Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Dec 1, 2002
GREENBERG, Ira, ed. (with R. G. Safran & S. G.Arcus), THE HEBREW NATIONAL ORPHAN HOME; Memori... more GREENBERG, Ira, ed. (with R. G. Safran & S. G.Arcus), THE HEBREW NATIONAL ORPHAN HOME; Memories of Orphanage Life. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001,328pp., $74.95 hardcover. This collection of essays weaves personal reminiscence, factual history and photographs, into a mosaic of the experiences of the 1300 to 1800 hundred boys who spent their formative years in The Hebrew National Orphan Home (HNOH) in Yonkers, New York, between 1914 and the Home's closing in 1958. While falling initially into the broad category of Jewish social history, the book has a broader appeal in a comparative context. McClelland' s (1989) study of orphans brought to Canada through the Canadian Catholic Emigration Society, comes to mind as does Hamelin's (1997) more recent work on British orphans brought to Canada and hired out to work through the Orphan Homes of Scotland Resettlement village. Maunders (1994), in comparing the upbringings of children in Protestant Orphanages in Canada, Australia and the United States, found orphanage life characterized by the same strict discipline, corporal punishment and chores described in this volume. Thus there may well be, at least in the past history of orphanages, a universal character despite the particularities of specific institutions. This volume has significance in the ongoing debate in North America as to whether orphanages might not be a better alternative to shoddy and poorly supervised foster care. While the individuals writing here do not claim to be spokesmen for all their mates, they provide a detailed and even-handed picture of life at "the home". The wrenching circumstances of parental deaths, family poverty, abandonment and families split by immigration, brought boys to the home initially. Those with families were lucky to receive intermittent visits, since a two-mile walk waiting visitors beyond the end of the street-car line. Recollections of physical and sexual abuse and bullying, often visited upon weak, friendless or new boys, are chilling and the indignation and anger of these aging orphans comes through to readers. But many memories are fond ones; recollections of staff members and administrators of exceptional character and caring, as well as the conscientious "in-house" teachers of the New York Public schools, who prepared their boys for the larger world of Yonkers' Roosevelt High School. Some recollections are quite humorous suggesting that the HNOH was hardly a bleak place - far from it. The well-rounded curriculum, sports, art, music and hobby activities, and concern for individual development, suggest that administrators were attuned to the (then) modern currents of Progressive Education. In the earlier years, many children came from immigrant families but later many were native born. The popular perception of the affluence of Jewish communities in North America is misleading. For example, in Canada Jews are less than 1% of the population in poverty, but the rate is 17% within the Jewish population (Torczyner, 1994). Thus while numbers are small, there are significant numbers of individuals fitting the profile of poverty. …
... View all notes. He found his “little coed,” Lucea Van Hejinian (1899–1988), employed at the I... more ... View all notes. He found his “little coed,” Lucea Van Hejinian (1899–1988), employed at the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station, the university's acclaimed research and outreach unit. From Anamosa, Iowa, she was a Mt Holyoke ...
