Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T22:59:16.978Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Fate, Responsibility, and “Natural” Disaster Relief: Narrating the American Welfare State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Michele L. Landis
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This essay argues that the history of the American welfare state is inextricably bound up with disaster relief. It focuses on the New Deal, which was justified using numerous precedents drawn from the previous 150 years of federal disaster relief. After sketching this early history, including the development of a compelling moral narrative of fault and blame, I examine congressional speeches, briefs filed in the central legal cases of the New Deal by the Roosevelt administration and its opponents, Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, and photographs taken by New Deal employees to trace how the Depression was narrated as a “disaster” whose victims were entitled to federal relief.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , 1999 , pp. 257 - 318
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by The Law and Society Association.

Footnotes

I am grateful to Arthur Stinchcombe for his invaluable criticism, guidance, and patience. Many thanks also for the insightful comments of Pegeen Bassett, Cynthia Bowman, Ken Dauber, James Heckman, Carol Heimer, Martha Fineman, Jane Larson, Estelle Lau, Saul Levmore, Tom Merrill, Elizabeth Mertz, Martha Nussbaum, Robert Nelson, William Novak, Austin Sarat, Rayman Solomon, three anonymous reviewers, and the participants at the 1997 and 1999 Annual Meetings of the Law & Society Association, where earlier versions were presented. Finally, I am especially grateful to United States Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt for giving me the privilege of spending a year in his service. His brilliant and compassionate use of the law to aid today's “dispossessed” carries on the work of the New Dealers discussed in this essay.

