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The first public orphanage in America, the Charleston Orphan House saw to the welfare and education of thousands of children from poor white families in the urban South. From wealthy benefactors to the families who sought its assistance to the artisans and merchants who relied on its charges as apprentices, the Orphan House was a critical component of the city's social fabric. By bringing together white citizens from all levels of society, it also played a powerful political role in maintaining the prevailing social order. This book tells the story of the Charleston Orphan House through the words of those who lived there or had family members who did. Through their letters and petitions, it follows the families from the events and decisions that led them to the Charleston Orphan House through the children's time spent there to, in a few cases, their later adult lives. What these accounts reveal are families struggling to maintain ties after catastrophic loss and to preserve bonds with children who no longer lived under their roofs. An intimate glimpse into the lives of the white poor in early American history, the book is moreover an illuminating look at social welfare provision in the antebellum South.

For decades, the history of sexuality has been a multidisciplinary project serving competing agendas. Lesbian, gay, and queer scholars have produced powerful narratives by tracing the homosexual or queer subject as continuous or discontinuous. Yet organizing historical work around categories of identity as normal or abnormal often obscures how sexual matters were known or talked about in the past. Set against the backdrop of women’s work experiences, friendships, and communities during World War I, this book draws on a substantial body of new archival material to expose the roadblocks still present in current practices and imagine new alternatives. It clarifies the ethical value and political purpose of identity history—and indeed its very capacity to give rise to innovative practices borne of sustained exchange between queer studies and critical history. The book insists on taking seriously the imperative to step outside the logic of identity to address questions as yet unasked about the modern sexual past.