The Fabric of Welfare is about the many points of contact between voluntary welfare and government social services, and the complex pattern woven by these different threads. The country's welfare history is shaped by its colonial past, with the predominantly British influences transmitted by an immigrant society in the nineteenth century; by its Maori population, with a strong communal ethos; by the shaping forces of the welfare state; by two world wars and economic depression; and by both free-market policies and rapid social change in recent years. In tracing the interdependence of state and voluntary provision of welfare from 1840 to 2005, Margaret Tennant offers new perspectives on New Zealand social history. This is a rigorous analysis, but it is also a history illuminated by people. The text is illustrated with stories about the people who were moved to save, to reform, to care, to support, and the people who needed that essential sustenance. From the nun who sees a distraught woman about to throw her child into the sea and sets out to care for 'foundlings', to city missioners, communityminded public servants, businessmen philanthropists, and the entrepreneurial organisers of floral fetes and telethons, these accounts tell us much about the history of welfare, in all its interconnections.

Author Biography

Margaret Tennant is Professor of History and Dean of the Graduate Research School at Massey University, Palmerston North. She has published widely on New Zealand social history, with particular emphasis on women's history, and the histories of health, disease and social policy. The Fabric of Welfare draws upon many years of research, and it complements Margaret Tennant's more recent work for the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project. Her previous publications include: Past Judgement: Social Policy in New Zealand History (co-edited with Bronwyn Dalley, 2004); Paupers and Providers: Charitable Aid in New Zealand (1989), and two collections of essays on women's history, co-edited with Barbara Brookes and Charlotte Macdonald (1992, 1986).