References

References

Aaronson, Mark N. (1996) “Scapegoating the Poor: Welfare Reform All over Again and the Undermining of American Citizenship,” 7 Hastings Women's Law J. 213, 228–51.Google Scholar
Abramovitz, Mimi (1996) Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Welfare Policy from Colonial Times to the Present. Boston: South End Press.Google Scholar
Abbott, Grace (1932) “Relief by a National Private Agency in the Great Drought,” 4 Social Service Rev. 297–300.Google Scholar
Abbott, Grace (1941) From Relief to Social Security: The Development of the New Public Welfare Services and Their Administration. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ackerman, Bruce (1989) “Constitutional Politics/Constitutional Law,” 99 Yale Law J. 453–547.Google Scholar
Ackerman, Bruce (1991) We the People, Vol. 1: Foundations. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Ackerman, Bruce (1998) We the People, Vol. 2: Transformations. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Amenta, Edwin, & Skocpol, Theda (1989) “Taking Exception: Explaining the Distinctiveness of American Public Policies in the Last Century,” in Castles, F. G., ed., The Comparative History of Public Policy. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
American Red Cross (1932) Red Cross Relief Wheat and Cotton Distribution—Unemployment and Disasters. Washington: GPO.Google Scholar
Austin American-Statesman (1995) “Massachusetts Not Deserving of Aid to Save Fishing Industry,” Austin [Texas] American-Statesman, 24 March, pp. A14.Google Scholar
Barry, John M. (1997) Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Baxandall, Michael (1985) Patterns of Intention: On the Historical Explanation of Pictures. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Blank, Rebecca M. (1986) How Important Is Welfare Dependence? Madison: Institute for Research on Poverty, Univ. of Wisconsin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blank, Rebecca M. (1997) It Takes a Nation: A New Agenda for Fighting Poverty. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Boon, James A. (1983) Other Tribes, Other Scribes: Symbolic Anthropology in the Comparative Study of Cultures, Histories, Religions, and Texts. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Borg, Linda (1994) “$30 Million in Fishery Aid Planned: Reaction to the Federal Relief Package Is Largely Positive, but Some Fishermen Feel Much More Needs to Be Done,” Providence J. Bull., 22 March, p. 1A.Google Scholar
Borg, Linda (1995) “Disaster Tag Sought by Mass.: Governor Weld Will Make the Claim to President Clinton that the State's Fisheries Plight Is the Result of Natural Occurrences,” Providence J. Bull., 22 March, p. 1A.Google Scholar
Braeman, John, Bremner, Robert, & Brody, David, eds. (1975) The New Deal: The National Level. Columbus: Ohio State Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Bustard, Bruce (1997) A New Deal for the Arts. Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Clemens, Elisabeth Stephanie (1997) The People's Lobby: Organizational Innovation and the Rise of Interest Group Politics in the United States, 1890–1925. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Clifford, James (1988) The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Clinton, Bill, & Gore, Albert (1992) Putting People First: How We Can All Change America. New York: Times Books.Google Scholar
Coakley, Tom (1995) “Specialists Blame Overfishing: Some Say Weld's ‘Natural Disaster’ Argument Ignores Man-Made Causes,” Boston Globe, 26 March, p. 33.Google Scholar
Currie, David P. (1990) The Constitution in the Supreme Court: The Second Century, 1888–1986. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dauber, Kenneth (1992) “Object, Genre, and Buddhist Sculpture,” 21 Theory & Society 561–92.Google Scholar
Degler, Carl N. (1959) Out of Our Past. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
DeMott, Robert (1989) “Introduction,” in Steinbeck 1989.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Desan, Christine A. (1998) “The Constitutional Commitment to Legislative Adjudication in the Early American Tradition,” 111 Harvard Law Rev. 1381–1503.Google Scholar
Dulles, Foster Rhea (1950) The American Red Cross: A History. New York: Harper & Bros.Google Scholar
Eckelbecker, Lisa (1995) “Welfare Reform: Where Will the Jobs Come from?” Sunday Telegram, 5 March, p. A1.Google Scholar
Fineman, Martha (1995) The Neutered Mother, the Sexual Family and Other Twentieth Century Tragedies. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fraser, Nancy (1989) “Talking about Needs: Interpretive Contests as Political Conflicts in Welfare-State Societies,” 99 Ethics 291–313.Google Scholar
Fraser, Nancy, & Gordon, Linda (1994) “A Genealogy of Dependency: Tracing a Keyword of the U.S. Welfare State,” 19 Signs 309–36.Google Scholar
Gans, Herbert J. (1995) The War against the Poor: The Underclass and Antipoverty Policy. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1979) Gender Advertisements. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Gordon, Linda (1994) Pitied but not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Greenbaum, Fred (1971) Fighting Progressive: A Biography of Edward P. Costigan. Washington: Public Affairs Press.Google Scholar
