¹ Amenta, Edwin, When Movements Matter: The Townsend Plan and the Rise of Social Security (Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006), 134–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² “Townsend Pension Supporters Plan to Sweep Country by Song,” Journal Times (Racine, WI), 8 Feb. 1935, 6.

³ California Daily Bruin, 7 May 1935, 2.

⁴ Some ideologically diverse anti-Townsend publications include Committee on Old Age Security, The Townsend Crusade (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, Inc., 1936); Adams, Charles Magee, “Who Bred These Utopias?”, North American Review, 240, 1 (1935), 8–19Google Scholar; Luther Whiteman and Samuel L. Lewis, Glory Roads: The Psychological State of California (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1936), 265–67; Alex Bittelman, The Townsend Plan: What It Is and What It Isn't (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1936); Witte, Edwin E., “What to Expect of Social Security,” American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, 34, 1 (1944), 212–21Google Scholar.

⁵ Amenta, 55; Weinstein, Aaron Q., “Onward Townsend Soldiers: Moral Politics and Civil Religion in the Townsend Crusade,” American Political Thought, 6, 2 (1 March 2017), 228–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶ Rob Rosenthal and Richard Flacks, Playing for Change: Music and Musicians in the Service of Social Movements (London and New York: Routledge, 2015), 8.

⁷ For music and social movements see Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jaimson, Music and Social Movements: Mobilizing Traditions in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

⁸ Francis E. Townsend and Jesse George Murray, New Horizons (Chicago: J. L. Stewart Publishing Company, 1943), 132–33.

⁹ Amenta, 37.

¹⁰ Gaydowski, J. D., “Eight Letters to the Editor: The Genesis of the Townsend National Recovery Plan,” Southern California Quarterly, 52, 4 (1 Dec. 1970), 365–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹ Amenta, 1–7.

¹² For classic and recent critiques of Social Security see Leff, Mark H., “Taxing the ‘Forgotten Man’: the Politics of Social Security Finance in the New Deal,” Journal of American History, 70, 2 (1983), 359–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar. William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal (New York: Harper Perennial, 2013; first published 1963), 132–33; Nancy J. Altman, The Battle for Social Security: From FDR's Vision to Bush's Gamble (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2012); Mary Poole, The Segregated Origins of Social Security: African Americans and the Welfare State (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006); DeWitt, Larry, “The Decision to Exclude Agricultural and Domestic Workers from the 1935 Social Security Act,” Social Security Bulletin, 70, 4 (2010), 49–68Google ScholarPubMed.

¹³ Hadley Cantril, The Psychology of Social Movements (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1941), 209.

¹⁴ For the Townsend Plan's influence on Congressmen and Roosevelt see J. Douglas Brown, “Proposals for Federal and State Cooperation for Old Age Security,” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, 16, 3 (1935), 4–9; Dean J. Kotlowski, Paul McNutt and the Age of FDR (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015), 183; Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew (New York: Penguin Random House, 2011), 281.

¹⁵ Kotlowski, 139.

¹⁶ Aside from Amenta's essential study, key works on the Townsend Plan include Abraham Holtzman, The Townsend Movement: A Political Study (New York: Bookman Associates, 1963); Jackson K. Putnam, Old-Age Politics in California: From Richardson to Reagan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1970), 49–71. For old-age politics prior to the Townsend Plan see Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995); Carole Haber and Brian Gratton, Old Age and the Search for Security: An American Social History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993); Jill Quadagno, The Transformation of Old Age Security: Class and Politics in the American Welfare State (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988); Gregory Wood, Retiring Men: Manhood, Labor, and Growing Old in America, 1900–1960 (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2012).

¹⁷ Manny Stone, “When Our Old-Age Pension Check Comes to Our Door” (Montrose, CA: Stone & Stone Publishers, 1934), in Sheet Music collection (Collection PASC 147-M), Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA. Some of the verses were omitted or changed when reprinted in newspaper articles, such as Journal Times (Racine, WI), 8 Feb. 1935, 6.

¹⁸ Michael B. Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America (New York: Basic Books, 1996).

¹⁹ Moran, Rachel Louise, “Consuming Relief: Food Stamps and the New Welfare of the New Deal,” Journal of American History, 97, 4 (2011), 1001–22, 1001CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

²⁰ US Congress, Senate, Economic Security Act: Hearings before the Committee on Finance, Seventy-Fourth Congress, First Session on S.1130 (Washington, DC: United States Printing Office, 1935), 1025.

