Social Investigators and Gender Reform. The Villermés and their Moral Preoccupations

The men who were sent out by the Parisian “Académie des sciences morales et politiques' in the 1830s, to visit factories and workers' dwellings, who frequented police stations and conducted surveys, saw themselves as scientists, philanthropists and men of practice. They were “Doers”, who participated in a polyphonic discourse on social and moral problems and interacted with their peers in an extensive international network. We will use French social investigators and their involvement in gender reform to analyse the logic of their discursive and institutional practice

Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Polyphony · Social practice · Social reform · Social science · Sociology · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Gender Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law