Welfare Rights and Women's Rights in the 1960s

Journal of Policy History

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 144-165

  Davis, Martha F ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84937270973     PISSN: 08980306     EISSN: 15284190     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0898030600005066     Document Type: Article

References (88)

1. Myra Ferree and Beth Hess, Controversy and Coalition: The New Feminist Movement (Boston, 1985), 54
2. Anne N. Costain, Inviting Women's Rebellion (Baltimore, 1992), 14
3. Janet K. Boles, “Form Follows Function: The Evolution of Feminist Strategies,” in Janet K. Boles, ed., The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (Newbury Park, May 1981), 39.
4. See, for example, Flora Davis, Moving the Mountain (New York, 1991), 352 (“As for predominantly white feminist organizations, for a long time they didn't see welfare as a women's issue–like AFDC women themselves, they thought of it as a poor people's issue.”).
5. As Janet Boles has observed, “the modern women's movement is not one monolithic structure but instead consists of a number of separate and relatively autonomous groups that differ on some goals, priorities, strategies, and tactics. Each consists of members from varying racial and class backgrounds and different ideologies that dictate shifting coalitions by issues.” Boles, “Form Follows Function,” 41.
6. On the debate surrounding the enactment of the Social Security Act of 1935, see generally Linda Gordon, Pitied But Not Entitled (New York, 1994).
7. The origins of Aid to Families with Dependent Children in the Mothers' Pension programs and the “maternalistic state” of the Progressive Era is discussed in Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers (Cambridge, Mass., 1992).
8. Gordon, Pitied But Not Entitled, 43.
9. See generally Gordon, Pitied But Not Entitled
10. King v. Smith, 392 U.S. 309 (1968) (discussing statutory intent of the AFDC program). For example, stiff penalties for earned income discouraged welfare mothers from pursuing even part-time employment consistent with their child-care responsibilities that might have added to their economic security.
11. 42 U.S.C. § 2782(a)(3).
12. See generally Note, “Participation of the Poor: Section 202(a)(3) Organizations Under the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964,” 75 Yale Law Journal (1966): 599
13. William F. Haddad, “Mr. Shriver and the Savage Politics of Poverty,” Harper's, December 1965, 44.
14. See Jackie Pope, “Women and the Welfare Rights Struggle: The Brooklyn Welfare Action Council,” in Guida West and Rhoda Lois Blumberg, eds., Women and Social Protest (New York, 1992), 70 (B-WAC, the largest NWRO affiliate, with eight thousand members, was managed by poor women).
15. Lawrence Bailis, Bread or Justice: Grassroots Organizing in the Welfare Rights Movement (Lexington, Mass., 1972), p. 11
16. “Alliance of Poor Sought on New Jersey,” New York Times, 30 August 1965, sec. B, col. 3; p. 13
17. Susan Handley Hertz, The Welfare Mothers Movement: A Decade of Change for Poor Women? (Lanham, Md., 1981), 32–37.
18. See also Nick Kotz and Mary Kotz, A Passion for Equality (New York, 1977), 221
19. Edward V. Sparer, Howard Thorkelson, and Jonathan Weiss, “The Lay Advocate,” 43 University of Detroit Law Journal (1966), 506–507.
20. Earl Johnson Jr., Justice and Reform: The Formative Years of the American Legal Services Program (New Brunswick, 1978), 39–40
21. Edgar S. Cahn and Jean C. Cahn, “The War on Poverty: A Civilian Perspective,” 73 Yoie Law Journal (1964): 1317.
22. See also Ellen Hollingsworth, “Ten Years of Legal Services for the Poor,” in Robert H. Haveman, ed., A Decade of Federal Antipoverty Programs (New York, 1977), 294–295.
23. Johnson, Justice and Reform, 71.
24. Edward V. Sparer, “The New Legal Aid as an Instrument of Social Change,” University of Illinois Law Forum (1965): 59–60 (emphasis in original).
25. The following account of George Wiley's career relies upon Kotz and Kotz, A Passion for Equality
26. Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, Poor People's Movements (New York, 1977)
27. Martha F. Davis, Brutal Need: Lawyers and the Welfare Rights Movement, 1960–1973 (New Haven, 1993).
28. On King's move toward economic issues, see David J. Garrow, Bearing the Cross (New York, 1986).
29. Clayborne Carson, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 186, 229–43
30. Kotz and Kotz, A Passion for Equality, 153–154.
31. “Brooklyn CORE Plans a Change in Its Tactics,” New York Times, 8 November 1967, col. 5, p. 42.
