The South has been largely overlooked in the debates prompted by the wave of welfare reforms during the 1990s. This book helps correct that imbalance. Using Richmond, Virginia, as an example, Elna C. Green looks at issues and trends related to two centuries of relief for the needy and dependent in the urban South. Throughout, she links her findings to the larger narrative of welfare history in the United States. She ties social-welfare policy in the South to other southern histories, showing how each period left its own mark on policies and their implementation--from colonial poor laws to homes for children orphaned in the Civil War to the New Deal's public works projects. Green also covers the South's ongoing urbanization and industrialization, the selective application of social services along racial and gender lines, debates over the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor, the professionalization of social work, and the lasting effects of New Deal money and regulations on the region. This groundbreaking study sheds light on a variety of key public and private welfare issues--in history and in the present, and in terms of welfare recipients and providers.

When a young railway depot master was shot dead, everyone suspected his business rival. However, strange circumstances led many to suspect his widow. Her ensuing arrest and trial proved to be one of the most famous criminal cases in Virginia history.

The biographies of more than 800 women form the basis for Elna Green's study of the suffrage and the antisuffrage movements in the South. Green's comprehensive analysis highlights the effects that factors such as class background, marital status, educational level, and attitudes about race and gender roles had in inspiring the region's women to work in favor of, or in opposition to, their own enfranchisement. Green sketches the ranks of both movements--which included women and men, black and white--and identifies the ways in which issues of class, race, and gender determined the composition of each side. Coming from a wide array of beliefs and backgrounds, Green argues, southern women approached enfranchisement with an equally varied set of strategies and ideologies. Each camp defined and redefined itself in opposition to the other. But neither was entirely homogeneous: issues such as states' rights and the enfranchisement of black women were so divisive as to give rise to competing organizations within each group. By focusing on the grassroots constituency of each side, Green provides insight into the whole of the suffrage debate.

Includes Part 1, Number 2: Books and Pamphlets, Including Serials and Contributions to Periodicals (July - December)