"In late Victorian America, few issues held the public's attention more closely than the allegedly unnatural family life of the urban poor. In Tramps, Unfit Mothers, and Neglected Children, Sherri Broder brings new insight to the powerful depictions of the urban poor that circulated in newspapers and novels, public debate, and private correspondence, including the irresponsible tramp, the "fallen" single mother, and the neglected child.

Broder considers how these representations contributed to debates over the nature of family life and focuses on the ways in which different historical actors - social reformers, labor activists, and ordinary laboring people - made use of the available cultural narratives about family, gender, and sexuality to comprehend changes in late Victorian America."--BOOK JACKET.