Drawing from archives, privately held sources, and interviews, this paper examines the family lif... more Drawing from archives, privately held sources, and interviews, this paper examines the family life of two of Carnegie Corporation's educational experts Charles T. Loram (1879-1940) and (Sir) Fred Clarke (1880-1951. Contemporaries and friends, their lives were linked to South Africa, North America, and shared venues in the colonial world. Their work involved developing and disseminating modernist, often American, educational theories and practices in Britain's overseas empire. (Collectively, Frderick P. Keppel, the Corproation's president, termed such experts his "key men". Loram's main expertise was in the cultural "adjustment" of indigenous peoples, race relations, and educational administration. Clarke, by far the deeper thinker, examined teacher training, pedagogy, and foundational issues in education. Inspired by the quiet revolution in archival theory encouraging researchers to interogate documents differently and make new sorts of inquiries, this project starts with two basic questions; Did Carnegie's advocates of modernity in educaton and family life follow the principles they expounded professionally in their own homes? Secondly, How did the socio-economic status and home lives of these experts influence the life-course of their children? While focused on two families, the entire cohort of experts identified for a larger project includes twenty-two adults (experts and spouses) and thirty children. ( The Loram and Clarke families account for one-third of the total children tetween them.) Information about other families is introduced to offer comparisons. While the formative decades of socialization and education are the focus here the view is by necessity retrospective. The last of the chilren have passed away very recently and the grandchildren of this cohort are in their seventies. This research is enriched by contact with Cynthia Loram (1919-2013) and Claudia Clarke (1923-2012) as well as a living nephew of Loram (1940-present). Both domestic and international conferences, field work, inspections, and consultations with governments and private organizations, formed a part of the Experts occupational venues. Steamship, trains, automobiles and occassionally horseback, served thee travelers. Extensive travel required a well-organized famly life managed by a spouse. While sacrificing their own aspirations, substantial resources were expended in educating the nine daughters of the two families. Determining how family was managed amidst the disruptions of travel, professional obligations, and family problems, is difficult to find within archival material since families typically memorialize achievements rather than the efforts required to attain them. The paper details the choices, accommodations, and outcomes made, and their results. The theme of social class background emerges as an important variable with unanticipated consequences. Background reading* Blouin, F,X. Jr, and Rosenberg, W.G. (2006) Archives, Documentation, and Institutions of Social Memory , Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press. Cook, Terry (2013) Evidence, memory, identity, and community: four shifting archival paradigms. Archival Science :13:2:95-120. Cook, Terry (2000) Archival Science and Post-Modernism: New Formulations for Old Concepts. Archival Science:!:!:3-24. Davidoff, Leonore (2012) Thicker Than Water: Siblings and their Relations 1780-1920 , Oxford, Oxford University Press. Lawrence, Diane (2012) Genteel Women: Empire and Domestic Material Culture 1840-1910 , Manchester, University of Manchester Press. Rassool, Ciriaj (2010) Rethinking Documentary History and South African Political Biography. South African Review of Sociology 41:!:28-55. Tilley, Helen (2011) Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge 1870-1950 . Chicago, University of Chicago Press. *author's work omitted.
... In keeping with the Industrial Education model, customary discrimination in the United States... more ... In keeping with the Industrial Education model, customary discrimination in the United States ... Africa: From Evangelical Pan-Africanist to Revolutionary Socialist, African Studies Review, 34, 2 ... For a comparison of Yergan's experience in South Africa with Ralph Bunche's 1937-38 ...
Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Apr 1, 2006
... L. Vangelisti, Harry T. Reis, and Mary Anne Fitzpatrick Understanding Marriage: Developments ... more ... L. Vangelisti, Harry T. Reis, and Mary Anne Fitzpatrick Understanding Marriage: Developments in the Study of Couple Interaction Patricia Noller and ... 9 Stress in Social Relationships: Coping and Adaptation across the Life Span 210 Karen Rook, Dara Sorkin, and Laura Zettel ix ...
Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Apr 1, 2006