Handler, Joel F., & Hasenfeld, Yeheskel (1991) The Moral Construction of Poverty. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Harvard Law Review (1966) Note: “Private Bills in Congress,” 79 Harvard Law Rev. 1684.Google Scholar
Higgs, Robert (1987) Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Holt, James (1975) “The New Deal and the American Anti-Statist Tradition,” in Braeman et al., eds. 1975 in Braeman et al., eds 1975.Google Scholar
Hoover, Herbert (1934 [1931]) “Statement to the Press on Drought Relief,” in vol. 1, State Papers of Herbert Hoover. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co.Google Scholar
Hoover, Herbert (1937 [1935]) “Speech in St. Louis Missouri Regarding a Comparison of Hoover and New Deal Relief Methods,” in Wilbur, R. L. & Hyde, A. M., eds., The Hoover Policies. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.Google Scholar
Hopkins, Harry L. (1936) Spending to Save: The Complete Story of Relief. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.Google Scholar
Horwitz, Morton J. (1977) The Transformation of American Law, 1780–1860. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard, Donald S. (1945) The WPA and Federal Relief Policy. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Howarth, William (1990) “The Mother of Literature: Journalism and The Grapes of Wrath,” in Wyatt, D., ed., New Essays on “The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jensen, Laura S. (1996) “The Early American Origins of Entitlements,” 10 Studies in American Political Development 364–65.Google Scholar
Katz, Michael B. (1989) The Undeserving Poor. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Kehl, D. G. (1974) “Steinbeck's ‘String of Pictures’ in The Grapes of Wrath,” 17 (1) Image 1–10.Google Scholar
Landis, Michele (1998) “”Let Me Next Time Be ‘Tried by Fire‘“: Disaster Relief and the Origins of the American Welfare State, 1789–1874,” 92 Northwestern Univ. Law Rev. 967–1034.Google Scholar
Lehigh, Scott, & Phillips, Frank (1995) “Weld Seeks Disaster Aid for Fisheries; Eyes Declaration by Clinton, Eligibility for New Funding,” Boston Globe, 21 March, p. B1.Google Scholar
Lessig, Lawrence (1995) “Understanding Changed Readings: Fidelity and Theory,” 47 Stanford Law Rev. 395–472.Google Scholar
Levant, Howard (1974) The Novels of John Steinbeck: A Critical Study. Columbia: Univ. of Missouri Press.Google Scholar
Levmore, Saul (1996) “Coalitions and Quakes: Disaster Relief and Its Prevention,” University of Chicago Roundtable 3.Google Scholar
Leuchtenberg, William (1964) “The New Deal and the Analogue of War,” in Braeman, R. & Walker, E., eds., Change and Continuity in 20th Century America. Columbus: Ohio State Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Lisca, Peter (1957) “The Grapes of Wrath as Fiction,” in Proceedings of the Modern Language Association. New York: Modern Language Association.Google Scholar
Malinowski, Bronislaw (1922) Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London: Rout-ledge.Google Scholar
Malone, Wex S. (1946) “The Formative Era of Contributory Negligence,” 41 Illinois Law Rev. 151.Google Scholar
Maney, Patrick J. (1978) “Young Bob” LaFollette: A Biography of Robert M. LaFollette, Jr., 1895–1953. Columbia: Univ. of Missouri Press.Google Scholar
Manganaro, Mark (1992) Myth, Rhetoric, and the Voice of Authority: A Critique of Frazer, Eliot, Frye, and Campbell. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meltzer, Milton (1978) Dorothea Lange: A Photographer's Life. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Broadus (1947) Depression Decade: From the New Era through the New Deal, 1929–1941. New York: Rinehart.Google Scholar
Nelson, Barbara J. (1990) “The Gender, Race, and Class Origins of Early Welfare Policy and the Welfare State: A Comparison of Workmen's Compensation and Mothers' Aid,” in Tilly, L. A. & Gurin, P., eds., Women, Politics, and Change. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Nelson, William E. (1975) Americanization of the Common Law: The Impact of Legal Change on Massachusetts Society, 1760–1830. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
New York Times (1995) “Massachusetts Seeks to Help Fish Industry,” New York Times, 22 March, p. A13.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C. (1995) Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Piven, Frances Fox (1996) “The System Is Not the Source,” New York Times, Opinion, 8 Aug., p. A16.Google Scholar
Piven, Frances Fox, & Cloward, Richard A. (1971) Regulating the Poor: The Function of Public Welfare. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Orloff, Anna (1993) The Politics of Persons: A Corporate Analysis of Britain, Canada, and the United States, 1880–1940. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Quadagno, Jill S. (1994) The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quigley, William P. (1996) “Five Hundred Years of English Poor Laws, 1349–1834: Regulating the Working and Nonworking Poor,” 30 Akron Law Rev. 73–128.Google Scholar
