Dorice Williams Elliott, The Angel Out of the House. Philanthropy and Gender in Nineteenth-Century England. Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 2002, 270 pp; Kathleen D. McCarthy, ed., Women, Philanthropy, and Civil Society. Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2001, 314 pp.

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The relationship between philanthropy and women is a much-discussed topic in women's studies and history of the welfare state. Women have played a major role in philanthropic endeavors. They were personally involved in caring for the sick, the poor, and other destitutes, and took part in establishing and organizing philanthropic societies that catered to a host of social problems. Both books under consideration address this subject anew, though in very different ways. Elliott's book is about nineteenth-century England, McCarthy's volume includes articles on the development of women's voluntary work in various countries all over the world up to the present time.