Includes bibliographical references (p. [283]-288) and index.
Contents
Stories of the poorhouse / Karen Tracey -- Representing the "deserving poor" : the "sentimental seamstress" and the feminization of poverty in antebellum America / Lori Merish -- "Dedicated to works of beneficence" : charity as a model for a domesticated economy in antebellum women's panic fiction / Mary Templin -- Reforming women's reform literature : Rebecca Harding Davis's rewriting of the industrial novel / Whitney A. Womack -- "The right to be let alone" : Mary Wilkins Freeman and the right to a "private share" / Debra Bernardi -- Women's charity vs. scientific philanthropy in Sarah Orne Jewett / Monika Elbert -- "Oh the poor women!" : Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's motherly benevolence / Jill Bergman -- Frances Harper's poverty relief mission in the African American community / Terry D. Novak -- "To reveal the humble immigrant parents to their own children" : immigrant women, their American daughters, and the Hull-House Labor Museum / Sarah E. Chinn -- Character's conduct : the democratic habits of Jane Addams's "charitable effort" / James Salazar.