Ch 7. Social Welfare History in the U.S

Ch 7. Social Welfare History in the U.S.

PromiseReality

Democracy and equalityDenied voting rights to most (only property

owning, white men could vote

Human Rights/civil rightsSlavery, massacre of American Indians, Trail

Of Tears, lack of rights for most everyone (except propertied, white men) Workers could not organize until 1930s

Right to free speechCompare Rupert Murdoch to the street

Demonstrator

Though one rather limited tradition defines welfare as primarily concerned with the poor---this view is based on a misconception

British Influence

Mid-1600 5 policy traditions informed U. S. Social welfare

Calvinism—predestination

Focus on the individual’s fate of being or not being “Chosen”
Stressed work as a divine vocation (if you work hard and prosper, you were destined rich and that came to be taken as a sigh of being chosen
If you were poor and suffered—poverty signified that you were a moral failure

Church of England—localism

Local churches cared for the poor
Parishes acquired great importance—tried to make sure only the poor from its parish were cared for by the local parish church
US Colonies secularized admin. tradition so that local gov’t only were responsible for its own
Efforts to prove you were from local area were the responsibility of the individual

Control of the Mobility of the Labor Force

(the poor could get relief only in own parish—and they had to accept whatever job at whatever pay that was available in that place)

Limiting the mobility of workers

Prevented workers from undercutting employers by going to other parishes for higher wages
Kept taxes down

English Law of Settlement (1662) loosened this rule, but still retained provision authorizing local authority to expel pauper within 40 days of entry

If there were jobs, or family was industrious--they could stay

If no jobs, or family wasn’t industrious—they were asked to leave (not abolished until 1969 in Shapiro v. Thompson (Supreme Court)

Rejecting time limits for residency---officially recognizing a national labor force

Elizabethan Poor Laws (1601)

Allowed parishes to tax property owners in order to care for the poor

Established two distinctions:

Outdoor Relief—aiding poor people in their own homes

Indoor Relief—poor houses—almshouses 1693 prevailed for the next 200 years

Less Eligibility –from the British Poor Law Reform of 1834

Whether client qualifies for a benefit, grant for lower than lowest paid person—practice emerged in late mid-ages(14th-15th centuries)

The Colonies (1619-1783)

The economy—agricultural predominantly (60% engaged in agriculture, fishing, moving food)

Only 5% urban dwellers--- More likely, that goods were produced at home than in the market

rural areas more stable

Trade and wars—could change economic conditions-- and increased the #

Of impoverished people

Colonies were vigorous & enterprising (30-100% higher wages than in Britain)

Indentured Servants—work was hard

The South had different economy---1 million Slaves were imported or born

Assistance was only extended to single white women with children, widows,

sailors, the sick or aged

Politics—Governor headed the English administration of each colony—(He was King’s representative)—implemented policies directed by King in London—but also responded to local problems. Officially, governors could cancel any law the assembly enacted and dismiss the assembly at will. (assembly could only raise taxes and budget spending)

Checks and Balances—Assembly could not be forced to pass a law by governor

Three main issues

Relations with the British Empire
Relations with the Western Settlements of each Colony
Local laws, domestic affairs-- including admin. of the care for the poor

Ideology—dominant ideology was republicanism—(implicit belief that the individual has a fundamental sense of expanding political rights and economic possibilities)—only applied to white men of property that included the following beliefs:

Men should expect to benefit from their own hard work (if not indentured servants or slaves)
Did not recognize any circumstance where an able-bodied man could not support his family
Families were seen as economically productive units—all members were expected to participate—with men in charge
Some resentment toward the merchant elites and later to Britain as taxes were levied for the benefit of the Empire and not for the Colonies
Anyone who did not meet this standard was considered UNWORTHY

Stigma and condemnation to anyone who stood outside these expectations—religious dissenters, women who didn’t conform to family expectations, the unworthy poor

Social Movements—No taxation without Representation—lead to the Revolutionary War and the fight for Independence from the British Crown

But also: 1. Slave rebellions, 2. Rebellions against the Merchant Class (1676—Nethaniel Bacon led revolt in Virginia against the upper class that blended resentment of privileges with anger at failure to support western settlers against Native Americans

Colonial History---patterning after the Elizabethan Poor Laws, colonies soon acknowledged public responsibility for the poor

3 primary methods:

Farming out—poor sent to work for family, and may be farmed out to other families as well, spending several weeks in each home. Towns usually supplied clothing, medical care and paid fixed sum for each person (also held auctions bid the lowest amount and responsibility for the family was yours)
Outdoor relief—relief (food, clothing, firewood, medical care and sometimes a small cash payment) in family’s own home. Mostly, old, the sick, the disabled and people who conformed to definitions of the deserving poor. Although public officials authorized this assistance—religious institutions and mutual benefit societies gradually arose to supplement the efforts-- Founded in New York in 1754, the Scots Charitable Aid Society was one of the first.

Indoor relief—relief for those who did not follow the family ethic—recipients went to workhouse, almshouse, poor house. If people were not treated too harshly in Colonial times, by 19th century and with industrialization—conditions were very harsh.

