In 1846, a group of women came together to form what would become one of nineteenth-century Hamilton’s most important social welfare institutions. Through the Ladies Benevolent Society and Hamilton Orphan Asylum, they managed and administered a charitable visiting society, orphan asylum, and aged women’s home.

At this time, in other parts of the Western world, the public sphere and women’s exclusion from it were reshaping political and gender relations. Although charitable women in Hamilton managed essential social services in the community, and although these efforts were publicly financed, their work was still defined as “private.”

In Private Women and the Public Good, Carmen J. Nielson explores the history of this pioneering charity and demonstrates that despite its notable political significance, women’s charitable work failed to challenge the staunch division of private and public spheres.