Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T06:09:57.708Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Legacies of Altruism: Richard Titmuss, Marie Meinhardt, and Health Policy Research in the 1940s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2018

Ann Oakley
Ann Oakley*
Affiliation:
Social Science Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

During the Second World War, a German economist, Marie Dessauer, later Marie Meinhardt, worked with the British welfare state scholar and policy analyst Richard Titmuss on pioneering studies of social factors and health. Titmuss is remembered today for his role in establishing social policy as an academic discipline, and for his internationally-renowned works on welfare, health and public policy. Meinhardt's career as an economist has been largely forgotten. This was an unusual alliance with far-reaching consequences, as Meinhardt later bequeathed a large sum of money to the London School of Economics, where Titmuss worked, to help fund social policy students and research. This article documents the story of the Titmuss-Meinhardt collaboration, locating it in the context of Titmuss's last and probably best-known work, The Gift Relationship, which analyses the function of altruistic giving in promoting healthy and democratic social relations.

Keywords

Social policyeconomicshealthdonationinequalities
Type
Articles
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , July 2019 , pp. 383 - 392
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References5

Adams, W. (1939) ‘To whom it may concern’, reference in AO Titmuss Papers, 17 October.Google Scholar
Alcock, P., Glennerster, H., Oakley, A. and Sinfield, A. (eds.) (2001) Welfare and Wellbeing: Richard Titmuss's Contribution to Social Policy. Bristol: Policy Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alessie, R. J. M., Angelini, V. and Pasini, G. (2011) ‘Is it true love? Altruism versus exchange in time and money transfers’, University Ca'Foscari of Venice, Department of Economics Research Paper Series no. 27.Google Scholar
Berg, M. (1992) ‘The first women economic historians’, Economic History Review, 45, 2, 308–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beveridge, W. (1939) Prices and Wages in England from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century, London: Longmans, Green and Co.Google Scholar
Beveridge, W. (1940) ‘The trade cycle in Britain before 1850: a postscript’, Oxford Economic Papers, 4, 63–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgen, A. (2010) ‘Hart, Philip Montago D'Arcy (1900-2006)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dessauer, M. (1933) Die Big Five: Zur Charakteristik der Englischen Depositenbanken, Stuttgart: C. E. Poeschel Verlag.Google Scholar
Dessauer, M. (1935) ‘The German Bank Act of 1934’, The Review of Economic Studies, 2, 3, 214–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dessauer, M. (1940) ‘Unemployment records, 1848–59’, Economic History Review, 10, 38–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dessauer-Meinhardt, M. (1940) ‘Monthly unemployment records, 1854–92’, Economica, 7, 322–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dessauer-Meinhardt, M. (1965) ‘Der Jahresadbschluß von Aktiengesellschaften in Großbritannien in Ausschuß für wirtschaftliche Verwaltung’, in Teil, I. (ed.), Der Jahresabschluß von Aktiengesellschaften in Europa und USA, Berlin, 59–105.Google Scholar
Dessauer-Meinhardt, M. (1967) ‘Das neue Aktienrecht in Großbritannien’, Außenwirtschaftdienst des Betriebsberaters, 13, 433–5.Google Scholar
Diprose, R. (2002) Corporeal Generosity: On Giving with Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, and Levinas, Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Dimand, R. W. (1999) ‘Women economists in the 1890s: journals, books and the old Palgrave’, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 21, 3, 269–88.Google Scholar
Dimand, R. W., Dimand, M. A. and Forget, E. L. (eds) (2000) A Biographical Dictionary of Women Economists, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gayer, A. D. (1953) Growth and Fluctuation of the British Economy, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Glennerster, H. (2014) ‘Richard Titmuss: forty years on’, CASE/180, London: Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, London School of Economics.Google Scholar
Groenewegen, P. D. and King, S. (1994) ‘Women as producers of economic articles: a statistical assessment of the nature and the extent of female participation in five British and North American journals 1900–39’, Working Papers in Economics, No. 201, The University of Sydney, Department of Economics, Australia.Google Scholar
Hayek, F. A. (1937) ‘To whom it may concern’, reference in AO Titmuss Papers, 17 February.Google Scholar
Ingrams, L. (1941) Letter to R. M. Titmuss, AO Titmuss Papers, 16 September.Google Scholar
Liepmann, K. K. (1937) ‘English housing policy since the war’, The American Economic Review, 27, 3, 503–18.Google Scholar
Liepmann, K. K. (1944) The Journey to Work: Its Significance for Industrial and Community Life, London: Kegan Paul & Co.Google Scholar