Spread and growth of poverty in Colonial period increased (amounting to 10-35% of municipalities expenditures) the resentment against taxes paid to Britain and contributed significantly to support for the American Revolution.

Independence to end of the Civil War (1783-1865)

Summary of era--Big Change that dominated this era--Industrialization—

Production moved outside the home
urbanization
Mechanization
National Political Identity and National Culture Forges
In North—free laborers became predominant (less use of indentured servants)
South—slavery was still practiced, plantations had little need of free-laborers
More stable national identity, but these contradictions (slave and free) caused strife and conflict
Institutions for managing dependent people (growing reliance on workhouses as deterrent to the idle poor, asylums for the mentally ill,
British Poor Law Reform of 1834

The economy—lots if inventions, mechanizing everything from spinning to lumber production, railroads, new canal construction, water harnessing

Growth in the business sector, competitive capitalism, an observer could discern the first outlines of a truly national economy.
Work lost the unique quality of a craft and in the factory, workers were interchangeable As labor lost power and freedom—they started unions which collapsed in the financial panic of 1837.
Relief started to be denied to people in their own homes to force them into factories

Politics—Continuing Industrialization, Plantation system and Slavery, Western Expansion

Ideologies-----two ideologies---one for men and one for women

Men favored Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War, a book by Eric Foner

Commitment to work for wages, upward mobility, abolition, devotion to the Union and desire to export the wage system to each new state

(workers would use wages to become small business owners—only if white men)

Women were assigned (by men) to the domestic life

Dependant on men New York Post (1829) “The only way to make husbands sober and industrious was to keep women dependent on them.” (p. 249)

Ideal only possible for upper class---working class men and women had to work increasingly for very poor wages—and their children worked in factories too

Social Movements--1. Abolition—to abolish slavery

2. Women’s Movement (Seneca Falls Convention 1848)

3. new social welfare organizations like the Association to Improve the

Condition of the Poor (founded in New York by wealthy merchants 1843)

4.Temperence Movement—to ban alcohol

Contested the ideas that only white men could enjoy the freedoms of the land and be full-fledged citizens

Eventually these ideas entered into conflicts and fights during the Civil War

History –At beginning of Civil War in 1861, approximately 500,000 free blacks---most white charities excluded them—Americans drew on long traditions—going back to Africa and the cooperative practices of family and tribe to organize mutual aid societies to supply medical, educational, burial services and share in care of residents

Personal Face of Social Work

Dorthea Dix—tried to have provided 10 million acres of public lands for construction of mental asylums (she was horrified to see the mentally ill in jails). Dix has already helped est. mental hospitals in 9 states (her efforts were vetoed by Pres. Franklin Pierce in 1854)—It took six years of determined advocacy to persuade Congress—Pierce rejected legislation on grounds that it would establish a precedent of federal responsibility which (except for Civil War pensions) had up to that time left social welfare in hands of local and state gov’ts

End of Civil War to the Progressive Era (1865-1900)

Summary of events of the era

Reconstruction at end of slavery—Freed slaves lost out on 40 acres and a Mule

Rise of the Robber Barons, speculation, ruthlessness in business
Widespread political immorality
Misery in the lives of the poor
Homestead Act of 1862 opened up Oregon, Oklahoma and with the finishing of the transcontinental railroad--More Westward Expansion—Massacres and killing of American Indians as well as bison
Number of Immigrants increased greatly—issue became polarizing as people from Eastern Europe, Poland, Russia, Austria-Hungary poured in—anti-immigrant sentiments fueled “race science”
Chinese laborers were imported to construct the railroads and during the gold rush of 1848 until the railroads were constructed they were seen as able laborers, Chinese Exclusion Act passes in 1882 to deny the Chinese rights to property, business, citizenship, etc.
Former Slaves, given some rights under reconstruction—Reconstruction—led Congress in March 1867 to require former slave states to call conventions to create more representative state gov’ts after ratifying the 14th Amendment to the Constitution as a prerequisite for readmission into the Union. By 1870—states had complied—but allowed no redistribution of land and in matters of expenditures for social welfare and education little was done. But some efforts, like the Freedmen’s Bureau was to become a national association for relief, food, clothing, and rehabilitation of abandoned or pillaged homes, established some schools—Bureau was placed in the War Department—and in 1866 Pres, Johnson vetoed an extension. Blacks in the South were now limited to tenant farming, sharecropping, some independent ownership of small farms and businesses—but under the thumb and debt load of the white, increasingly racist and violent (KKK) Jim Crow South.

Economy 1865-1900

Power shifted to large businesses—late 19th century to early 20th century—the Gilded Age
New institutions—the corporations came to dominate industry and grew by outmaneuvering competitors Examples:

Standard Oil (led by John D. Rockefeller)

U.S. Steel (led by Andrew Carnegie, Ford Frick)

Railroads—NY Central (led by Vanderbilt later, J.P. Morgan

Sugar—Sugar Trust &Henry Havemeyer

Western Union for American Telephone & Telegraph--Communications

Robber Barons—laissez faire capitalism (largely unregulated)
25 yrs after Lincoln US had become in the quantity and value of her products—the first manufacturing nation in the world (What England took 100 yrs to accomplish—US did in half the time).
The result---periods of boom and bust

1873 panic (Banks closed, ½ of all railroads defaulted, bankruptcies mushroomed, 3million people unemployed)

1884—panic

1893—econ.instability which lasted 30 yrs.

