I seek to compare poverty and prostitution as theoretical and institutional corollaries of early 19th century urban society. The underlying intention of this comparison is to relate poverty and prostitution as separate, but concurrent, categories of immorality in the early American consciousness. In doing so, I will explore three central questions: i) How were varieties of social marginality framed in the antebellum city through philanthropic institutions? ; ii) Is the historiographical social control thesis for institutional ‘containment’ of societal deviants consistent with the experiences of those within such institutions? ; and, iii) How successful were private and public institutions in their reformatory aspirations during the early national period? In comparing and contrasting poverty and prostitution in Philadelphia as a heuristic foil for these questions, I will concentrate on welfare institutions, for their prerogative was articulating and actualizing these categories into reformatory principles of normalcy. To this end, I hope to demystify the intentions and outcomes of the early urban institutional experience by considering the Magdalen Society and the city almshouse in their period of formative antebellum development.
During the nineteenth century, the English Parliament commissioned a series of educational reports of Wales which aimed to denigrate the nation to aid an English cultural takeover, thus ensuring cultural homogeneity within England and Wales. In the educational reports, women were used as the markers of Wales and were conflated with barbarism and bestiality. The Welsh male elites responded virulently, claiming the virtuous nature of Welshwomen, and consequently, Wales. Women were thus used as political pawns, and were tokenized, as opposed to being represented in of themselves. Following these responses, a Welsh national identity began to form which was centered around women. Wales came to be personified as a woman, thus the idealized version of Welsh womanhood was confined to such a degree that women had a very strict ideal to live up to.
During the nineteenth century, the English Parliament commissioned a series of educational reports of Wales which aimed to denigrate the nation to aid an English cultural takeover, thus ensuring cultural homogeneity within England and Wales. In the educational reports, women were used as the markers of Wales and were conflated with barbarism and bestiality. The Welsh male elites responded virulently, claiming the virtuous nation of Welshwomen, and subsequently, Wales. Women were thus used as political pawns, and were tokenized, as opposed to being represented in of themselves. Following these responses, a Welsh national identity began to form which was centered around women. Wales came to be personified as a woman, thus the idealized version of Welsh womanhood was confined to such a degree that women had a very strict ideal to live up to.
On November 24, 1859, Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. The ideas within The Origin, particularly the theory of common descent and the theory of evolution by natural selection, have sparked controversy well into the twenty-first century. This controversy is rooted in the belief that he altered the relationship between religion and science, from one of unity to one of separation. I would like to argue that Darwin did not create a divide between religion and science. Contemporary ideas of a Darwinian divide result from misinterpretations of past conflicts with the Roman Catholic Church, lack of understanding of religious doctrine, fears over certain aspects of Darwin's ideas which some feel conflict with personal religious beliefs, fears over Social Darwinism, and concerns that accepting Darwin's theories promote atheism. In the twentieth century, the belief in a divide between religion and science has come to the forefront due to misinterpretations of Darwin's work and historical misinformation.
