Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

5-2003

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Human Ecology

Major Professor

Michael Lane Morris

Abstract

This biography argues that Bernard pioneered or popularized virtually every major British charity innovation from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; moreover, that his endorsement of more selective distribution of relief, self-help among the poor, and the application of scientific principles to relief, stemmed from his childhood socialization. I also demonstrate that Bernard never hesitated to call on local or national government resources to assist or complement the work of his private charities. Bernard’s experience supports Joanna Innes’s description of a ‘mixed economy’ of welfare where private, public, personal, and ecclesiastical forms of relief often complemented rather than competed with one another.

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