Pension Politics and Possibilities

• In Event: Coalitional Politics and Disability Rights

Abstract

This paper examines the politics of the blind pensions that swept the American states between 1898 and 1935. Scholars of American Political Development have extensively researched mothers’ pensions and old age assistance, crediting them with having laid the groundwork for family assistance and Social Security. Yet virtually no attention has been given to state pensions for the blind. These pensions represented an early form of disability-based organizing, as associations of blind men and women lobbied for their creation throughout the Midwest and West between 1900-1920. Their efforts were instrumental in securing state-level constitutional reforms and case law that paved the way for mothers’ pensions and old age assistance, and, ultimately, the public assistance provisions of the Social Security Act of 1935. By turning the spotlight onto blind pensions, this paper demonstrates that early 20th century political conflicts over disability were central to American welfare state formation.

Author

• Jennifer Leonor Erkulwater, University of Richmond