²¹ Will Rogers, “The Townsend Plan,” Original Radio Broadcasts (Soundtrack Classics, 2012).

²² “Footnotes,” Lincoln Star, 25 Nov. 1934, 28.

²³ On “gray power” see Roger Sanjek, Gray Panthers (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).

²⁴ Economic Security Act: Hearings before the Committee on Finance, 1033.

²⁵ For pension fraud see William Henry Glasson, Federal Military Pensions in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1918), 94; Adam H. Domby, The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy in Confederate Memory (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2020), 87–114. For recent research on this topic see Rob Bates, “Civil War Veterans’ Pensions, Politics, and Historical Memory in Gilded Age America,” PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge, forthcoming.

²⁶ Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address to Advisory Council of the Committee on Economic Security on the Problems of Economic and Social Security,” 14 Nov. 1934, in Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Volume III, The Advance of Recovery and Reform (New York: Random House, 1938), 453–54, 454.

²⁷ Amenta, When Movements Matter, 41–48; Whiteman and Lewis, Glory Roads, 66.

²⁸ “Ants in His Pants,” Townsend National Weekly, 1 April 1935, 5.

²⁹ “Taft-Hartley Reaction,” Broadcasting, 28 March 1939, 45.

³⁰ Amenta, 85–94.

³¹ “Diamond D Cowboys, Radio Artists, to Be Featured on Program,” Wilmington Daily Press Journal, 28 Nov. 1934, 3; “Diamond D Cowboys Bid for Fame over Radio Station KMPC,” Wilmington Daily Press Journal, 2 March 1935, 3. The Townsend Plan's detractors also presented it as a “crusade,” e.g. Committee on Old Age Security, The Townsend Crusade (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, Inc., 1936).

³² “Defense Week Program Held,” San Pedro News Pilot, 22 Feb. 1935, 8.

³³ “Townsend Outlines Age Pension Plan”, Indianapolis Star, 9 Dec. 1934, 15.

³⁴ Other copyrighted Stone & Stone songs include “Love Is a Delicious Thing,” “When I Look into a Rose,” “So I Won't Know You're Gone,” and “June behind the Moon.” United States Copyright Office, Catalog of Copyright Entries: Musical Compositions, Volumes XXIX–XXXVII (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1934, 1935, 1941). It is possible that the other Stone was Manny's wife, Goldie Faye: Los Angeles Times, 31 Jan. 1917, 12 June 1962, 1 June 1962, 57.

³⁵ United States Patent Office, Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office, Volume 465 (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1936), 18.

³⁶ The Diamond D Cowboys recorded the song for Decca a week before the Pioneers did, but their version was never released. The Pioneers’ version was also released in Australia (Decca Australia X1205) and the United Kingdom (Panachord 25874) with the spelling of “Check” changed to “Cheque.” The Pioneers also recorded other “gray-haired parent” songs, including “Silver Threads among the Gold,” “Gold Star Mother with Silvery Hair,” and “That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine.” For more on this songwriting tradition see Simon Buck, “The Aged South: Old Age and Roots Music in the US South, 1900–1945,” PhD dissertation, Northumbria University, 2020.

³⁷ William Nigh, dir., The Old Homestead (Liberty Pictures, 1935).

³⁸ “Publish ‘Old Homestead’ Songs,” Film Daily, 10 April 1935, 4.

³⁹ “Notes from the Music Library,” Stand By!, 19 June 1937, 11.

⁴⁰ John Hammond, “Jazz Records in Review,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 7 April 1935, 41. Hammond's use of “hillbilly” as a marker of genre reflects the music-marketing lingo of the era: Anthony Harkins, Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 71–102.

⁴¹ For Hammond's politics see Dunstan Prial, The Producer: John Hammond and the Soul of American Music (London: Picador, 2007).

⁴² “The Townsend Song” (n.p., 1935), in Gordon Solie Oregon Music collection (GSOMC), Davies Family Research Library, Oregon Historical Society (OHS), Portland, OR; C. H. Arundel, “Under the Townsend Plan” (Rosenburg, OR: C. H. Arudenl, 1935), in Charles Templeton Sheet Music collection (CTSMC), Mississippi State University Libraries; Maude L. Landes, “Townsend Victory March” (Portland, OR: Maude L. Landes, 1935), in GSOMC; Zena Stevens, “America My America!” (Chicago: Townsend National Recovery Plan, 1935), in Piqua Public Library Archives and Special Collections (PPLASC), Piqua, OH; “When Grandma Draws Her Townsend Pension” (Tulsa, OK: Fey Burst, 1936); Robert La Mar, “The Townsend Rouser” (Chicago: s.p.) in University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Music and Performing Arts Library, Urbana, Illinois; “The Townsend Plan Will Succeed” (n.p., 1938), in GSOMC; William Tansey, “America Stand Up Today” (Los Angeles: Leftwich Publishing Co., 1938), in CTSMC; Frank C. Huston, “Townsend Triumph Song” (Indianapolis: s.p., 1939); Uno Sylvanus Augustus Heggbolm, Max Bates, and Charles Harmon, “March of the Townsendites” (Detroit, Michigan: America Music Publishing and Recording Company, 1940), in PPLASC.

