Techniciens de l'organisation sociale : la réorganisation de l'assistance catholique privée à Montréal (1930-1974)

Early in the Great Depression of the 1930s, French- and English-speaking Catholic business leaders in Montreal presided over the reorganization and rationalization of Catholic charities in their respective communities. The author points out that this began a decades-long transition from religious charity to public welfare, from largely volunteer work by the city's elite women to male-dominated professional social workers, from charity provided by alms to private assistance financed by centralized, large-scale campaigns. Far from experiencing a linear development, the author argues that both the Francophone (Fédération des oeuvres de charité canadiennes-françaises) and Anglophone (Federation of Catholic Charities) organizations were sites of experimentation and innovation but also conflicts -- between volunteers and professionals, lay people and clergy, traditional charity and modern assistance, and sometimes between the communities and the federations themselves -- as they evolved towards their current affiliation with state-run social work.

Montreal and Kingston

McGill-Queen's University Press

2015

xiv-295p.

fr

978-0-7735-4482-6