The Wages of Motherhood : : Inequality in the Welfare State, 1917–1942 / / Gwendolyn Mink.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Archive Pre-2000
• VerfasserIn: Mink, Gwendolyn,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2018]; ©1996
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (208 p.)

Entering the vigorous debate about the nature of the American welfare state, The Wages of Motherhood illuminates ways in which a "maternalist" social policy emerged from the crucible of gender and racial politics between the world wars. Gwendolyn Mink here examines the cultural dynamics of maternalist social policy, which have often been overlooked by institutional and class analyses of the welfare state.Mink maintains that the movement for welfare provisions, while resulting in important gains, reinforced existing patterns of gender and racial inequality. She explores how AngloAmerican women reformers, as they gained increasing political recognition, promoted an ideology of domesticity that became the core of maternalist social policy. Focusing on reformers such as Jane Addams, Grace Abbott, Katherine Lenroot, and Frances Perkins, Mink shows how they helped shape a social policy premised on moral character and cultural conformity rather than universal entitlement.According to Mink, commitments to a gendered and racialized ideology of virtuous citizenship led women's reform organizations in the United States to support welfare policies that were designed to uplift and regulate motherhood and thus to reform the cultural character of citizens. The upshot was a welfare agenda that linked maternity with dependency, poverty with cultural weakness, and need with moral failing. Relegating poor women and racial minorities to dependent status, maternalist policy had the effect of stengthening ideological and institutional forms of subordination. In Mink's view, the legacy of this benevolent—and invidious—policy contimies to inflect thinking about welfare reform today.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Content -- PREFACE -- PART ONE -- CHAPTER ONE. The Promise of Motherhood: Maternalist Social Policy between the Wars -- CHAPTER TWO. Wages for Motherhood: Mothers' Pensions and Cultural Reform -- CHAPTER THREE. ''A Baby Saved Is a Citizen Gained": Infancy Protection and Maternal Reform -- PART TWO -- CHAPTER FOUR. Schooling for Motherhood: Woman's Role and ''American" Culture in the Curriculum -- CHAPTER FIVE. Cultural Reform across the Color Line: Maternalists and the Politics of Educational Provision -- PART THREE -- CHAPTER SIX. Maternalism in the New Deal Welfare State: Women's Dependency, Racial Inequality, and the Icon of Welfare Motherhood -- CHAPTER SEVEN. Wage Earning or Motherhood: Maternalist Labor Policy during World War II -- AFTERWORD. Postmaternalist Welfare Politics -- INDEX