Lindbeck, A. and Weibull, J. W. (1988) ‘Altruism and time consistency: the economics of fait accompli’, Journal of Political Economy, 96, 6, 1165–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loval, W. M. (2010) We were Europeans: A Personal History of a Turbulent Century, Jerusalem and New York: Gefen Publishing House Ltd.Google Scholar
Madden, K. K. (2002) ‘Female contributions to economic thought, 1900–1940’, History of Political Economy, 34, 1, 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meinhardt, M. (1973) M. Meinhardt to K. C. Titmuss, AO Titmuss Papers, 10 April.Google Scholar
Mistele, K. H. (1995) The End of a Community: The Destruction of the Jews of Bamberg, Germany, 1938–1942, Hoboken, N.J.: KTAV Publishing, Inc.Google Scholar
Modi, N. (2006) ‘Donor breast milk banking’, British Medical Journal, 333, 1133–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morley, L. (1994) ‘Glass ceiling or iron cage: women in UK academia’, Gender, Work and Organization, 1, 4, 194–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, J. N. (1943) Letter to R. M. Titmuss, AO Titmuss Papers, 8 April.Google Scholar
Morris, J.N. and Titmuss, R. M. (1942) ‘Epidemiology of juvenile rheumatism’, Lancet, 240, 6203, 59–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, J. N. and Titmuss, R. M. (1944a) ‘Health and social change: 1. The recent history of rheumatic heart disease’, The Medical Officer, 26 August, 2 and 9 September.Google Scholar
Morris, J. N. and Titmuss, R. M. (1944b) ‘Epidemiology of peptic ulcer: vital statistics’, Lancet, 244, 6331, 841–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oakley, A. (1997) ‘Making medicine social: the case of two dogs with bent legs’, in Porter, D. (ed.), Social Medicine and Medical Sociology in the Twentieth Century, Amsterdam: Rodopi, Wellcome Institute Seminars on the History of Medicine, 81–96.Google Scholar
Oakley, A. and Ashton, J. (eds) (1997) R. M. Titmuss, The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy, London: LSE Books.Google Scholar
Oakley, A. and Barker, J. (eds.) (2004) Private Complaints and Public Health: Richard Titmuss on the National Health Service, Bristol: Policy Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rapport, F. L. and Maggs, C. J. (2002) ‘Titmuss and the gift relationship: altruism revisited’, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 40, 5, 495–503.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Riesman, D. A. (1977) Richard Titmuss: Welfare and Society, London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Rosen, G. (1948) ‘Approaches to a concept of social medicine: a historical survey’, The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 26, 1, 7–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shaw, R. (2008) ‘The notion of the gift in the donation of body tissues’, Sociological Research Online, 13, 6, http://www.socresonline.org.uk/13/6/4.html.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, J. (forthcoming) Richard Titmuss: A Commitment to Welfare, Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Titmuss, R. M. (1939) ‘Hitler's manpower problem’, The Spectator, 20 October, 539–40.Google Scholar
Titmuss, R. M. (1942a) ‘Recent German vital statistics’, Lancet, 240, 6215, 434.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Titmuss, R. M. (1942b) Letter to L. Ingrams, AO Titmuss Papers, 6 January.Google Scholar
Titmuss, R. M. (1944) Letter to J. N. Morris, AO Titmuss Papers, 27 May.Google Scholar
Titmuss, R. M. (1946) ‘To whom it may concern’, reference, AO Titmuss Papers, 4 February.Google Scholar
Titmuss, R. M. (1950) Problems of Social Policy, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Titmuss, R. M. (1958) Essays on the Welfare State, London: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Titmuss, R. M. (1962) Income Distribution and Social Change, London: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Titmuss, R. M. (1968) Commitment to Welfare, London: George Allen and Unwin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Titmuss, R. M. (1970) The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy, London: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Titmuss-Meinhardt Fund Management Committee (2002) Minutes of Titmuss-Meinhardt Fund Management Committee Meeting, 21 November, London.Google Scholar
Titmuss-Meinhardt Fund Management Committee (2006) Minutes of Titmuss-Meinhardt Fund Management Committee Meeting, 23 November, London.Google Scholar
Trautwein, H-M (2000) ‘Marie Dessauer’, in Dimand, R. W., Dimand, M. A., and Forget, E. L. (eds.), A Biographical Dictionary of Women Economists, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 138–40.Google Scholar
Valian, V. (2004) ‘Beyond gender schemas: improving the advancement of women academics’, NWSA Journal, 16, 1, 207–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watts, G. (2001) ‘Why a 1940s medical committee should not be forgotten’, British Medical Journal, 323, 7309, 360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weaver, G. and Williams, A. S. (1997) ‘A mother's gift: the milk of human kindness’, in Oakley, A. and Ashton, J. (eds.), The Gift Relationship by Richard M Titmuss, revised edition, London: LSE Books.Google Scholar
Young, R. J. (1976) ‘Spokesmen for economic warfare: the Industrial Intelligence Centre in the 1930s’, European Studies Review, 6, 473–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar