Homeless Lives in American Cities

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-v

   PDF

2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Philip Webb

      Pages 1-14

3. Formation of Homelessness

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 15-16

      PDF

   2. The Fin-de-Siècle Homeless City

      • Philip Webb

      Pages 17-47

   3. Anti-Semitic Roots of Homelessness

      • Philip Webb

      Pages 49-78

4. Consolidating Homelessness

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 79-81

      PDF

   2. Discourse and Subjectivation in American Homelessness

      • Philip Webb

      Pages 83-112

   3. The Limits of Hobosociality for Social Mooring

      • Philip Webb

      Pages 113-121

   4. Homelessness as Disaffiliation

      • Philip Webb

      Pages 123-138

5. Fragmenting Homelessness

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 139-142

      PDF

   2. Fracturing Consensus

      • Philip Webb

      Pages 143-159

   3. The Homeless Family and the Return of Myth

      • Philip Webb

      Pages 161-189

6. Transforming Homelessness

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 191-192

      PDF

   2. The Homeless and the Disneyfication of the City

      • Philip Webb

      Pages 193-205

   3. A Decoupled Homelessness

      • Philip Webb

      Pages 207-221

   4. Conclusion

      • Philip Webb

      Pages 223-229

7. Back Matter

   Pages 231-278

   PDF

Homeless Lives in American Cities explores how the American discourse on homelessness arose from Victorian social and political anxieties about the impacts of immigration and urbanization on the middle class family. It demonstrates how contemporary social work and policy emerge from Victorian cultural attitudes.

• Homelessness
• urban sociology
• discourse analysis
• historical sociology
• urban history
• civil society
• myth theory
• community
• immigration
• migration
• social work
• development aid

“Webb offers a new history of homelessness in America. … it is certainly a fascinating account that will be of interest to social scientists and housing researchers with an interest in homelessness far beyond the US context. For non-American audiences, Webb’s contribution raises the question of how similar the trajectory of understandings of homelessness has been in other national contexts.” (Beth Watts, International Journal of Housing Policy, Vol. 16 (2), March, 2016)

"Philip Webb's work on homelessness is innovative and original, bringing attention to a subject that was once popular (from roughly the late 1980s the late 1990s) and has now faded into obscurity in important respects. Webb seeks not merely to update the older literature but to critically analyze it in terms of its narrow definitions and foci." - Kathleen Arnold, Professor of Political science, DePaul University, USA

Philip Webb is Executive Director of Making it Possible to End Homelessness, USA.

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