Preliminary Programme

In 1918 Portugal was in a very difficult and troubled situation of national life, marked, in particular, by the Great War and the so-called Spanish flu, which killed large crowds when a scandal erupted that shocked the country and was a pretext for Maria Adelaide Coelho da Cunha, a lady of high social status, daughter of the owner of Diário de Notícias, falls in love with her driver and, despite the divorce petition, she is not freed from being hospitalized in the madhouse Conde de Ferreira, where it was observed by the most respected psychiatrists, like Júlio de Matos, Sobral Cid and Egas Moniz.
With the present work, we intend to make known the result of the analysis of several writings of Maria Adelaide, produced during her hospitalization in a psychiatric hospital, which constitute, after all, her defense against the attacks of her betrayed husband, at a time when, in Portuguese society, the habit of interning the young bourgeois and noble, whose behaviors were not in line with the norm and were not in line with the framework of values then in force.
In this way, we also try to analyze the Portuguese society in the early twentieth century, as well as the daily life in the psychiatric hospital and the care provided to the mentally ill, at a time when in Portugal there were only two asylums. Thus, this work also intends to reflect on the care of the mentally ill, at a time when the assistance provided by the State was very scarce and limited. (Show less)

From the late Middle Ages until the early 20th century in the Netherlands a great number of almshouses for the elderly were founded, usually private foundations by wealthy benefactors. Many of these institutions displayed an impressive and perhaps surprising longevity. On the basis of our Dutch Almshouse Database we aim to address the question of how effective Dutch almshouses were when it comes to addressing the problem of old age poverty. We look at why, where and when they were founded, what they provided, and why and when a great number of them ceased to function over time, in order to establish their relative importance for the elderly Dutch. We also aim to assess the question whether these almshouses formed a vital element in the fabric of Dutch society, as rich and poor came together and interacted within them. (Show less)

Over the last decades, social historians have become increasingly interested in the history of old age, exploring the wide range of social, economic and cultural experiences of growing old in the past. Their interests have been strongly motivated by the debate on the classical distinction between and transition from informal to formal care provisions, a dominant conception held both by historians, sociologists and policy-makers. The discussion mainly centres around the question who took care of whom in the past, in which informal care, based on extended family and immediate neighbourhoods, is opposed to formal care provided by institutions and the state. Because of their need for both material as well as physical assistance, the elderly serve as an excellent seismograph to gauge the way in which past societies cared for their weak, and the shifts and transitions that marked it. Together with other vulnerable groups, such as children or the sick, the elderly prove an interesting research subject to tackle historiographic discussions on formal as well as informal relief practices in the past
This paper addresses the issue of the role of formal and informal care for urban elderly at the end of the eighteenth century by focussing on the situation at the end of life. Starting from a cross-sectional analysis of the death registers of the cities of Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent for the complete year of 1797, the paper zooms in on the conditions in which the elderly (aged 60 and older) of these cities died. These registers reveal important aspects about the death bed of the elderly which allows us to address the former debates from a different angle than has usually been the case. The registers provide a window of opportunity to look into the provision of formal and informal care by means of places and people during the last days of these elderly’s lives. By doing this we will test some of the previously made assumptions from the literature about informal networks, such as the (presumed limited) role of the family in general and the nuclear family in specific (adult children) in providing support as well as the role of urban neighbourhoods. Moreover, the paper will examine more closely the role of informal support for elderly migrants and singles and test the hypothesis whether these elderly lacked family support and consequentially were more dependent on formal assistance. (Show less)