⁴³ “Minutes of the 18th Meeting of the Portland Townsend Club #46,” 28 Nov. 1935, “Minutes,” Mss 1334, Townsend National Recovery Plan records, OHS.

⁴⁴ Economic Security Act: Hearings before the Committee on Finance, 1055–56; “News about the Townsend Plan,” Stockton Independent (California), 12 March 1935, 4; “Will Stop Saying Vitamin Preparation Brings Long Life,” Telegraph-Forum (Bucyrus, OH), 23 Feb. 1953. Robert Clements made approximately $50,000 through Prosperity Publishing Company, which sold Townsend Plan pamphlets. By 1943, Townsend's vitamin pills surpassed all others revenue streams in the movement. Amenta, When Movements Matter, 140; Holtzman, The Townsend Movement, 78–83.

⁴⁵ W. D. Freeman, “Townsend Pills” (Portland, OR: s.p. 1936).

⁴⁶ Townsend National Weekly, 28 Jan. 1935, quoted in Economic Security Act: Hearings before the Committee on Finance, 1053.

⁴⁷ Weinstein, “Onward Townsend Soldiers,” 232. Here Weinstein expands on an idea discussed briefly in Holtzman, 57.

⁴⁸ Richard L. Neuberger and Kelley Loe, An Army of the Aged: A History and Analysis of the Townsend Old Age Pension Plan (Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, 1936).

⁴⁹ “Hinkey Dinky, Parlez Vous,” typewritten song sheet, n.d., and Col. C. A. Sanders, Book of Townsend Parody Songs (Indianapolis: s.p., 1936), in “Songs and Pledges,” Mss 1334, Townsend National Recovery Plan Records, OHS; Frank Dyer, The Townsend Convention Songbook (s.p., 1936). The author would like to thank Aaron Q. Weinstein for kindly sharing a copy of the convention songbook.

⁵⁰ Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers, 102–52.

⁵¹ E.g. Samuel Hawkins Marshall Byers and William Cumming Peters, “When Sherman Marched Down to the Sea: Marching Song of Sherman's Army” (Cincinnati, OH and St. Louis, MO: A.C. Peters & Bros. and J. L. Peters & Bros., 1865) in Historic American Sheet Music collection (HASHC), Duke University, Durham, NC; C. Nordendorf, “Stonewall Brigade” (Danville, VA: s.p., 1863); Charles Miner, “James Bird” (New York: Charles Miner, c.1814–30), in HASHC; A. W. Auner, “Patrick Sheehan” (Philadelphia: A. W. Auner, c.1875–91); Patrick Hayes, “The Poor Soldier Boy” (New York: J. Andrews, 1857), in Kenneth S. Goldstein Collection, Center for Popular Music, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

⁵² Stephen R. Ortiz, Beyond the Bonus March and GI Bill: How Veteran Politics Shaped the New Deal Era (New York: NYU Press, 2012), 30, 100.

⁵³ Walter Warren Wood, Townsend Plan Boosters (Canby, OR: s.p., 1936), in “Songs and Pledges,” Mss 1334, Townsend National Recovery Plan records, OHS.

⁵⁴ “Twin Lakes Old Age Pension Club Gaining Strength,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, 18 Dec. 1934, 2.

⁵⁵ Weinstein, “Onward Townsend Soldiers,” 228–55.

⁵⁶ For music as “social activity” rather than “object” or “product” see Christopher Small, Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1998).

⁵⁷ Amenta, When Movements Matter, 176–92.

⁵⁸ “Townsend Says He or Smith Must Go,” Evening Sun, 17 July 1936, 19.

⁵⁹ Frank C. Huston, “Townsend Triumph Song” (Indianapolis: s.p., 1939).

⁶⁰ “The Townsend Delusion,” Berkshire Eagle (Massachusetts), 18 Jan. 1935, 12.