Walter S. Dekeseredy, Shahid Alvi, Martin S. Schwartz and Andreas Tomaszewski. UNDER SIEGE: POVER... more Walter S. Dekeseredy, Shahid Alvi, Martin S. Schwartz and Andreas Tomaszewski. UNDER SIEGE: POVERTY AND CRIME IN A PUBLIC HOUSING COMMUNITY. Lexington Books, USA, 2003,182 pp. $24.95 Softcover.An underlying premise of Under Siege is that Canada has concentrations of poverty and crime greater than those of the United States, a disquieting thought for Canadians. Poverty is also becoming increasingly concentrated in Canada's major urban areas. That poverty and crime share a common North American economic and residential pattern should not be as surprising since the housing and social welfare policies of both countries are slowly converging. Since the administrations of Mulroney and Reagan there has been more emphasis on private sector involvement in social housing and devolution from government involvement in the operation, maintenance and creation of such housing stocks. In Canada these include, non-profit cooperatives, non-profit NGO (termed third sector) housing and government owned or financed housing.Women are among the most vulnerable residents of public housing. Under Siege addresses the widely neglected issue of how endemic poverty and crime eats away at the fabric of resident's individual and collective lives. Along with women, members of minority groups, especially immigrants, and gays and lesbians, are continually subject to crimes of various types. One of the important contributions of this study is that it goes beyond middle class definitions of crime, e.g. auto theft, robbery, drug trafficking, and assault. Crimes that diminish self-worth, increase fear, and impose social controls through intimidation, are also dealt with. The umbrella term harassment does not quite do justice to what residents of public housing endure. Whether this harassment is sexual, racially or ethnically inspired, or stems from observed difference, the effect is to limit freedom of movement, force residents to plan their movements, and at night to be prisoners within their own homes. At home they may be subject to violence from acquaintances, friends and significant others.This study is intended to lay a foundation for further research in this area. The authors use quantitative methods, surveys and interviews to investigate the relationship between poverty and crime in West Town, the pseudo name given to the Ontario public housing estate they studied. This study seeks to provide some facts and figures, compensating for the minimised reporting found in certain crime and poverty statistics, such as the Quality of Neighbourhood Life Survey (QNLS). …
This article examines the career of British Educator Sir Fred Clarke in the context of Commonweal... more This article examines the career of British Educator Sir Fred Clarke in the context of Commonwealth History, historiography and anglo-American relations. Clarke's appointment as Director of the University of London's Institute of Education (1936) was the culmination of a brilliant career in South Africa and Canada. As an admirer of American Education and confidant of leading American Educators and foundation executives, this appraisal of Clarke's career also outlines the Carnegie Corporation involvement in the Dominions, as well as the role of American philanthrophy in Anglo-American relations. Archival sources in South Africa, Canada, England and the United States of America, informs this research.
Journal of Comparative Family Studies, May 1, 2005
WHITE, Terry, ed., THE SIBLING SOCIETY: Papers Presented at the Robert Bly Colloquium. Lanham. MD... more WHITE, Terry, ed., THE SIBLING SOCIETY: Papers Presented at the Robert Bly Colloquium. Lanham. MD: University Press of America. 2000, 216pp., $36.00 hardcover.Nearly a decade ago poet Robert Ely's The Sibling Society (1996) offered a critique of contemporary adulthood informed by a somewhat idiosyncratic reading of recent social history and a thoughtful critique of society's social ills. Similar critiques have been made by others but few with the depth and bite of Bly's writing. The sixteen essays presented in The Sibling Society: Papers Presented at the Robert Bly Colloquium, each nicely written, interesting and well researched, reflect the reasons his thesis remains compelling.In The Sibling Society (1996) Bly argued that adults of the late post-war generation had come to be ruled by consumerism, professional and personal self interest, and narcissism. Nor had the rest of their emotional development faired well. The end result was that emotionally stunted or "half-grown adults", intent on their own agendas, were incapable of fulfilling their parental, nurturing, and leadership obligations, to the next generation. Whether in Toronto, Vancouver, or New York, this generation was not inclined to look up to past generations for leadership, guidance, and tradition, nor would they look down to the next generation seeking direction, encouragement, and approval. To Bly, this is a generation dominated by horizontal rather than vertical thinkers, concerned most about themselves. They have left a leadership and parenting vacuum in North American culture, Bly would argue.Papers Presented