British social reformers Emma Cons (1838-1911) and Lucy Cavendish (1841-1924) broke new ground in their efforts to better the lot of the working poor in London: they hoped to transform these people's lives through great art, music, high culture, and elite knowledge. Although they did not recognize it as such, their work was in many ways an affirmation and display of citizenship. This book uses Cons's and Cavendish's partnership and work as an illuminating point of departure for exploring the larger topic of women's philanthropic campaigns in late Victorian and Edwardian society.

Andrea Geddes Poole demonstrates that, beginning in the late 1860s, a shift was occurring from an emphasis on charity as a private, personal act of women's virtuous duty to public philanthropy as evidence of citizenly, civic participation. She shows that, through philanthropic works, women were able to construct a separate public sphere through which they could speak directly to each other about how to affect matters of significant public policy - decades before women were finally granted the right to vote.

Between 1890 and 1939, the groups of men involved in running Britain's four main public art galleries - the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery, the Wallace Collection, and the National Portrait Gallery - were embroiled in continuous power struggles. Stewards of the Nation's Art examines the internal tensions between the galleries' administrative directors, the aristocrats dominating the boards of trustees, and those in the Treasury who controlled the funds as well as board appointments.

Andrea Geddes Poole uses meticulous primary research from all four of these institutions to discuss changing ideas about class, education, and work during this period. The conflicts between aristocratic trustees and administrative directors were not only about the running of the galleries, but also reflected the era's strain between aristocratic amateurs and nouveau riche professionals. Stewards of the Nation's Art is an absorbing study that explores the extent to which the aristocracy was able to hold on to cultural power in an increasingly professional and meritocratic age.