1877—depression—Baltimore & Ohio Railroad cut wages 10% (brakemen earned $1.75/ day—strikes and sympathizers clashed with militia and fed. Troops in West Virginia. R.R. failed as 100,000 people were dead and 1thousand jailed)

Social welfare—out of control economy—political & economic elites leaned heavily on labor.

Decline of welfare combined w/ decline in wages—fierce attack on outdoor

relief.--Cheap labor and even cheaper welfare meant that many suffered

Politics

Republican Party dominated

Denounced Democrats as party of the South—
Party of Lincoln defeated institution of slavery

Reconstruction (1861-1876)

Federal troops stationed in the South
Republicans supported votesfor African Americans
Republicans Elected blacks to Southern legislatures
Republicans enacted 13th (outlaws slavery), 14th (Due process, guaranteeing citizenship to males --anyone born or naturalized in U.S.), and 15th Amendments—(extending vote to all {male} citizens).
Freedman’s Bureau 1865-1872
1876 ended reconstruction
Race between Democrat, Samuel Tilden and Republican, Rutherford Hayes

Tilden won popular vote, but electoral vote was 203 to 165 (Republicans dis-allowed enough ballots—appointed commission and voted 8 to 7 along partisan lines and in compromise of 1877, Hayes became President.

Concerned about need for federal troops to combat growing labor militancy in North—persuaded South not to re-enslave African Americans.

South began to regain control over freed slaves—creating Jim Crow system and share cropping system
19th century –gov’t developed so much bureaucracy—scholars describe gov’t as “court-dominated” and declared some reforms unconstitutional
1896 Plessy v. Ferguson (Separate but equal)

Ideology—

Social Darwinism--needed ideology to justify competition (a misuse of Darwin)
“Survival of the Fittest” used to oppose interference in economic and social affairs.
1860’s Herbert Spencer first applied Darwin’s concepts to human societies

Spencer feared the survival of the “unfittist” (If weak minded reformers coddled the poor with charity and soc. Legislation to soften hard edges of competition—end result would weaken society) Spencer fought to prevent tampering with “natural Laws”

Social Movements—

KKK in South (violence, lynching, terrorizing blacks and poor whites who befriended blacks)
Populist movement in Midwest--wanted to nationalize RRs, economy—based on silver standard, 8 hour work day, direct elections of senators, graduated income tax
1892—3rd party candidate was William Jennings Bryan (ran as Democrat)

History— Origin of Social Work

Charity Organization Society (COS) dates back to London 1869. Y and there were 92 such organizations by 1892. COS made considerable appeals to US gov’t during turmoil of depression in 1873.
“Friendly visitors’ investigated poor families—classified as worthy or unworthy. Kept a single list so all poor could not get help from more than one neighborhood organization.
Josephine Shaw Lowell was the author of leading COS book—Public reliefand private charity (1884)
Offered Education: 1898 New York COS offered first course, 1904 that course turned into a year long education
Claim that assessments amounted to “scientific innovation”
Scientific mantle could not really obscure ideology of COS
1. Individual responsibility (broke with this belief to support trade unions working for higher wages)
2. Elimination of outdoor relief (broad view of COS was that charity ruined the recipient) Stressed judging people and categorizing them as worthy and unworthy groups
3. Repression of those labeled Paupers or “the poor”

Settlement House –Social Movement modeled after Toynbee Hall (1884) in London
Movement offered a contrasting vehicle to create and ante dote to the misery of industrialization
Jane Addams—Hull House in Chicago

Lillian Wald—Henry Street Settlement in New York’s Lower East Side

Settlement Houses were located in large cities, in immigrant neighborhoods.

Providing English instruction, preparation for citizenship, nursing, health and childcare

Departed from mainstream soc. Welfare by stressing social and economic conditions w/out distinguishing worthy from unworthy poor
Principles of rationality, objectivity, democracy and social justice were stressed. By the 1890s volunteers accumulated knowledge about the assessment of clients
Worked for social reforms---i.e. get rid of child labor, support mandatory education for children, work for the provision of school lunches.

Similarities:

Both COS and Settlement Houses drew volunteers from privileged classes sought to reduce gap between rich and poor.
Both relied on scientific investigations to define the realities of the poor
Both began educational programs that were to become the first Social Work Programs

Differences:

COS employed judgmental and patronizing relationships with the poor (blame the victim), while the Settlement House movement philosophy was more supportive of the poor as they saw strengths in the poor and were more likely to see structural reasons for their conditions, which they worked to change.

The Progressive Era to the New Deal 1900-1932 (p. 257)

Summary of the important events of era

Still the Gilded Age In American history, the Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post-Civil War and post-
New Deal and Antitrust legislation

1902 Clayton Act—barred interlocking directorates so as to prevent CEO’s of