Rethinking Child Welfare and Emigration Institutions, 1870-1914

This article challenges the entrenched image of child emigration as a failure in child welfare. By moving the analytical focus away from large, and at times corrupt, institutions, our analysis focuses on the emigration and rescue work undertaken by charities in Liverpool and Manchester. We argue that the image of the uncaring and emotionally distant institution does not reflect the ideology and practice of these societies. It shows we need to focus on the different institutional, religious and regional approaches to child emigration in order to understand fully ideas about institutional childhood and contemporary conceptions of child welfare.