Even as unemployment rates soared during
the Great Depression, FDR’s relief and social security programs faced attacks
in Congress and the courts on the legitimacy of federal aid to the growing
population of poor. In response, New Dealers pointed to a long tradition—dating
back to 1790 and now largely forgotten—of federal aid to victims of disaster.
In The Sympathetic State, Michele Landis Dauber recovers this crucial
aspect of American history, tracing the roots of the modern American welfare
state beyond the New Deal and the Progressive Era back to the earliest days of
the republic when relief was forthcoming for the victims of wars, fires,
floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes.
Drawing on a variety of materials,
including newspapers, legal briefs, political speeches, the art and literature
of the time, and letters from thousands of ordinary Americans, Dauber shows
that while this long history of government disaster relief has faded from our
memory today, it was extremely well known to advocates for an expanded role for
the national government in the 1930s, including the Social Security Act. Making
this connection required framing the Great Depression as a disaster afflicting
citizens though no fault of their own. Dauber argues that the disaster
paradigm, though successful in defending the New Deal, would ultimately come
back to haunt advocates for social welfare. By not making a more radical case
for relief, proponents of the New Deal helped create the weak, uniquely
American welfare state we have today—one torn between the desire to come to the
aid of those suffering and the deeply rooted suspicion that those in need are
responsible for their own deprivation.
Contrary to conventional
thought, the history of federal disaster relief is one of remarkable
consistency, despite significant political and ideological change. Dauber’s
pathbreaking and highly readable book uncovers the historical origins of the
modern American welfare state.
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| Michele Landis Dauber (credit) |
“A marvelous, deeply researched history of the largely forgotten role of federal disaster relief in the historical development of the American welfare state. Michele Landis Dauber shows very creatively how the Great Depression came to be understood as a single, monolithic event—as a disaster—that justified new and expansive forms of relief. Political scientists and historians will have to contend with her central argument: that the New Deal was less the product of a ‘constitutional revolution’ than ordinary lawyering from long-settled precedents.” -- Michael Willrich (Brandeis University)
“The Sympathetic State is a revisionist history for our contested present. As Dauber masterfully shows, the more than two-hundred-year history of federal disaster relief indicates that national social policies fit comfortably with longstanding American constitutional traditions. You cannot fully understand current debates—or where they might yet go—until you read this book.” -- Jacob Hacker (Yale University)
Follow the link for more blurbs and the TOC. For reviews, check out Dauber's Stanford Law website, which provides links to coverage in the Washington Monthly, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and other publications. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the book has received lots of (well-deserved) attention.