⁶¹ F. K. Maskell. “To Our Townsend Secretaries,” n.d., and Mrs. D. Juttner, “To Our Organizer,” n.d., in “Songs and Pledges,” Mss 1334, Townsend National Recovery Plan Records, OHS

⁶² Clarence Glaskill, “Shepherd of the Air” (New York: Olman Music Corporation, 1933); “End Poverty in California! And Upton Sinclair Will Show the Way” (Los Angeles: End Poverty League Inc., 1934).

⁶³ James T. Patterson, Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1967), 310.

⁶⁴ Townsend and Murray, New Horizons, 8.

⁶⁵ Paul K. Hutchinson, letters to Townsend Club members in Portland, c.1936, in “Songs and Pledges,” Mss 1334, Townsend National Recovery Plan Records, OHS.

⁶⁶ Amenta, 50.

⁶⁷ Radio Guide, 28 Nov. 1936, 47, 10 Sept. 1938, 26; Radio Life, 2 July 1944, 15, 17.

⁶⁸ “Campaign Billings Exceed Estimates; Election Coverage,” Broadcasting, 15 Nov. 1936, 19, 43.

⁶⁹ “Townsend's Plan to Use Mexican Stations Balked,” Broadcasting, 15 Oct. 1936, 38.

⁷⁰ “Monday Programs,” Broadcast Weekly, 6 April 1935, 19; “The Business of Broadcasting,” Broadcasting, 1 June 1936, 52; “Network Accounts,” Broadcasting, 1 Sept. 1937, 83; Radio Daily, 1 March 1938, 8.

⁷¹ Robert St. John, Encyclopedia of Radio and Television Broadcasting (Milwaukee, WI: Cathedral Square Publishing Company, 1967), 133; Robert J. Landry, This Fascinating Radio Business (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1946), 93.

⁷² “Code Developments,” National Association of Broadcasters Reports, 7, 40 (6 Oct. 1939), 3767–68.

⁷³ Broadcasting, 15 Aug. 1938, 72; Holtzman, The Townsend Movement, 195.

⁷⁴ “Twin Lakes Old Age Pension Club Gaining Strength,” Santa Cruz Sentinel (California), 18 Dec. 1934, 2.

⁷⁵ “Minutes of the Portland Townsend Club #46, 1935–1938,” “Minutes,” Mss 1334, Townsend National Recovery Plan records, OHS.

⁷⁶ Col. C. A. Sanders, Book of Townsend Parody Songs (Indianapolis: s.p., 1936), in “Songs and Pledges,” Mss 1334, Townsend National Recovery Plan Records, OHS.

⁷⁷ George Dixon, “Radio Senator Whoops It Up for Townsendites,” Washington Times-Herald, 9 July 1947, 1. For Glen H. Taylor's musical–political career see Peter La Chapelle, I'd Fight the World: A Political History of Old-Time, Hillbilly, and Country Music (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2019), 119–47.

⁷⁸ Dorothy Stowe, “Lady Baritone Sang Her Way into the Hearts of Listeners,” Deseret News (Utah), 14 July 1989, C1.

⁷⁹ “Townsendites on March Are Given Cheers,” San Bernardino County Sun, 6 May 1936, 5; “Townsendites Begin March on Capital,” El Paso Times, 6 May 1936, 1.

⁸⁰ “Distinguished Guests Attend Santa Paula Townsend Meeting,” Piru News, 13 Jan. 1938, 1.

⁸¹ Amenta, When Movements Matter, 55.

⁸² In Portland, Oregon, club members put on a play entitled “Life Begins at Sixty,” which they hoped would be turned into a film. Variety negatively reviewed the Townsend drama: “Politics Is All Right, but Not at the B.O.,” Variety, 11 March 1936, 1. For Townsend quilts see Vanessa Kraemer Sohan, Lives, Letters, and Quilts: Women and Everyday Rhetorics of Resistance (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2019), 113–44. The author owns an original Townsend-engraved spoon.

⁸³ Some examples of veteran group and/or pension-related sheet music include Theo. H. Northrup, “U.C.V. March” (Memphis, TN: O. K. Houck, 1901), in Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins University; Harry De Costa, “An Old Grand Army Man: March Song” (New York: M. Witmark and Sons, 1918), in Gaylord Music Library, Washington University in St. Louis; John J. Moran, “The Eagle's Call for All” (Seattle, WA: Parks Music Co., 1922). For music and Abraham Epstein's American Association for Social Security see Pierre Epstein, Abraham Epstein: The Forgotten Father of Social Security (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 2006), 258. For an example of music in the ex-slave pension movement see Charles P. Henry, Long Overdue: The Politics of Racial Reparations (New York: NYU Press, 2009), 49.

