative immobilization of Chinese, Native American, and black bodies ...
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This chapter examines the legal and cultural connections between vagrancy and racialization by focusing on the ways in which the relative immobilization of Chinese, Native American, and black bodies underwrote the romanticized white vagabondage at the heart of Mark Twain's novel Huckleberry Finn and its intertexts. Through closed readings of Huckleberry Finn and Bret Harte's “Three Vagabonds of Trinidad,” the chapter highlights the disproportionate use of vagrancy laws to criminalize Native American, Mexican, black, and Chinese subjects. More specifically, it reads Huckleberry Finn's white vagabonds alongside legal, popular, and literary treatments of racialized mobility in the postbellum South and West. It concludes by analyzing the aftermaths of Chinese purges and Indian massacres dramatized in “Three Vagabonds of Trinidad.”Less
This chapter examines the legal and cultural connections between vagrancy and racialization by focusing on the ways in which the relative immobilization of Chinese, Native American, and black bodies underwrote the romanticized white vagabondage at the heart of Mark Twain's novel Huckleberry Finn and its intertexts. Through closed readings of Huckleberry Finn and Bret Harte's “Three Vagabonds of Trinidad,” the chapter highlights the disproportionate use of vagrancy laws to criminalize Native American, Mexican, black, and Chinese subjects. More specifically, it reads Huckleberry Finn's white vagabonds alongside legal, popular, and literary treatments of racialized mobility in the postbellum South and West. It concludes by analyzing the aftermaths of Chinese purges and Indian massacres dramatized in “Three Vagabonds of Trinidad.”
Emily Baum
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226580616
- eISBN:
- 9780226580753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226580753.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter examines the establishment of the first public asylum in China. The Beijing Municipal Asylum was erected in the Chinese capital in 1908 because the Qing dynasty recognized the symbolic ...
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This chapter examines the establishment of the first public asylum in China. The Beijing Municipal Asylum was erected in the Chinese capital in 1908 because the Qing dynasty recognized the symbolic and practical value of such an institution: namely, it would bolster the legitimacy of the Qing state and better control its deviant populations. The asylum was placed under the management of the municipal police, who preemptively institutionalized men and women largely for having disrupted the social order. Blurring the lines between madness, criminality, vagrancy, and poverty, the police alternately sent such individuals to the asylum, the poorhouse, or the prison. Ultimately, this chapter argues that the establishment of the Beijing Municipal Asylum signaled a changing approach to the governance of madness in the early twentieth century. Unlike in the Qing dynasty, when responsibility for the insane was decentralized to families, the new Republican government took a more active -- and preemptive -- approach to the institutionalization of the insane.Less
This chapter examines the establishment of the first public asylum in China. The Beijing Municipal Asylum was erected in the Chinese capital in 1908 because the Qing dynasty recognized the symbolic and practical value of such an institution: namely, it would bolster the legitimacy of the Qing state and better control its deviant populations. The asylum was placed under the management of the municipal police, who preemptively institutionalized men and women largely for having disrupted the social order. Blurring the lines between madness, criminality, vagrancy, and poverty, the police alternately sent such individuals to the asylum, the poorhouse, or the prison. Ultimately, this chapter argues that the establishment of the Beijing Municipal Asylum signaled a changing approach to the governance of madness in the early twentieth century. Unlike in the Qing dynasty, when responsibility for the insane was decentralized to families, the new Republican government took a more active -- and preemptive -- approach to the institutionalization of the insane.
Caitriona Clear
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719074370
- eISBN:
- 9781781700693
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719074370.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Social History
There was some development of non-agricultural employment in Ireland between 1851 and 1922, but this does not mean that there was work for everyone. Emigration masked the true extent of unemployment, ...
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There was some development of non-agricultural employment in Ireland between 1851 and 1922, but this does not mean that there was work for everyone. Emigration masked the true extent of unemployment, millions of people moving from the country and sending home money. There was, however, an increase in the numbers of people employed in professional and white-collar work, in local government and civil service work, in commercial and distributive work, in transport and communications, and in some kinds of industrial work. The definition of work changed between 1850 and 1922. The hand-to-mouth subsistence work to which many people claimed attachment in 1851 gradually ceased to be considered real employment. Homeless peddlers, prostitutes, beggars and others of precarious income gradually disappear from the Census occupational tables only to turn up again in the vagrancy statistics.Less
There was some development of non-agricultural employment in Ireland between 1851 and 1922, but this does not mean that there was work for everyone. Emigration masked the true extent of unemployment, millions of people moving from the country and sending home money. There was, however, an increase in the numbers of people employed in professional and white-collar work, in local government and civil service work, in commercial and distributive work, in transport and communications, and in some kinds of industrial work. The definition of work changed between 1850 and 1922. The hand-to-mouth subsistence work to which many people claimed attachment in 1851 gradually ceased to be considered real employment. Homeless peddlers, prostitutes, beggars and others of precarious income gradually disappear from the Census occupational tables only to turn up again in the vagrancy statistics.
