In 1962 Congress enacted legislation which made social services an important instrument of public welfare reform. The law represented the culmination of a half-century effort on the part of public welfare officials to secure recognition for public social services as a distinctive yet integral feature of progressive social welfare policy in the United States. This dissertation traces the evolution of this effort from its origins in the Progressive period to the passage of the Public Welfare Amendments of 1962.The Progressive ideal of social welfare focused on building an institution of public welfare which would satisfy the economic, social, and psychological needs of all citizens. Public welfare officials viewed social services as playing a key role in the realization of this goal. The paper examines how social services became a means of protecting and expanding the functions of public welfare.The history of public social services has been marked by controversy. Throughout most of the twentieth century, the institution of public welfare has been subjected to periodic assaults by the taxpaying public. The stigma associated with welfare has caused many professional social workers to oppose the idea of incorporating social services into public welfare. The response of public welfare officials to these sources of conflict is a major topic which the paper explores.The context for and the ramifications of the dispute between professional social workers and public welfare officials over the propriety of public social services are discussed in the first three chapters of the paper. The last three chapters recount the political strategies used by public welfare officials to gain acceptance of their plan for integrating social services with public welfare policy. / Department of Sociology
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/175097 |
| Date | January 1988 |
| Creators | Bidelman, Bernard M. |
| Contributors | Ball State University. Dept. of Sociology., Gordon, Whitney H. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | 523 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
| Coverage | n-us--- |
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