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Welfare Rights and Women's Rights in the 1960s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2011

Extract

The year 1966 is often cited as the start of the “second wave” of the organized women's movement, marked by the formation of the National Organization for Women (NOW). However, 1966 also marked the formal inception of another, less enduring group of women activists, the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), linked to a separate but related social movement focused on welfare rights. From 1966 to 1975, NWRO coordinated welfare mothers' activism to shore up public assistance for the poor and to establish a federally guaranteed annual income. At its height in 1968, NWRO claimed twenty thousand members nationwide and dozens of local chapters from California to New York.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 1996

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References

Notes

1. Ferree, Myra and Hess, Beth, Controversy and Coalition: The New Feminist Movement (Boston, 1985), 54Google Scholar; Costain, Anne N., Inviting Women's Rebellion (Baltimore, 1992), 14Google Scholar; Boles, Janet K., “Form Follows Function: The Evolution of Feminist Strategies,” in Boles, Janet K., ed., The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (Newbury Park, May 1981), 39Google Scholar.

2. See, for example, Davis, Flora, Moving the Mountain (New York, 1991), 352Google Scholar (“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.”).

3. 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.

4. On the debate surrounding the enactment of the Social Security Act of 1935, see generally Gordon, Linda, Pitied But Not Entitled (New York, 1994)Google Scholar. 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 Skocpol, Theda, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers (Cambridge, Mass., 1992)Google Scholar.

5. Gordon, Pitied But Not Entitled, 43.

6. See generally Gordon, Pitied But Not Entitled; and 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.

7. 42 U.S.C. ∼ 2782(a)(3). See generally Note, Participation of the Poor: Section 202(a)(3) Organizations Under the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964,75 Yale Law Journal (1966): 599CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and William F. Haddad, “Mr. Shriver and the Savage Politics of Poverty,” Harper's, December 1965, 44.

8. See Pope, Jackie, “Women and the Welfare Rights Struggle: The Brooklyn Welfare Action Council,” in West, Guida and Blumberg, Rhoda Lois, eds., Women and Social Protest (New York, 1992), 70Google Scholar (B-WAC, the largest NWRO affiliate, with eight thousand members, was managed by poor women).

9. Bailis, Lawrence, Bread or Justice: Grassroots Organizing in the Welfare Rights Movement (Lexington, Mass., 1972), p. 11Google Scholar; and “Alliance of Poor Sought on New Jersey,” New York Times, 30 August 1965, sec. B, col. 3; p. 13; and Hertz, Susan Handley, The Welfare Mothers Movement: A Decade of Change for Poor Women? (Lanham, Md., 1981), 3237Google Scholar. See also Kotz, Nick and Kotz, Mary, A Passion for Equality (New York, 1977), 221Google Scholar; and Sparer, Edward V., Thorkelson, Howard, and Weiss, Jonathan, “The Lay Advocate,43 University of Detroit Law Journal (1966), 506–7Google Scholar.

10. New York City was an exception. Beginning, in 1963, the Mobilization for Youth Legal Unit provided legal advice and representation to welfare recipients on the Lower East Side. Other early legal offices for the poor were in New Haven, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C.

11. Johnson, Earl Jr., Justice and Reform: The Formative Years of the American Legal Services Program (New Brunswick, 1978), 3940Google Scholar; and Cahn, Edgar S. and Cahn, Jean C., “The War on Poverty: A Civilian Perspective,73 Yale Law Journal (1964): 1317CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Hollingsworth, Ellen, “Ten Years of Legal Services for the Poor,” in Haveman, Robert H., ed., A Decade of Federal Antipoverty Programs (New York, 1977), 294–95Google Scholar.

12. Johnson, Justice and Reform, 71.

13. Edward V. Sparer, “The New Legal Aid as an Instrument of Social Change,” University of Illinois Law Forum (1965): 59–60 (emphasis in original).

14. The following account of George Wiley's career relies upon Kotz and Kotz, A Passion for Equality; Piven, Frances Fox and Cloward, Richard A., Poor People's Movements (New York, 1977)Google Scholar; and Davis, Martha F., Brutai Need: Lawyers and the Welfare Rights Movement, 1960–1973 (New Haven, 1993)Google Scholar.