Rausch, Basil (1944) The History of the New Deal, 1933–1938. New York: Creative Age Press, Inc.Google Scholar
Rauch, Johnathan (1992) “Pennies from Heaven,” National J., pp. 2299–318.Google Scholar
Reeves, Richard (1994) “Hurricane!, Earthquake$ and Flood$: If People Want to Build Their Houses in Dangerous Places, Why Should the Rest of Us Pay When Disaster Strikes,” Washington Monthly, 1 April, pp. 10–15.Google Scholar
Romasco, Arthur U. (1975) “Hoover-Roosevelt and the Great Depression: A Historiographic Inquiry into a Perennial Comparison,” in Braeman et al., eds. 1975.Google Scholar
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (1938) “The United States Is Rising and Is Rebuilding on Sounder Lines,” Address at Gainesville, Georgia (23 March 1938), reprinted in Rosenman, S. I., ed., 9 The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt 164–65. New York: Random House (Roosevelt Papers).Google Scholar
Schlesinger, Arthur M. (1957) The Crisis of the Old Order. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Sherwood, Robert E. (1948) Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda (1992) Protecting Soldiers and Mothers. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skocpol, Theda, & Ikenberry, John (1983) “The Political Formation of the American Welfare State in Historical and Comparative Perspective,” in Thomasson, R. F., ed., Comparative Social Research: The Welfare State, vol. 6. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Slaughter, Thomas (1986) The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Stein, Walter (1973) California and the Dust Bowl Migration. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Steinbeck, John (1939) The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Viking Press.Google Scholar
Steinbeck, John (1989) Working Days: The Journals of the Grapes of Wrath, ed. DeMott, R. J.. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Stevens, Robert (1970) Income Security, series on “Statutory History of the United States.” New York: Chelsea House.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R. (1995) “An Eighteenth Century Presidency in a Twenty-First Century World,” 48 Arkansas Law Rev. 1–21.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R. (1996) “Congress, Constitutional Moments, and the Cost-Benefit State,” 48 Stanford Law Rev. 247–309.Google Scholar
ten Broek, Jacobus (1964) “California's Dual System of Family Law: Its Origin, Development, and Present Status,” 16 Stanford Law Rev. 257.Google Scholar
Tugwell, Rexford G. (1957) The Democratic Roosevelt: A Biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.Google Scholar
U.S. Senate (1933) Federal Aid for Unemployment Relief: Hearings on S. 5125 before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Manufactures, 73d Cong., 1st Sess., 547–53. Washington: GPO.Google Scholar
U.S. Senate (1935) Statement of the National Association of Manufacturers, Economic Security Act: Hearings before the Senate Finance Committee on S. 1130, 72d Cong., 2d Sess. Washington: GPO.Google Scholar
Warren, Charles (1922) The Supreme Court in United States History. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.Google Scholar
Warren, Charles (1932) Congress as Santa Claus, Or National Donations and the General Welfare Clause of the Constitution. Charlottesville, VA: Michie Co.Google Scholar
White, Leonard D. (1948) The Federalists: A Study in Administrative History, 1789–1801. New York: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Lucie E. (1994) “On the Consensus to End Welfare: Where Are the Women's Voices?” 26 Connecticut Law Rev. 843 (1994).Google Scholar
White, Lucie E. (1996) “Searching for the Logic behind Welfare Reform,” 6 UCLA Women's Law J. 427.Google Scholar
Williams, Edward Ainsworth (1939) Federal Aid for Relief. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Witte, Edwin E. (1963) The Development of the Social Security Act. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Woodruff, Nan Elizabeth (1985) As Rare as Rain: Federal Relief in the Great Southern Drought of 1930–31. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Wong, Doris Sue (1995) “Democrats Skip Ceremony as Weld Signs Welfare Bill,” Boston Globe, 11 Feb., p. A1.Google Scholar

Cases

A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935).Google Scholar
Chas. C. Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S. 548 (1937).Google Scholar
Duke Power Co. v. Greenwood County, 302 U. S. 485 (1938), decided with Alabama Power Co. v. Ickes, 302 U.S. 464 (1938).Google Scholar
Helvering v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619 (1937).Google Scholar
United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936).Google Scholar

Statutes

Act for the Relief of Thomas Jenkins & Company, An, ch. 20, 6 Stat. 2 (1790).Google Scholar
Act for the Relief of John Stewart and John Davidson, An, ch. 37, 6 Stat. 3 (1790).Google Scholar
Federal Emergency Relief Act of 1933, ch. 30, 48 Stat. 55 (12 May 1933).Google Scholar