Experience of Being Poor in England, 1700-1834

At the core of this book are the stories and life-cycles of the poor themselves. Drawing on sources (pauper letters, petitions, vestry minutes, newspaper reporting, and accounts) collected over the last twenty years, Steven King poses three key questions: How did the dependent poor experience and talk about such variables as housing, family, medical care, or the makeshift economy? How were such experiences related to situational matters such as ethnicity, belonging, kinship, family size and structure, and the relative wealth or poverty of the communities in which they found themselves? And to what extent did the poor themselves have agency in the poor law systems with which they engaged? The author suggests that paupers under the mature Old Poor Law learnt to navigate rules and systems of entitlement to survive.

La baza acestei carti se afla povestile si ciclurile de viata ale saracilor insisi. Bazandu-se pe surse (scrisori sarace, petitii, procese verbale, rapoarte de ziare si conturi) colectate in ultimii douazeci de ani, Steven King pune trei intrebari cheie: Cum a experimentat dependentii saraci si a vorbit despre variabile precum locuinta, familia, ingrijirea medicala , sau economia improvizata?