Children of the Laboring Poor: Expectation and Experience among the Orphans of Early Modern Augsburg, and: Abandoned Children of the Renaissance: Orphan Care in Florence and Bologna (review)

Thomas Safley's work is a sequel to his earlier study, Charity and Economy in the Orphanages of Early Modem Augsburg (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1997), in which he traced the institutional history of the city's three orphanages in the context of economic activity. Work routines within the orphanage prepared for these outcomes, instilling the broad basis of "social discipline" that was required of the artisan not only as a producer but as a citizen of an early modern German "home town" (drawing on Mack Walker's classic account).\n Boys were admitted with far fewer formalities: after being employed at simple tasks in their orphanages, they were commonly set to work as helpers or apprentices in city workshops.