Review
"The book's attraction for students of history lies in its wide range of revealing sources, many of which are only beginning to be accessed by historians. The author has utilized the printed annual reports of diverse charitable organizations, their minute books and register reports, convent and diocesan archives, and the journals that nineteenth-century women read. A great deal of information is compressed into informative tables, and there is an excellent bibliography....In revealing to us the extent to which women shaped nineteenth-century society in Ireland, the author has produced a work of recovery, revealing the power of women to define their own social and political bases in Irish society." Journal of Interdisciplinary History
"An important contribution to the recent historical scholarship on women's roles in philanthropic work, Luddy's study is both comprehensive and engaging." Choice
"...Luddy draws a detailed picture of the layered Irish society, and of middle class women's response to the hardships encountered by their neighbours." Henriette Kelker, Religious Studies and Theology
"...insight into the middle-class women and men who devoted much to the marginalized people in thier developing social worlds." William F. Kelleher, Victorian Studies
Book Description
This book examines the involvement of women in charity work in nineteenth-century Ireland. The author claims that sectarianism dominated women's philanthropic activity, and analyzes the work of women in areas of moral reform, such as prostitution and prison work. The book concludes that the most progressive developments in the care of the poor were brought about by nonconformist women who were later to become pioneers in the cause of suffrage.
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