at the Robert Bly Colloquium is divided into four sections, each reflecting a different perspective on Bly's thesis. The first four essays examine Sibling Society itself, important for those less familiar with Bly's work. We are asked to consider whether Sibling Society is fully capable of transmitting culture across generations, whether parents casting themselves as friends and confidants can take the place of authoritative parents, and whether the adultification of the young through relentless media programming, negative and contemptuous of adults and parents, encourages the young to aspire to adult roles. A forth essay points to the growing numbers of impoverished and developmentally challenged children as an indication of the profound ambivalence of adults toward children. The three remaining sections address the psychological impact, the self, and metaphors and myths, of Sibling Society. These essays indicate the richness of Bly's ideas, both in exemplifying North America's cultural ills, as well as in offering readers ways to positively address troubling issues.If Bly's original thesis is in some respects flawed, he has gone well beyond William F. Ogburn's (1986-1959) decline of the family thesis, first presented in 1933.* Ogburn's still influential view was that modernity, technology, and urbanization, left the family increasingly bereft of its cohesive functions. …
Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Dec 1, 2002
GREENBERG, Ira, ed. (with R. G. Safran & S. G.Arcus), THE HEBREW NATIONAL ORPHAN HOME; Memori... more GREENBERG, Ira, ed. (with R. G. Safran & S. G.Arcus), THE HEBREW NATIONAL ORPHAN HOME; Memories of Orphanage Life. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001,328pp., $74.95 hardcover. This collection of essays weaves personal reminiscence, factual history and photographs, into a mosaic of the experiences of the 1300 to 1800 hundred boys who spent their formative years in The Hebrew National Orphan Home (HNOH) in Yonkers, New York, between 1914 and the Home's closing in 1958. While falling initially into the broad category of Jewish social history, the book has a broader appeal in a comparative context. McClelland' s (1989) study of orphans brought to Canada through the Canadian Catholic Emigration Society, comes to mind as does Hamelin's (1997) more recent work on British orphans brought to Canada and hired out to work through the Orphan Homes of Scotland Resettlement village. Maunders (1994), in comparing the upbringings of children in Protestant Orphanages in Canada, Australia and the United States, found orphanage life characterized by the same strict discipline, corporal punishment and chores described in this volume. Thus there may well be, at least in the past history of orphanages, a universal character despite the particularities of specific institutions. This volume has significance in the ongoing debate in North America as to whether orphanages might not be a better alternative to shoddy and poorly supervised foster care. While the individuals writing here do not claim to be spokesmen for all their mates, they provide a detailed and even-handed picture of life at "the home". The wrenching circumstances of parental deaths, family poverty, abandonment and families split by immigration, brought boys to the home initially. Those with families were lucky to receive intermittent visits, since a two-mile walk waiting visitors beyond the end of the street-car line. Recollections of physical and sexual abuse and bullying, often visited upon weak, friendless or new boys, are chilling and the indignation and anger of these aging orphans comes through to readers. But many memories are fond ones; recollections of staff members and administrators of exceptional character and caring, as well as the conscientious "in-house" teachers of the New York Public schools, who prepared their boys for the larger world of Yonkers' Roosevelt High School. Some recollections are quite humorous suggesting that the HNOH was hardly a bleak place - far from it. The well-rounded curriculum, sports, art, music and hobby activities, and concern for individual development, suggest that administrators were attuned to the (then) modern currents of Progressive Education. In the earlier years, many children came from immigrant families but later many were native born. The popular perception of the affluence of Jewish communities in North America is misleading. For example, in Canada Jews are less than 1% of the population in poverty, but the rate is 17% within the Jewish population (Torczyner, 1994). Thus while numbers are small, there are significant numbers of individuals fitting the profile of poverty. …
... View all notes. He found his “little coed,” Lucea Van Hejinian (1899–1988), employed at the I... more ... View all notes. He found his “little coed,” Lucea Van Hejinian (1899–1988), employed at the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station, the university's acclaimed research and outreach unit. From Anamosa, Iowa, she was a Mt Holyoke ...