15. On King's move toward economic issues, see Garrow, David J., Bearing the Cross (New York, 1986)Google Scholar.

16. Carson, Clayborne, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 186, 229–43Google Scholar; and Kotz and Kotz, A Passion for Equality, 153–54.

17. “Brooklyn CORE Plans a Change in Its Tactics,” New York Times, 8 November 1967, col. 5, p. 42.

18. 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.

19. Ibid., 3.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid.

22. See generally Bell, Winifred, Aid to Dependent Children (New York, 1965)Google Scholar.

23. 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.

24. Margaret H. Mason, Poverty: A Feminist Issue (undated), 24, NOW Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.

25. Ibid.

26. Letter, Dr. Anna Hedgeman, Coordinator of Special Events, to Betty Friedan, NOW President, 18 November 1966, NOW Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.

27. Mason, Poverty, 25.

28. Ibid.

29. Boles, “Form Follows Function,” 39; Evans, Sara M., “The Women's Movement in the United States in the 1960s,” in Backhouse, Constance and Flaherty, David H., eds., Challenging Times: The Women's Movement in Canada and the United States (Montreal, 1992), 6869Google Scholar.

30. Boles, “Form Follows Function” 39–40.

31. Costain, Inviting Women's Rebellion, 46–47.

32. Mason, Poverty, 26.

33. West, Guida, The National Welfare Rights Movement: The Social Protest of Poor Women (New York, 1981), 259Google Scholar.

34. Davis, Brutal Need, 53–55.

35. See generally Melnick, R. Shep, Between the Lines (Washington, D.C., 1994), 83111Google Scholar.

36. Davis, Brutal Need, 137.

37. Ibid.

38. Edward V. Sparer and Henry A. Freedman, “A Comment,” Welfare Law News (September 1971): 5–6.

39. Piven and Cloward, Poor People's Movements, 343–49.

40. Bailis, Bread or Justice, 147; and NWRO, Comparison of Welfare Plans (n.d.).

41. Neier, Aryeh, Only judgment: The Limits of Litigation in Social Change (Middletown, Conn., 1982), 139Google Scholar; Piven and Cloward, Poor People's Movements, 341–43; and “Senate Reaction to Family Assistance Plan Unclear After Nixon Speech,” Welfare Law News (September 1971): 1.

42. 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.

43. Mason, Poverty, 36.

44. Ibid., 26.

45. Letter, Merrillee Dolan to Brenda Fasteau, 29 March 1970, NOW Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.

46. Mason, Poverty, 25.

47. Ibid, (appendix), 120.

48. Ibid., 26–27.

49. West, National Welfare Rights Movement, 257.

50. Sisters in Poverty 1, no. 2 (March 1971), NOW Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.

51. Mason, Poverty, 64–66.

52. Ibid., 71.

53. Ibid., 72.

54. Eileen Shanahan, “Feminist Unit Designates ‘73 Action Year Against Poverty,” Washington, D.C., Evening Star, February 20, 1973.

55. Merrillee Dolan, Women and Poverty Report to National Board Meeting (October 1, 1972), NOW Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.

56. NOW, Sisters in Poverty 3, no. 1 (June 1972), 4–5, NOW Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.

57. Ibid.

58. NOW Newsletter, Twin Cities Chapter, April 1972, NOW Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.

59. NOW, Sisters in Poverty (December 1972-January 1973), NOW Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.

60. Ibid.

61. 397 U.S. 471 (1970) (upholding maximum family AFDC benefits).

62. 406 U.S. 535 (1972) (upholding disparities in benefit levels between public assistance programs).

63. West, National Welfare Rights Movement, 122.

64. Ibid., 123.

65. Ibid., 122.

66. Johnnie Tillmon, “Welfare Is a Women's Issue,” Ms., Spring 1972.

67. 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.

68. Boles, “Form Follows Function,” 43.

69. Zald, Mayer N., “The Trajectory of Social Movements in America,Research in Social Movements, Conflicts, and Change 10 (1988): 29Google Scholar.