Lydia Murdoch Imagined Orphans All Books sku-52852673

Imagined Orphans by Lydia Murdoch, sku-52852673, is a hardcover title in All Books and part of the Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies. Murdoch examines the gap between depictions of poor children as abandoned or orphaned and the experiences of children who stayed in contact with, or later rejoined, their families.

She traces disputes over middle- and working-class citizenship from the 1870s to the First World War. The book argues that reformers' portrayals of parents helped secure charity and state aid for children while reinforcing hostility toward poor adults and support for a minimal welfare state.

It also follows the increasingly imperial character of efforts to raise children as model citizens into the twentieth century.