Caitriona Clear
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719074370
- eISBN:
- 9781781700693
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719074370.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, Social History
Vagrants and prostitutes were among those who would have been described as ‘poor’ by everyone, including labourers and casual workers. As targets of repression and recipients of relief, they were in ...
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Vagrants and prostitutes were among those who would have been described as ‘poor’ by everyone, including labourers and casual workers. As targets of repression and recipients of relief, they were in regular contact with government and voluntary agencies of the time. Vagrancy or wandering homelessness in Ireland and in Britain was seen as such an ongoing social problem that it prompted a special government commission in 1906. Social panic about prostitution happened a little earlier, in the 1860s and 1870s, flaring and fading at intervals for the remainder of the period. The male vagrant provoked contempt not only because he was a ‘masterless man’ but because he was not master even of his own house. Prostitutes were subjected to quite energetic persecution by working-class and artisan townspeople in eighteenth-century Ireland, while wandering beggars in pre-Famine Ireland were often hunted and persecuted.Less
Vagrants and prostitutes were among those who would have been described as ‘poor’ by everyone, including labourers and casual workers. As targets of repression and recipients of relief, they were in regular contact with government and voluntary agencies of the time. Vagrancy or wandering homelessness in Ireland and in Britain was seen as such an ongoing social problem that it prompted a special government commission in 1906. Social panic about prostitution happened a little earlier, in the 1860s and 1870s, flaring and fading at intervals for the remainder of the period. The male vagrant provoked contempt not only because he was a ‘masterless man’ but because he was not master even of his own house. Prostitutes were subjected to quite energetic persecution by working-class and artisan townspeople in eighteenth-century Ireland, while wandering beggars in pre-Famine Ireland were often hunted and persecuted.
Owen Dudley Edwards
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748616510
- eISBN:
- 9780748653621
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748616510.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter looks at evacuees and gurus during the war, and presents the effects of reading on evacuees, most of whom learnt to read using comics. It then identifies a propaganda point that was ...
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This chapter looks at evacuees and gurus during the war, and presents the effects of reading on evacuees, most of whom learnt to read using comics. It then identifies a propaganda point that was discovered during the war: children are more convincing as martyrs than as fighters. The chapter also shows that reading prevented children from slipping into theft and vagrancy, and even helped them pass the time while on their way to America and other countries. The latter half of the chapter focuses on the role of gurus in children's fiction, which is embodied in characters such as Aslan in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.Less
This chapter looks at evacuees and gurus during the war, and presents the effects of reading on evacuees, most of whom learnt to read using comics. It then identifies a propaganda point that was discovered during the war: children are more convincing as martyrs than as fighters. The chapter also shows that reading prevented children from slipping into theft and vagrancy, and even helped them pass the time while on their way to America and other countries. The latter half of the chapter focuses on the role of gurus in children's fiction, which is embodied in characters such as Aslan in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.
Jenny C. Mann
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801449659
- eISBN:
- 9780801464102
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801449659.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This chapter examines the rhetorical operations whereby the vernacular language and the island of England become figures for one another, with particular emphasis on the spatialization of discourse ...
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This chapter examines the rhetorical operations whereby the vernacular language and the island of England become figures for one another, with particular emphasis on the spatialization of discourse within the art of rhetoric. It shows how English manuals draw on the spatial imaginary provided by the ancient art of rhetoric to localize that discursive space as a particularly English place. By fostering the use of a “common” language identifiable with a “common” land that together constitutes an English commonweal, the vernacular rhetorical guides undermine the rhetorical art. The chapter also considers two manuals of rhetoric in English that incorporate an image of vagrancy into a retold history of rhetoric, one by Thomas Wilson and another by George Puttenham. Finally, it explains how rhetoric systematizes its own theory of discourse by artificially dividing content from form and analyzes the commonplaces and the figures of speech within the terms of this dichotomy.Less
This chapter examines the rhetorical operations whereby the vernacular language and the island of England become figures for one another, with particular emphasis on the spatialization of discourse within the art of rhetoric. It shows how English manuals draw on the spatial imaginary provided by the ancient art of rhetoric to localize that discursive space as a particularly English place. By fostering the use of a “common” language identifiable with a “common” land that together constitutes an English commonweal, the vernacular rhetorical guides undermine the rhetorical art. The chapter also considers two manuals of rhetoric in English that incorporate an image of vagrancy into a retold history of rhetoric, one by Thomas Wilson and another by George Puttenham. Finally, it explains how rhetoric systematizes its own theory of discourse by artificially dividing content from form and analyzes the commonplaces and the figures of speech within the terms of this dichotomy.