32. Goals for a National Welfare Rights Movement, 6–7 August 1966, p. 1, George Wiley Papers, Social Action Collection, Archives Division, State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
33. Goals for a National Welfare Rights Movement, 3.
34. Goals for a National Welfare Rights Movement.
35. Goals for a National Welfare Rights Movement.
36. See generally Winifred Bell, Aid to Dependent Children (New York, 1965).
37. NOW was certainly not the only women's rights organization to include welfare rights on its agenda. For example, the Women's Equity Action League (WEAL) tracked welfare legislation in its widely distributed “Weal Washington Report.” See, for example, WEAL Washington Report, 14 January 1972 (describing congressional action on work requirements and child care for welfare mothers), WEAL Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.
38. Margaret H. Mason, Poverty: A Feminist Issue (undated), 24, NOW Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.
39. NOW Papers.
40. Letter, Dr. Anna Hedgeman, Coordinator of Special Events, to Betty Friedan, NOW President, 18 November 1966, NOW Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.
41. Mason, Poverty, 25.
42. Poverty.
43. Boles, “Form Follows Function,” 39
44. Sara M. Evans, “The Women's Movement in the United States in the 1960s,” in Constance Backhouse and David H. Flaherty, eds., Challenging Times: The Women's Movement in Canada and the United States (Montreal, 1992), 68–69.
45. Boles, “Form Follows Function,” 39–40.
46. Costain, Inviting Women's Rebellion, 46–47.
47. Mason, Poverty, 26.
48. Guida West, The National Welfare Rights Movement: The Social Protest of Poor Women (New York, 1981), 259.
49. Davis, Brutal Need, 53–55.
50. See generally R. Shep Melnick, Between the Lines (Washington, D.C., 1994), 83–111.
51. Davis, Brutal Need, 137.
52. Brutal Need.
53. Edward V. Sparer and Henry A. Freedman, “A Comment,” Welfare Law News (September 1971): 5–6.
54. Piven and Cloward, Poor People's Movements, 343–349.
55. Bailis, Bread or Justice, 147
56. NWRO, Comparison of Welfare Plans (n.d.).
57. Aryeh Neier, Ordy Judgment: The Limits of Litigation in Social Change (Middletown, Conn., 1982), 139
58. Piven and Cloward, Poor People's Movements, 341–343
59. “Senate Reaction to Family Assistance Plan Unclear After Nixon Speech,” Welfare Law News (September 1971): 1.
60. The name was changed to “Women and Poverty Task Force” in 1972, because “[i]t is a little less condescending and implies that we must analyze the relationship of women to the economy.” NOW, Sisters in Poverty 3, no. 1 (June 1972), NOW Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.
61. Mason, Poverty, 36.
62. Poverty, 26.
63. Letter, Merrillee Dolan to Brenda Fasteau, 29 March 1970, NOW Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.
64. Mason, Poverty, 25.
65. Poverty, (appendix), 120.
66. Poverty, 26–27.
67. West, National Welfare Rights Movement, 257.
68. Sisters in Poverty 1, no. 2 (March 1971), NOW Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.
69. Mason, Poverty, 64–66.
70. Poverty, 71.
71. Poverty, 72.
72. Eileen Shanahan, “Feminist Unit Designates '73 Action Year Against Poverty,” Washington, D.C., Evening Star, February 20, 1973.
73. Merrillee Dolan, Women and Poverty Report to National Board Meeting (October 1, 1972), NOW Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.
74. NOW, Sisters in Poverty 3, no. 1 (June 1972), 4–5
75. NOW Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.
76. NOW Papers.
77. NOW Newsletter, Twin Cities Chapter, April 1972, NOW Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.
78. NOW, Sisters in Poverty (December 1972-January 1973), NOW Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.
79. NOW Papers.
80. 397 U.S. 471 (1970) (upholding maximum family AFDC benefits).
81. 406 U.S. 535 (1972) (upholding disparities in benefit levels between public assistance programs).
82. West, National Welfare Rights Movement, 122.
83. National Welfare Rights Movement, 123.
84. National Welfare Rights Movement, 122.
85. Johnnie Tillmon, “Welfare Is a Women's Issue,” Ms., Spring 1972.
86. Letter, Mary Jo Binder, NOW, to William H. Kohlberg, Assistant Secretary of Labor, October 31, 1974 (describing August 1974 meeting between WIN staff and NWRO and NOW activists), NOW Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.
87. Boles, “Form Follows Function,” 43.
88. Mayer N. Zald, “The Trajectory of Social Movements in America,” Research in Social Movements, Conflicts, and Change 10 (1988): 29.