Making English Morals

Making English Morals
Author: M. J. D. Roberts
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2004-06-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1139454218

Campaigns for moral reform were a recurrent and distinctive feature of public life in later Georgian and Victorian England. Anti-slavery, temperance, charity organisation, cruelty prevention, 'social purity' advocates, and more, all promoted their causes through mobilisation of citizen volunteer support. This 2004 book sets out to explore the world of these volunteer networks, their foci of concern, their patterns of recruitment, their methods of operation and the responses they aroused. In its exploration of this culture of self-consciously altruistic associational effort, the book provides a systematic survey of moral reform movements as a distinct tradition of citizen action over this period, as well as casting light on the formation of a middle-class culture torn, in this stage of economic and political nation-building, between acceptance of a market-organised society and unease about the cultural consequences of doing so. This is a revelatory book that is both compelling and accessible.

Social Purity (Dodo Press)

Social Purity (Dodo Press)
Author: Josephine E. Butler
Publisher:
Total Pages: 48
Release: 2008-03-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781406561395

Josephine Elizabeth Butler (1828-1906) was a Victorian era English feminist who was especially concerned with the welfare of prostitutes. She led the long campaign for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts from 1869 to 1886. Josephine was very active in feminist movements. In 1866 she moved with her family to Liverpool and became involved in the campaign for higher education for women. In 1867 together with Anne Jemima Clough, Josephine was instrumental in establishing the North of England Council for Promoting the Higher Education of Women. However, she had also been very closely involved with the welfare of prostitutes; as a passionate Christian, she abhorred the sin, but she also regarded the women as being exploited victims of male oppression and she attacked the double standard of sexual morality. Josephine's most famous works include: The Education and Employment of Women (1868), Social Purity (1879), Mrs. Butler's Appeal to the Women of America (1888), The New Godiva (1888), Truth Before Everything (1897) and Native Races and the War (1900).