Drawing from archives, privately held sources, and interviews, this paper examines the family lif... more Drawing from archives, privately held sources, and interviews, this paper examines the family life of two of Carnegie Corporation's educational experts Charles T. Loram (1879-1940) and (Sir) Fred Clarke (1880-1951. Contemporaries and friends, their lives were linked to South Africa, North America, and shared venues in the colonial world. Their work involved developing and disseminating modernist, often American, educational theories and practices in Britain's overseas empire. (Collectively, Frderick P. Keppel, the Corproation's president, termed such experts his "key men". Loram's main expertise was in the cultural "adjustment" of indigenous peoples, race relations, and educational administration. Clarke, by far the deeper thinker, examined teacher training, pedagogy, and foundational issues in education. Inspired by the quiet revolution in archival theory encouraging researchers to interogate documents differently and make new sorts of inquiries, this project starts with two basic questions; Did Carnegie's advocates of modernity in educaton and family life follow the principles they expounded professionally in their own homes? Secondly, How did the socio-economic status and home lives of these experts influence the life-course of their children? While focused on two families, the entire cohort of experts identified for a larger project includes twenty-two adults (experts and spouses) and thirty children. ( The Loram and Clarke families account for one-third of the total children tetween them.) Information about other families is introduced to offer comparisons. While the formative decades of socialization and education are the focus here the view is by necessity retrospective. The last of the chilren have passed away very recently and the grandchildren of this cohort are in their seventies. This research is enriched by contact with Cynthia Loram (1919-2013) and Claudia Clarke (1923-2012) as well as a living nephew of Loram (1940-present). Both domestic and international conferences, field work, inspections, and consultations with governments and private organizations, formed a part of the Experts occupational venues. Steamship, trains, automobiles and occassionally horseback, served thee travelers. Extensive travel required a well-organized famly life managed by a spouse. While sacrificing their own aspirations, substantial resources were expended in educating the nine daughters of the two families. Determining how family was managed amidst the disruptions of travel, professional obligations, and family problems, is difficult to find within archival material since families typically memorialize achievements rather than the efforts required to attain them. The paper details the choices, accommodations, and outcomes made, and their results. The theme of social class background emerges as an important variable with unanticipated consequences. Background reading* Blouin, F,X. Jr, and Rosenberg, W.G. (2006) Archives, Documentation, and Institutions of Social Memory , Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press. Cook, Terry (2013) Evidence, memory, identity, and community: four shifting archival paradigms. Archival Science :13:2:95-120. Cook, Terry (2000) Archival Science and Post-Modernism: New Formulations for Old Concepts. Archival Science:!:!:3-24. Davidoff, Leonore (2012) Thicker Than Water: Siblings and their Relations 1780-1920 , Oxford, Oxford University Press. Lawrence, Diane (2012) Genteel Women: Empire and Domestic Material Culture 1840-1910 , Manchester, University of Manchester Press. Rassool, Ciriaj (2010) Rethinking Documentary History and South African Political Biography. South African Review of Sociology 41:!:28-55. Tilley, Helen (2011) Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge 1870-1950 . Chicago, University of Chicago Press. *author's work omitted.
... In keeping with the Industrial Education model, customary discrimination in the United States... more ... In keeping with the Industrial Education model, customary discrimination in the United States ... Africa: From Evangelical Pan-Africanist to Revolutionary Socialist, African Studies Review, 34, 2 ... For a comparison of Yergan's experience in South Africa with Ralph Bunche's 1937-38 ...
Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Apr 1, 2006
... L. Vangelisti, Harry T. Reis, and Mary Anne Fitzpatrick Understanding Marriage: Developments ... more ... L. Vangelisti, Harry T. Reis, and Mary Anne Fitzpatrick Understanding Marriage: Developments in the Study of Couple Interaction Patricia Noller and ... 9 Stress in Social Relationships: Coping and Adaptation across the Life Span 210 Karen Rook, Dara Sorkin, and Laura Zettel ix ...
Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Apr 1, 2006
Walter S. Dekeseredy, Shahid Alvi, Martin S. Schwartz and Andreas Tomaszewski. UNDER SIEGE: POVER... more Walter S. Dekeseredy, Shahid Alvi, Martin S. Schwartz and Andreas Tomaszewski. UNDER SIEGE: POVERTY AND CRIME IN A PUBLIC HOUSING COMMUNITY. Lexington Books, USA, 2003,182 pp. $24.95 Softcover.An underlying premise of Under Siege is that Canada has concentrations of poverty and crime greater than those of the United States, a disquieting thought for Canadians. Poverty is also becoming increasingly concentrated in Canada's major urban areas. That poverty and crime share a common North American economic and residential pattern should not be as surprising since the housing and social welfare policies of both countries are slowly converging. Since the administrations of Mulroney and Reagan there has been more emphasis on private sector involvement in social housing and devolution from