MOTHERS' PENSIONS gggff

This classic Depression-era photo by Dorthea Lange for the Farm Security Administration remains one of the most poignant modern images of needy motherhood. The plight of impoverished female-headed families has been one which has a long history of somewhat sympathetic response in American popular imagination. Mothers' pensions were one of the earliest and most widespread forms of social provision in America. State-level programs, the first Mothers' Pensions were adopted in 1911, and by 1920 forty states had such pension programs.

Suggestions for Additional Reading Linda Gordon, Pitied But Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare (New York: The Free Press, 1994) Michael B. Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhouse, Tenth Edition (New York: Basic Books, 1996)

Source Documents: LAWS AFFECTING WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN THE SUFFRAGE AND NON-SUFFRAGE STATES, by Annie G. Porritt (1917) In 1917 the suffragist Annie Gertrud Webb Porritt published in New York City (through the National Woman Suffrage Publishing Co.) a book examining the laws affecting women and children in the various states of the Union. She looked at eight key areas: protective labor legislation for women and children; minimum wage laws; mothers' pensions; the property rights of married women; child custody; age of consent; control of the liquor traffic; and prostitution. Her 168-page book is a detailed point-in-time portrait of the legal status of women and children in America. Chapter 3, which deals with Mothers' Pensions, is therefore a detailed accounting of the status of these programs as of the beginning of 1917 (when there were mothers' pension laws in effect in 29 states). (Document courtesy of Library of Congress, American Memory Project)