Consensus for Reform: The Mothers'-Pension Movement in the Progressive Era

Abstract

Mothers' pensions, the precursor of today's aid to families with dependent children, achieved remarkable legislative success. Only workers in some private social agencies actively opposed this trailblazing assertion of governmental welfare responsibility. The movement synthesized common concerns about children, widows, and the home during the Progressive era. This consensus for reform permitted and sometimes encouraged the behavioral demands and the hostility to indigent males that still characterize the welfare system.