government involvement in the operation, maintenance and creation of such housing stocks. In Canada these include, non-profit cooperatives, non-profit NGO (termed third sector) housing and government owned or financed housing.Women are among the most vulnerable residents of public housing. Under Siege addresses the widely neglected issue of how endemic poverty and crime eats away at the fabric of resident's individual and collective lives. Along with women, members of minority groups, especially immigrants, and gays and lesbians, are continually subject to crimes of various types. One of the important contributions of this study is that it goes beyond middle class definitions of crime, e.g. auto theft, robbery, drug trafficking, and assault. Crimes that diminish self-worth, increase fear, and impose social controls through intimidation, are also dealt with. The umbrella term harassment does not quite do justice to what residents of public housing endure. Whether this harassment is sexual, racially or ethnically inspired, or stems from observed difference, the effect is to limit freedom of movement, force residents to plan their movements, and at night to be prisoners within their own homes. At home they may be subject to violence from acquaintances, friends and significant others.This study is intended to lay a foundation for further research in this area. The authors use quantitative methods, surveys and interviews to investigate the relationship between poverty and crime in West Town, the pseudo name given to the Ontario public housing estate they studied. This study seeks to provide some facts and figures, compensating for the minimised reporting found in certain crime and poverty statistics, such as the Quality of Neighbourhood Life Survey (QNLS). …
This article examines the career of British Educator Sir Fred Clarke in the context of Commonweal... more This article examines the career of British Educator Sir Fred Clarke in the context of Commonwealth History, historiography and anglo-American relations. Clarke's appointment as Director of the University of London's Institute of Education (1936) was the culmination of a brilliant career in South Africa and Canada. As an admirer of American Education and confidant of leading American Educators and foundation executives, this appraisal of Clarke's career also outlines the Carnegie Corporation involvement in the Dominions, as well as the role of American philanthrophy in Anglo-American relations. Archival sources in South Africa, Canada, England and the United States of America, informs this research.
Journal of Comparative Family Studies, May 1, 2005
WHITE, Terry, ed., THE SIBLING SOCIETY: Papers Presented at the Robert Bly Colloquium. Lanham. MD... more WHITE, Terry, ed., THE SIBLING SOCIETY: Papers Presented at the Robert Bly Colloquium. Lanham. MD: University Press of America. 2000, 216pp., $36.00 hardcover.Nearly a decade ago poet Robert Ely's The Sibling Society (1996) offered a critique of contemporary adulthood informed by a somewhat idiosyncratic reading of recent social history and a thoughtful critique of society's social ills. Similar critiques have been made by others but few with the depth and bite of Bly's writing. The sixteen essays presented in The Sibling Society: Papers Presented at the Robert Bly Colloquium, each nicely written, interesting and well researched, reflect the reasons his thesis remains compelling.In The Sibling Society (1996) Bly argued that adults of the late post-war generation had come to be ruled by consumerism, professional and personal self interest, and narcissism. Nor had the rest of their emotional development faired well. The end result was that emotionally stunted or "half-grown adults", intent on their own agendas, were incapable of fulfilling their parental, nurturing, and leadership obligations, to the next generation. Whether in Toronto, Vancouver, or New York, this generation was not inclined to look up to past generations for leadership, guidance, and tradition, nor would they look down to the next generation seeking direction, encouragement, and approval. To Bly, this is a generation dominated by horizontal rather than vertical thinkers, concerned most about themselves. They have left a leadership and parenting vacuum in North American culture, Bly would argue.Papers Presented at the Robert Bly Colloquium is divided into four sections, each reflecting a different perspective on Bly's thesis. The first four essays examine Sibling Society itself, important for those less familiar with Bly's work. We are asked to consider whether Sibling Society is fully capable of transmitting culture across generations, whether parents casting themselves as friends and confidants can take the place of authoritative parents, and whether the adultification of the young through relentless media programming, negative and contemptuous of adults and parents, encourages the young to aspire to adult roles. A forth essay points to the growing numbers of impoverished and developmentally challenged children as an indication of the profound ambivalence of adults toward children. The three remaining sections address the psychological impact, the self, and metaphors and myths, of Sibling Society. These essays indicate the richness of Bly's ideas, both in exemplifying North America's cultural ills, as well as in offering readers ways to positively address troubling issues.If Bly's original thesis is in some respects flawed, he has gone well beyond William F. Ogburn's (1986-1959) decline of the family thesis, first presented in 1933.* Ogburn's still influential view was that modernity, technology, and urbanization, left the family increasingly bereft of its cohesive functions. …
Uploads
Papers by Richard Glotzer