From Economic Security to Equality: Frieda Miller, Esther Peterson, and the Revival of the Alternative View of Public Administration, 1945-1964

Abstract

This article examines how Frieda Miller and Esther Peterson, two influential directors of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau after World War II, revived and continued the alternative view of public administration through a combination of primary and secondary sources. Miller, who served as director from 1944 through 1953, reestablished a social justice–centered view of public administration through the creation of a special advisory committee and the institution of a new agenda that stressed equality over economic security. Peterson, who served from 1961 through 1964, quickly moved the Women’s Bureau into a political network with women’s labor leaders and the John F. Kennedy presidential administration, helping to create the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) and to enact a federal Equal Pay Act.