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The study is based on unique Swedish primary sources and deals with how state regulation and societal transformations intervened in the lives of poor children and their parents. In particular, it examines how collaboration between schools and poor relief resulted in normative judgements about their social inclusion and exclusion. Overall, the article illuminates a new era in the history of social policy, an epoch when old assumptions were abandoned and fresh links were forged between industrialization, national economics, education, gender relations, and social welfare. These changes are clarified not only by reference to nineteenth century sources but also to ideas about moral and gender relations associated with, among others, Hannah Arendt and Pierre Bourdieu.