Unemployment, Welfare, and Masculine Citizenship: So Much Honest Poverty in Britain, 1870-1930 (Genders and Sexualities in History)

This book examines how, from the late nineteenth century through the 1920s, British policymakers, welfare providers, and working-class men struggled to accommodate men's dependence on the state within understandings of masculine citizenship. "Cover"--"Contents" -- "List of Figures, Tables, and Maps" -- "Preface" -- "Acknowledgments" -- "1 "So Much Honest Poverty": Introduction" -- "Unemployment and welfare" -- "Masculine citizenship" -- "Black Country contexts" -- "Structure and sources" -- "Part I: Unemployment and the Continuities of Honest Poverty" -- "2 Not "Weary Willies" or "Tired Tims": The Work Imperative in the Poor Law World" -- "The Poor Law and the Labour Test" -- "Task work versus work relief" -- "The growing honest poor/pauper dichotomy" -- "The nation in the poor law world" -- "The poor law world overwhelmed" -- "Conclusion" -- "3 "They were not single men": Responsibility for Family and Hierarchies of Deservedness" -- "Profiles of poor law applicants" -- "Constructing married men's privilege" -- "Family liability in the politics of unemployed men" -- "Family liability in crisis" -- "Men's unemployment and women's work" -- "Conclusion" -- "4 "A reward for good citizenship": National Unemployment Benefits and the Genuine Search for Work" -- "The development of national unemployment benefits" -- "Genuine work and suitable employment" -- "Work history and skill" -- "Respectability and women's work" -- "Family liability and the gendered search for suitable employment" -- "Conclusion" -- "Part II: Honest Poverty in National Crisis" -- "5 "Married men had greater responsibilities":The First World War, the Service Imperative, and the Sacrifice of Single Men" -- "Constituting the service imperative" -- "The single and the married" -- "Family liability as national service" -- "Conclusion" -- "6 "The whole world had gone against them": Ex-Servicemen and the Politics of Relief" -- "Ex-servicemen and the poor law" -- "The politics of preference" -- "Out-of-Work Donation" -- "Preferential hiring" -- "A local context" -- "Conclusion." Front Matter....Pages i-xix “So Much Honest Poverty”: Introduction....Pages 1-21 Front Matter....Pages 23-23 Not “Weary Willies” or “Tired Tims”: The Work Imperative in the Poor Law World....Pages 25-49 “They were not single men”: Responsibility for Family and Hierarchies of Deservedness....Pages 50-81 “A reward for good citizenship”: National Unemployment Benefits and the Genuine Search for Work....Pages 82-106 Front Matter....Pages 107-107 “Married men had greater responsibilities”: The First World War, the Service Imperative, and the Sacrifice of Single Men....Pages 109-137 “The whole world had gone against them”: Ex-Servicemen and the Politics of Relief....Pages 138-158 “No right to relieve a striker”: Trade Disputes and the Politics of Work and Family in the 1920s....Pages 159-180 Front Matter....Pages 181-181 “Younger men are given the preference”: Older Men’s Welfare and Intergenerational Responsibilities....Pages 183-205 “He did not realise his responsibilities”: Giving Up the Privileges of Honest Poverty....Pages 206-231 Conclusions....Pages 232-239 Back Matter....Pages 240-304 In the late nineteenth century, the extent of unemployment in Britain challenged prevailing ideologies that insisted on men's economic independence and blamed the poor for their poverty. With increasing numbers of newly-enfranchised men who had been regular workers applying for humiliating poor relief, policymakers produced structural explanations for unemployment that recognized men could not always find work even when they wanted it. In the face of these new economic and political realities, a remarkably broad consensus developed around a model of working-class masculinity that incorporated dependence on welfare, promising honest unemployed men a status that identified them as citizens, not as moral failures who deserved to be shamed. This book examines how, from the late nineteenth century through the 1920s, British policymakers, welfare providers, and working-class men struggled to come to terms with changing relationships among unemployment, welfare, and masculine citizenship