Fighting Poverty with Virtue: Moral Reform and America's Urban Poor, 1825-2000

"With this book, Schwartz seeks to shed "light on our contemporary efforts to remoralize the poor by looking at the rhetoric and actions of some of the nineteenth century moral reformers" (p. xvi). The book will be of immediate interest to the nonspecialist. The style is agreeable (in a way to which American academics have conformed), and the conclusion is easy to understand: Schwartz believes "we should and must" encourage "diligence, sobriety, thrift, and familial responsibility among the poor" (p. 237). -The "Independent Review," Spring 2002

Mr. Schwartz summarizes clearly how reformers in the past tried to fight poverty with spreading virtues such as thrift. Since this idea is a resurgent one especially with the welfare reform movement, this book is unusually timely. It is also very well written and fairminded and non-polemical. I recommend it to anyone concerned with these issues.