Jennifer Hull Dorsey
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801447785
- eISBN:
- 9780801460678
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801447785.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter examines the legal regime created by the Maryland legislature to force free African Americans into wage dependence and how it was used by Eastern Shore planters to their advantage. It ...
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This chapter examines the legal regime created by the Maryland legislature to force free African Americans into wage dependence and how it was used by Eastern Shore planters to their advantage. It considers the unrelated criminal and civil laws, collectively known as the Black Codes, introduced by Maryland to define the legal status of free African Americans while reinforcing the racial hierarchy. It shows that the Maryland government legislated dependence by denying African Americans the right to pursue economic self-sufficiency. It also discusses the laws on vagrancy and apprenticeships used by the local government as a legal tool to extract labor from free African Americans and ensure their subordination to white masters. Finally, it explores how free African Americans secured the services of the local government to protect their own investments on the Eastern Shore.Less
This chapter examines the legal regime created by the Maryland legislature to force free African Americans into wage dependence and how it was used by Eastern Shore planters to their advantage. It considers the unrelated criminal and civil laws, collectively known as the Black Codes, introduced by Maryland to define the legal status of free African Americans while reinforcing the racial hierarchy. It shows that the Maryland government legislated dependence by denying African Americans the right to pursue economic self-sufficiency. It also discusses the laws on vagrancy and apprenticeships used by the local government as a legal tool to extract labor from free African Americans and ensure their subordination to white masters. Finally, it explores how free African Americans secured the services of the local government to protect their own investments on the Eastern Shore.
Heather F. Roller
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780804787086
- eISBN:
- 9780804792127
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804787086.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This chapter examines the emergence of a native and mixed-race population that was not tied to the old institutions of colonial Indian life. The existence of such a population provoked difficult ...
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This chapter examines the emergence of a native and mixed-race population that was not tied to the old institutions of colonial Indian life. The existence of such a population provoked difficult questions of definition and identity, for both colonial officials and colonial subjects: Who was an Indian and who was not? Who could be obligated to serve in the villages of the Indian Directorate and who could legitimately claim exemption? As antivagrancy campaigns attempted to corral increasing numbers of Indians into the state-run villages in the 1770s and 1780s, individuals devised novel strategies to live where they wished and to control their own labor. By the end of the century, the stability of the corporate Indian villages had been undermined, and the Directorate system was abolished.Less
This chapter examines the emergence of a native and mixed-race population that was not tied to the old institutions of colonial Indian life. The existence of such a population provoked difficult questions of definition and identity, for both colonial officials and colonial subjects: Who was an Indian and who was not? Who could be obligated to serve in the villages of the Indian Directorate and who could legitimately claim exemption? As antivagrancy campaigns attempted to corral increasing numbers of Indians into the state-run villages in the 1770s and 1780s, individuals devised novel strategies to live where they wished and to control their own labor. By the end of the century, the stability of the corporate Indian villages had been undermined, and the Directorate system was abolished.
Brian Lund
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781447327073
- eISBN:
- 9781447327097
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447327073.003.0008
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
This chapter focuses on the salience of homelessness constructions reviewing how the various meanings attached to homelessness ― masterless men, vagrancy, destitution’, houseless poor’, rootless’, ...
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This chapter focuses on the salience of homelessness constructions reviewing how the various meanings attached to homelessness ― masterless men, vagrancy, destitution’, houseless poor’, rootless’, statutory homeless and rough sleepers ― have had lasting political importance with their structural/agency dimensions framing wider debates on the housing issue. It examines the political processes involved in homelessness designations reflected in the Poor Law, vagrancy legislation, the 1977 Housing (Homeless Persons) Act, rough sleeper initiatives and the prevention strategy adopted by New Labour and the Coalition government. It explores the application of the perverse incentives notion to homelessness and the political importance of the headline figures generated by the operations of homelessness legislation. The politics of Housing First are examined.Less
This chapter focuses on the salience of homelessness constructions reviewing how the various meanings attached to homelessness ― masterless men, vagrancy, destitution’, houseless poor’, rootless’, statutory homeless and rough sleepers ― have had lasting political importance with their structural/agency dimensions framing wider debates on the housing issue. It examines the political processes involved in homelessness designations reflected in the Poor Law, vagrancy legislation, the 1977 Housing (Homeless Persons) Act, rough sleeper initiatives and the prevention strategy adopted by New Labour and the Coalition government. It explores the application of the perverse incentives notion to homelessness and the political importance of the headline figures generated by the operations of homelessness legislation. The politics of Housing First are examined.
Jeff Ferrell
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780520295544
- eISBN:
- 9780520968271
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520295544.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Law, Crime and Deviance
This chapter begins by exploring the concept and practice of vagrancy, tracing the historical evolution of vagrancy laws, their twined illegalities of poverty and mobility, and their relevance in the ...
