Based on archival research, this study traces the development of the Guangren Tang—Tianjin’s largest benevolent Hall, established to house and support chaste widows and orphans—and its relationship to changing national and local governmental authorities over the fifty years from 1878 to 1928. It gives a detailed account of the rules governing the everyday lives of the Hall’s inmates and chronicles changes in how these charity recipients were regarded and expected to comport themselves. Tracing the Hall’s adaptations to shifting economic fortunes and to new ideals of charity’s purposes, it highlights both the tenacity and the elasticity of certain popular Confucian beliefs and practices as these were confronted by the onrush of “modernity.” The article suggests that the interesting fusions of “old” and “new” ideals and practices that appeared in the work of the Hall may be understood as akin to a mixing of metaphors in the unfolding of modernity.
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