⁸⁴ Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Concert Performance to Benefit the Philadelphia Orchestra Pension Fund (Victor CS-92860, 1935).

⁸⁵ “Our History,” American Federation of Musicians Local 57: the Musicians’ Union of Los Angeles, available at https://afm47.org/about/history.html, accessed 7 June 2021.

⁸⁶ Economic Security Act: Hearings before the Committee on Finance, 1021.

⁸⁷ For the Townsend's Plan's racial politics see Mary Poole, The Segregated Origins of Social Security: African Americans and the Welfare State (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 21–26. The movement also made little headway into “Hispanic” communities, largely because under the Townsend Plan only those who were “natural born citizens” or naturalized for twenty years would receive a pension. Still, at least one Townsend club, in Colorado, appealed to “Spanish-Americans” by presenting a lecture on the plan in Spanish: World-Independent (Walsenburg, CO), 26 Nov. 1934, 1. A 1942 cartoon in Townsend National Weekly sums up the hollowness of the movement's “progressive” politics: a broom (symbolizing the Townsend Plan) sweeps away the nation's problems, including a character labelled “race prejudice.” “A Good Broom Sweeps Clean,” Townsend National Weekly, 18 July 1942, 5.

⁸⁸ Economic Security Act: Hearings before the Committee on Finance, 1020; Amenta, 88.

⁸⁹ “Townsend Plan,” Sacramento, California, c.1935, in Michael T. Benning collections, 1983/232/13213, Center for Sacramento History.

⁹⁰ Bill C. Malone and Tracey Laird, Country Music U.S.A (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018), 159.

⁹¹ Amenta, 107–20.

⁹² Transcription radio recording, “Grand Ole Opry – Prince Albert – 1939-11-18 – Part 1 and Part 2,” Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum Digital Collections, Nashville, Tennessee.

⁹³ This is not to say that the themes of tradition, family, God, (wo)manhood, and southern identity in Acuff's songs did not have underlying political standpoints, but that he at least did not usually sing explicitly about political policy. John W. Rumble, liner notes for Roy Acuff, Country & Western Classics – Roy Acuff (Time-Life Records TLCW-09, 1983).

⁹⁴ Dorothy Horstman, Sing Your Heart Out, Country Boy (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1975), 220.

⁹⁵ H. B. Teeter, “Speaker Portrays Acuff as Bulwark against Isms,” Nashville Tennessean, 6 Oct. 1948, 18.

⁹⁶ Elizabeth Roe Schlappi, Roy Acuff, the Smoky Mountain Boy (New Orleans: Pelican Publishing, 1993), 197.

⁹⁷ H. B. Teeter, “Mountain Troubadour, Serenades Browning,” Nashville Tennessean, 3 Oct. 1948, 6.

⁹⁸ Roy Acuff, “Old Age Pension Check” (Hickory 1178, 1962).

⁹⁹ The media normally portrayed Acuff as more interested in promoting himself and the Opry than in politics. “Acuff Boosts ‘Opry,’ Reece in Williamson,” Nashville Tennessean, 3 Oct. 1948, 6.

¹⁰⁰ Acuff was not the only “hillbilly” musician-turned-politician in the South to endorse pensions: Peter La Chapelle, I'd Fight the World, 104–9.

¹⁰¹ Amenta, When Movements Matter, 201–5.

¹⁰² Messinger, Sheldon L., “Organizational Transformation: A Case Study of a Declining Social Movement,” American Sociological Review, 20, 1 (1955), 3–10, 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰³ New Lost City Ramblers, Songs from the Depression (Folkways FW05264, 1959); George Davis, When Kentucky Had No Union Men (Folkways FW02343, 1967).

¹⁰⁴ Edward Andrews, “Jolly Young Pensions We (Pensioners Theme Song)” (Norwich: W. E. Wilson, 1965).

¹⁰⁵ Hilda E. Wenner and Elizabeth Freilicher, Here's to the Women: 100 Songs for and about American Women (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1987), 247–49.

¹⁰⁶ Buck, Simon, “Too Old to Work: Joe Glazer, Labour Music, and Occupational Pensions,” Comparative American Studies: An International Journal, 18, 3 (2 July 2021), 281–301CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰⁷ Chris Willman, Rednecks and Bluenecks: The Politics of Country Music (New York: New Press, 2006), 157.