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Susan M. Sterett - Public Pensions: Gender and Civic Service in the States, 1850–1937 - 9780801439841 - KEX0227907
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Public Pensions: Gender and Civic Service in the States, 1850–1937

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Description for Public Pensions: Gender and Civic Service in the States, 1850–1937 Hardback. Num Pages: 288 pages, 4 halftones. BIC Classification: 1KBB; HBJK; JFSJ; JPQB; KCP; LND. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational; (UP) Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly; (UU) Undergraduate. Dimension: 229 x 152 x 21. Weight in Grams: 480.

In Public Pensions, Susan M. Sterett traces the legal and constitutional structures underlying early social welfare programs in the United States. Sterett explains the status of state and local government payments for public servants and the poor from the mid-nineteenth century until the Great Depression. The most visible public payments for service in the United States were directed to soldiers, who risked death for the nation. However, firemen, not soldiers, first captured local governments' attention; social welfare programs for soldiers were modeled on firemen's pensions. The dangerous work of firefighting and of combat provided the fundamental legal analogy for courts ... Read more

Nothing about the state court doctrine approving payments for dangerous, local service would allow pensions for indigent mothers and for the elderly, which states began to consider after 1910. Counties and railroads that objected to the new taxes could fight programs based on the old doctrine, established for firefighters, soldiers, and finally civil servants. State litigation provided one of the many grounds for contesting expanded welfare states in the early twentieth-century United States. Sterett demonstrates that state courts maintained a gendered division between the service that marked citizenship and the dependence that marked indigence, even during the promising ferment of the early twentieth century.

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Product Details

Publisher
Cornell University Press ne
Number of pages
288
Format
Hardback
Publication date
2003
Condition
New
Number of Pages
240
Place of Publication
Ithaca, United States
ISBN
9780801439841
SKU
KEX0227907
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 2 to 4 working days
Ref
99-3

About Susan M. Sterett
Susan M. Sterett is Professor of Political Science at the University of Denver. She is the author of Creating Constitutionalism? Professional Politics and Administrative Law in England and Wales.

Reviews for Public Pensions: Gender and Civic Service in the States, 1850–1937
Susan M. Sterett has added an important perspective to recent social welfare scholarship. Her insight is that state court litigation after the Civil War played a major role in shaping state public pension legislation, especially as new groups were added to the eligibility list.
Anthony R. Travis, Grand Valley State University
The Journal of American History
Public ... Read more

Goodreads reviews for Public Pensions: Gender and Civic Service in the States, 1850–1937


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