Women in Need
Inside the Family
Making Ends Meet
Pride can often lead a person
to misery. Some poor women in 19th century Paris
didn't want to admit they needed help and were too poor to support
their children, they were therefore forced to abandon them. On the
other side of the spectrum, some mothers "claimed" they
would abandon their children if help wasn't provided. These claims
made securing aid difficult (see Government).
Charity was denied to mothers who weren't needy enough or to mothers
who were so poor that no form of aid would have made a difference.
Where were these desperate mothers and women left to do?
[click laundress to see whole picture enlarged
"Laveuse au Quai d'Anjou" (Laundress on the Quai d'Anjou)
c. 1860 by Honore Daumier
Survival Stories: Mothers Who Had No Place
(The following memoirs are retold,
the original memoirs can be found through the following source:
Rachel Fuchs )
|Forty-nine days later:
Just after giving birth at Clinique Tarnier
a single mother with child in arms left the hospital without any financial
resources. Making her way to Public Assistance she made a request
for financial aid; she was refused three days later. She attempted
a few more times nursing her child, each time being denied. After
five weeks had past she was forced to become a streetwalker for she
couldn't afford rent or food. She somehow found her way to Jeanne
Leroy, Leroy helped the single mother get admitted into a shelter
run by charitable people. Leroy aided the mother and instructed her
how to go about receiving financial aid from Public Assistance. The
mother tried once more, and finally forty-nine days after leaving
the hospital she received 20 francs. Leroy wrote a letter to the
director of Public Assistance filing a complaint about this young
mother. The director simply replied: "our resources are
a mere drop of water in an ocean of misery that assails us".
He went on to say that there are occasionally state employees who
are negligent, but not all cases are as such. However, if this is
one claim that fell through, just imagine the many others that have
In the later part of the 19th century a 26 year-old
domestic servant gave birth to a child. She applied for aid to keep
her from abandoning her child and was kept waiting for several days
for the investigation and formalities to be processed. While waiting,
she had no resources to live on, no place to live and no money for
food. In sheer desperation, clutching her baby in her arms, she jumped
into the Seine River where two bargemen saved this meager family.
After later receiving some charity she suffocated her infant.