States of dependency : welfare, rights, and American governance, 1935-1972 / Karen M. Tani.
Publisher's description: Who bears responsibility for the poor, and who may exercise the power that comes with that responsibility? Amidst the Great Depression, American reformers answered this question in new ways, with profound effects on longstanding practices of governance and entrenched un...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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New York :
Cambridge University Press,
2016.
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| Series: | Studies in legal history.
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | Publisher's description: Who bears responsibility for the poor, and who may exercise the power that comes with that responsibility? Amidst the Great Depression, American reformers answered this question in new ways, with profound effects on longstanding practices of governance and entrenched understandings of citizenship. States of Dependency traces New Deal welfare programs over the span of four decades and into communities around the nation, from American Indian reservations in the Southwest to agrarian stretches of Middle America, and to the metropolises of the industrial North. Drawing on a wealth of previously un-mined legal and archival sources, Karen Tani reveals how reformers attempted to build a more bureaucratic, centralized, and uniform public welfare system; how traditions of localism, federalism, and hostility towards the 'undeserving poor' affected their efforts; and how, along the way, more and more Americans came to speak of public income support in the powerful but limiting language of law and rights. |
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| Physical Description: | xiii, 427 pages, 7 pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-412) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781107434080 1107434084 9781107076846 1107076846 |