‘The Crawlers’ by Thompson and Smith

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The article, ‘The Crawlers’, by Thompson and Smith (1877) gives an account of the living conditions and standards of the women during the 18^th century. The main problems confronting the woman and her son are poverty and poor living conditions. They represent many other women who were suffering under the same ‘curse’.

The article is written based on the time when social welfare had not been established in a way that well-being could be ensured to everyone. Women like the one we see in the photograph were forced to live under those circumstances 125 years ago because there was no equal allotment of resources and no procedures of mitigating extreme poverty (Jamrozik, 2009).

Before social welfare was implemented, an important impact on the present approaches came from the Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601. It came at a time when churches and family members could no longer meet the requirements, and it could no longer make them self-reliant (Zastrow, 2004).

The Elizabeth Poor Law established three categories of relief. The first category was the ‘able-bodied poor’. This group was given low paying employment and individuals were prohibited from offering financial help. The second category was the ‘impotent poor’. This group of individuals was unable to work and was placed in an almshouse.

Examples included the elderly, the blind, single mothers and mentally disabled people. The last category was the ‘dependent children’. This was the group of children whose parents or grandparents could no longer support them (Zastrow, 2004). Furthermore, the Elizabeth Poor Laws were limited to assisting only those who had legal residents in the local community.

A resident was considered to be the one who was born in the community or had lived there for three years (Zastrow, 2004). This explains why a mother and a child in the article by Thomson and Smith (1877) were reduced to begging on the streets of London after moving to the city when her husband died and left no financial aid.

During that time, a proper solution to the increasing problem of poverty and destitution did not exist. The only approach that many people used at those times was to end up as a beggar. This is what Garton (1994) referred to as the ‘charity system’. Going to the street to sit among the crawlers seemed to be the best solution. This explains why many left their homes (uncomfortable homes) to beg in the streets (Thompson & Smith, 1877).

The article gives an insight on how life changed from the feudal community (where the majority of people were serfs and worked on the land) to the modern community where the labor regulation came into force. This entailed reporting to a particular place, to carry out a certain job in a specified fashion and time (Alder & Pouwels, 2006).

Adler and Pouwels also describe most of the people of that time as peasants who had to sweat in order to eat. The urban workers, on the other hand, were sharply divided in social status and income. The minority of the population was made up of middle aged Europeans who lived lavish lives. The authors refer to them as the warriors.

I think John Thompson took that photograph so as to provide a good representation of the typical life during that era. The sad face of the mother in the street during the night shows the difficult conditions that they had to go through in order to survive. The authors say that they begged beggars. This means that the level of poverty was extreme. Adolphe Smith must have written this article in order to show that poverty was so widespread and appeared to be the norm.

References

Alder, P. J., & Pouwels, R. L. (2006). World Civilizations. Australia: Australia: Thomson Wadsworth.

Garton, S. (1994). The Charity System: Welfare and Social Policy in Australia: The Distribution of Advantage. Marrickville: Harcourt Brace & Company.

Jamrozik, A. (2009). What is meant by social welfare Social policy in the post-welfare state: Australia on the threshold of the 21^st century. Australia: Pearson Education.

Thompson, J., & Smith, A. (1887). The crawlers: Street life in London. New York: Benjamin Bloom Inc.

Zastrow, C. (2004). History of Social Welfare: Introduction to Social Work and Social Welfare. CA. Belmont: Thomson Brooks/Cole.

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‘The Crawlers’ by Thompson and Smith

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