{"id":34153,"date":"2019-10-04T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-04T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yorku.ca\/researchdev\/2019\/10\/04\/bygone-charity-records-highly-relevant-today-reveal-rich-poor-dynamics-2\/"},"modified":"2025-01-30T09:10:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T14:10:00","slug":"bygone-charity-records-highly-relevant-today-reveal-rich-poor-dynamics-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yorku.ca\/research\/2019\/10\/04\/bygone-charity-records-highly-relevant-today-reveal-rich-poor-dynamics-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Bygone charity records, highly relevant today, reveal rich\/poor dynamics"},"content":{"rendered":"

New research by a business professor digs deep on two Toronto charities from nearly a century ago and, through an examination of their records, discovers a great deal about the roles of the rich and poor in society. These findings have application for today\u2019s fundraising ventures and charities, says the researcher.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Comparing two very different Toronto institutions designed to help the poor in the 1920s \u2013 one run by the city, one by the church \u2013 new accounting-based research brings to light some ugly underpinnings. Schulich School of Business Professor Cameron Graham has shown, through a comprehensive analysis of various records, how one of these organizations in particular helped the rich construct themselves as moral and generous, effectively legitimizing their upper-class status, while at the same time stigmatized the poor, often characterized as lazy or slothful.<\/p>\n

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This research paints a picture of normalized inequality<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In cutting to the heart of the relationship between rich donors and poor recipients of aid, this research paints a picture of normalized inequality, which, says Graham, persists in the present day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis applies equally to homeless shelters, hospital charities and international development charities for the so-called Third World,\u201d he says. He hopes that this analysis can shed some light on poverty alleviation today.<\/p>\n

Graham undertook this research, the findings of which were published in Critical Perspectives on Accounting <\/em>(2018), in collaboration with Claudine Grisard, who was a postdoc at York and is now at the Strathclyde Business School in Glasgow, Scotland.<\/p>\n

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Cameron Graham<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Graham is not a stereotypical accountant. He\u2019s a researcher who focuses on the social role of accounting. \u201cI look at accounting in settings that are often ignored, such as government programs or organizations, particularly settings where poverty is endemic,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

In this new work, he studied two different approaches to poverty relief in Toronto in the 1920s, a time of extreme poverty: the House of Industry, a private charity funded by the city and run by Toronto\u2019s elite; and the Church Home for the Aged, funded by the Anglican Church and run by the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine.<\/p>\n

Each made different assumptions about how the poor are connected to others in society. Graham hoped that via this comparison, he could observe a wider variety of roles of accounting, or record-keeping, with respect to poverty. His key assumption was that accounting plays a role in the stigmatization of the poor in society.<\/p>\n

Three sources of information proved fruitful<\/h3>\n

Graham gathered data from three sources: the Toronto Archives; the archives of the Anglican Church\u2019s Order of St. John the Divine; and an unpublished master\u2019s thesis by Naomi Norquay, now in York\u2019s Faculty of Education.<\/p>\n

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House of Industry casual relief applicants breaking stone (c. 1900). Source: City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1035, Series 806, File 3<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

House of Industry reinforces the moral failure of the poor<\/h3>\n

Graham and Grisard discovered the following about the House of Industry, which assumed that people were poor because they were lazy, making rehabilitation necessary:<\/p>\n

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