We trace the meeting and misalignment of competing moral economies in South Wales during the depression of the 1930s. Our case study is the Save the Children Fund's campaign to open emergency open-air nurseries in distressed communities and we analyse the contested meanings of work, voluntarism and cooperation that arose between charitable enterprises and local political organisers in the area. We also inquire into the attempt of a new generation of female political activists to shape a socialist moral economy of (...) the family in South Wales in a period of widening democracy and the growth of class politics and, in doing so, consider the place of gender in defining these social and political values. (shrink)