Patronage Politics and the Development of the Welfare State: Confederate Pensions in the American South

Abstract

Beginning in the 1880s, southern states introduced pensions for Confederate veterans and widows. They expanded these programs through the 1920s, while states outside the region were introducing cash transfer programs for workers, poor mothers, and the elderly. Using pension application records and county-level electoral data, we argue that political considerations guided the distribution of these pensions. We show that Confederate pension programs were funded during years in which Democratic gubernatorial candidates were threatened at the ballot box. Moreover, we show that pensions were disbursed to counties in which these candidates had lost ground to candidates from alternative parties.