Aux origines de l'État-providence

Abstract

Beginning in the 1820s, this book relates a hundred years in the history of the Inspectors of Enfants assistés, later to become the Inspectors of Assistance publique. Originally responsible for overseeing the conditions in which abandoned or orphaned children were placed in care, these men, who acquired civil service status in 1869, had their responsibilities gradually extended to cover the introduction and application at departmental level of the laws on social assistance.

Attention focuses on the construction of the inspectorate as a professional corps within the civil service. The professional itineraries of the inspectors are revealing of actual practice and of the degree to which this was consistent with, or diverged from, the theoretical and idealized definition of a social mission. Measurement of the relationship between these two components is the aim of this study. The strength or weakness of the relationship provides a key for understanding the construction and consolidation of a corps of professionals. At the same time, the action of the corps elucidates the mechanisms of change in the model of social control imposed and implemented by the state and its agents.