BETTS, Lillian W.

The Leaven in a Great City

New York: Dodd, Mead, 1902. First Edition. First printing. Octavo. Publisher's pictorial cloth, stamped in colors with gilt spine titles; 315pp; frontispiece and 35 unnumbered leaves of photographic plates (halftones). Square and tight with a trace of rubbing at board corners; Near Fine.

Unusually nice copy of this richly-illustrated survey of New York slums, with much on the history of welfare and housing reform in the city. Though described by one later 20th-century critic as a "condescending do-gooder tract of generally Progressive sentiment" (see David M. Fine, "Abraham Cahan, Stephen Crane and the romantic tenement tale of the nineties" in American Studies v.14, no. 1, Spring 1973), Betts' work is a useful record of late-Victorian attitudes towards immigrant labor, housing, and cultural assimilation. Lillian Williams Betts (dates uncertain) was a prominent writer on social welfare issues, and long-time Home Editor for The Outlook.

Price: $175.00

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