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This chapter begins by exploring the concept and practice of vagrancy, tracing the historical evolution of vagrancy laws, their twined illegalities of poverty and mobility, and their relevance in the social construction of hobos and drifters. The chapter then turns to the historical, political economic, and spatial production of the North American hobo. The progressive politics and collective organization of the hobo are next explored, with special emphasis on the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the American West. Here the organizational role of song and music, as embodied in the “Little Red Song Book,” is also documented. The chapter concludes with an examination of the IWW “free speech fights” and the role of hobos and drifters in their success. Less
This chapter begins by exploring the concept and practice of vagrancy, tracing the historical evolution of vagrancy laws, their twined illegalities of poverty and mobility, and their relevance in the social construction of hobos and drifters. The chapter then turns to the historical, political economic, and spatial production of the North American hobo. The progressive politics and collective organization of the hobo are next explored, with special emphasis on the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the American West. Here the organizational role of song and music, as embodied in the “Little Red Song Book,” is also documented. The chapter concludes with an examination of the IWW “free speech fights” and the role of hobos and drifters in their success.
Kristin O’Brassill-Kulfan
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780813056975
- eISBN:
- 9780813053752
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813056975.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Laws regulating the movement, residence, employment, and labor of the poor, and especially of poor African Americans in states with burgeoning free populations, demonstrate how mobility, when enacted ...
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Laws regulating the movement, residence, employment, and labor of the poor, and especially of poor African Americans in states with burgeoning free populations, demonstrate how mobility, when enacted by the poor and by non-whites, was classified as a criminal action in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century United States. In the Upper South especially, these laws had the express goal of attaching to all people of color the potential consequences of enslavement. This essay will link these ideas by tracing mobility and its construction as a classed and raced activity, as threats to existing labor regimes and social systems. This was most commonly and notoriously done through the policing of vagrancy, which allowed authorities to punish the poor, most punitively, in the South, African Americans, for unemployment or a reluctance to enter into a particular labor contract. This essay argues that the power dynamics of the South can be read clearly in the classed and raced regulation of vagrancy and geographical mobility in the antebellum era.Less
Laws regulating the movement, residence, employment, and labor of the poor, and especially of poor African Americans in states with burgeoning free populations, demonstrate how mobility, when enacted by the poor and by non-whites, was classified as a criminal action in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century United States. In the Upper South especially, these laws had the express goal of attaching to all people of color the potential consequences of enslavement. This essay will link these ideas by tracing mobility and its construction as a classed and raced activity, as threats to existing labor regimes and social systems. This was most commonly and notoriously done through the policing of vagrancy, which allowed authorities to punish the poor, most punitively, in the South, African Americans, for unemployment or a reluctance to enter into a particular labor contract. This essay argues that the power dynamics of the South can be read clearly in the classed and raced regulation of vagrancy and geographical mobility in the antebellum era.
Rebecca Tinio McKenna
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226417769
- eISBN:
- 9780226417936
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226417936.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This chapter concerns Benguet Road, the American colonial road built to reach the Baguio hill station. It was one of the first major public works projects that the colonial government undertook, and ...
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This chapter concerns Benguet Road, the American colonial road built to reach the Baguio hill station. It was one of the first major public works projects that the colonial government undertook, and it became the most celebrated road in the Philippines. For Americans, this twenty-six mile highway was an opportunity to celebrate the marvels of U.S. engineering and managerial power, but for many Filipinos, the road was an extravagant waste. This chapter explores how Americans recruited Philippine labor for the project in the face of disinterest if not outright resistance by Filipinos. Despite promises to "liberate labor" and teach colonial subjects "free agency," in gathering workers Americans largely relied on the effects of counter-revolutionary war and later, laws which circumscribed Philippine peoples’ subsistence practices and movement. These forms of primitive accumulation freed labor in ways far removed from many Filipino workers’ own vision of free agency and were a response to the contest Filipinos posed to U.S. rule.Less
This chapter concerns Benguet Road, the American colonial road built to reach the Baguio hill station. It was one of the first major public works projects that the colonial government undertook, and it became the most celebrated road in the Philippines. For Americans, this twenty-six mile highway was an opportunity to celebrate the marvels of U.S. engineering and managerial power, but for many Filipinos, the road was an extravagant waste. This chapter explores how Americans recruited Philippine labor for the project in the face of disinterest if not outright resistance by Filipinos. Despite promises to "liberate labor" and teach colonial subjects "free agency," in gathering workers Americans largely relied on the effects of counter-revolutionary war and later, laws which circumscribed Philippine peoples’ subsistence practices and movement. These forms of primitive accumulation freed labor in ways far removed from many Filipino workers’ own vision of free agency and were a response to the contest Filipinos posed to U.S. rule.
