‘Unfortunate Objects’: Lone Mothers in Eighteenth-Century London

This book analyzes how poor eighteenth-century London women coped when they found themselves pregnant, their survival networks and the consequences of bearing an illegitimate child. It does so by exploring the encounters between poor women and the parish as well as London's lying-in hospitals and the Foundling Hospital. It suggests that unmarried mothers did not constitute a deviant minority within London's plebeian community. In fact, many could expect to find compassion rather than ostracism a response to their plight. All poor mothers, left without the support of their child's father, shared similar strategies of survival and economies of makeshift. This book is about the meanings and experiences of lone mothers in eighteenth-century London. It explores the material lives of men and women who produced legitimate and illegitimate offspring an examines those lives within a shared social, economic and cultural plebeian context. It examines how women copied when they found themselves pregnant, the consequences of bearing an illegitimate child and poor women's survival networks. It deos so by exploring the encounters between poor women and the parish as well as philanthropic authorities in the city. This study of London's lone mothers has implications for the history of gender relations, the family and sexuality, the social, economic and cultural circumstances of plebeians, employer/servant relations, philanthropy and poverty. Unmarried mothers did not constitute a deviant minority within London's plebeian community. Lone mothers and their babies captured the public philanthropic imagination of the mid-century. In the extraordinary climate of the mid to late-eighteenth century metropolis many unmarried mothers could expect to find compassion rather than ostracism a respose to their plight Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction....Pages 1-16 ‘The Insecurities of Life and Trade’: Work, Community and Personal Life in Eighteenth-Century London....Pages 17-46 Courtship, Sex and Marriage in Eighteenth-Century Popular Literature....Pages 47-66 ‘Craving Charity’: Poor Mothers and the Public Philanthropic Imagination....Pages 67-97 ‘Unfortunate Objects’: Petitioners to the Foundling Hospital....Pages 98-126 The Duty of Poor Mothers in Eighteenth-Century London....Pages 127-144 Childbirth....Pages 145-172 ‘Be so Good as to Remember Where This Child Goes to’: Poor but not Hopeless....Pages 173-202 Conclusion....Pages 203-209 Back Matter....Pages 210-279