Re: AFDC and business interests
My sense is that the Southern opposition was tied up intricately with subordination of the black labor pool in the South -- not surprisingly, you need to look at race and gender along with class to understand Southern opposition to a federal AFDC benefit. The first one has a terrific anecdote (I think) about some bubba congressman wondering who was going to iron his shirts if there was a federal minimum benefit. Treacy: In the 1950's there was great opposition by liberals to run away industry moving South. In fact Federal Minimum wage laws were viewed by some as attempts by Unions to restrict competition from low wage Southern areas. Fed. laws restricting tobacco land to allotments kept a large number of black males employed because tobacco was still cultivated by mules that could work much narrower rows than tractors in the Pee Dee Section of South Carolina. When a shirt sewing factory was set up in Florance, S. C. in 1956, there was great wailing and gnashing of teeth by White Matrons who lost their $10-12 a week(six days) maids and cooks to forty dollar a five day week job in the shirt factory. While these wages were low relative to those in Northern unionized towns, they looked like heaven to the black women of Florence. Maid and cook wages jumped to $18 a week within three months. [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** Teresa Amott Dept. of Economics Bucknell University Lewisburg, PA 17837 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 717/524-1652 (w) 717/524-3760 (fax)
AFDC and business interests
If people want to pursue the history of business opposition to AFDC, one place to start is Winifred Bell's classic book on AFDC (entitled _Aid to Dependent Children_). A superb essay on SSI and the Southern states that makes similar points is Jill Quadagno in Weir, Orloff and Skocpol, _The Politics of Social Policy in the United States_ (very good book). See also the other essays in that book. My sense is that the Southern opposition was tied up intricately with subordination of the black labor pool in the South -- not surprisingly, you need to look at race and gender along with class to understand Southern opposition to a federal AFDC benefit. There are several essays in _Women, the State and Welfare_, edited by Linda Gordon, that might be useful. I have one essay in there entitled "Black Women and AFDC: Making Entitlement Out of Necessity" that reviews some of that history. Finally, see any of James Patterson's books (_America's Struggle against Poverty, 1900-1985_; _Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal_; _The New Deal and the States: Federalism in Transition_). The first one has a terrific anecdote (I think) about some bubba congressman wondering who was going to iron his shirts if there was a federal minimum benefit. *** Teresa Amott Dept. of Economics Bucknell University Lewisburg, PA 17837 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 717/524-1652 (w) 717/524-3760 (fax)
