The Charity-Mongers of Modern Babylon: Bureaucracy, Scandal, and the Transformation of the Philanthropic Marketplace, c.1870–1912

Roddy, Sarah; Strange, Julie-Marie; Taithe, Bertrand

Abstract

This essay sheds new light on the supposedly familiar world of Victorian philanthropy by considering charity in relation to market regulation. Focusing on the “charity fraud,” we suggest that in the shaping of this exclusive and paradoxical marketplace, charities eagerly seized fraud denunciations to advertise and authenticate their legitimacy. This reflected the massive changes in the charitable world since the days of paternalist social relations and, paradoxically, illustrates the extremity of the problem facing the donating public: if one could not be entirely certain of a local charity, how could he or she discern between the national organizations that undertook fund-raising for international disasters? This contest for legitimacy and the exposure of fraud shaped a contested but oddly virtuous exchange market: by the turn of the twentieth century, charities not only published account sheets but debated them publicly, too.

Citation

Roddy, S., Strange, J.-M., & Taithe, B. (2015). The Charity-Mongers of Modern Babylon: Bureaucracy, Scandal, and the Transformation of the Philanthropic Marketplace, c.1870–1912. Journal of British Studies, 54(1), 118-137. https://doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2014.163

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Jan 16, 2015
• Publication Date: 2015-01
• Deposit Date: Jan 24, 2025
• Journal: Journal of British Studies
• Print ISSN: 0021-9371
• Electronic ISSN: 1545-6986
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 54
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 118-137
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2014.163
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3349462