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Reviewed by:
  • The GI Bill
  • Albert J. Schmidt
The GI Bill. By Kathleen J. Frydl (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xvi plus 379 pp. $80.00).

The GI Bill of Rights evokes the image of thousands of ex-GIs' (of which this reviewer was one) descending onto college campuses after World War II, especially during the autumn of 1946. This picture is further embellished by older male students dressed casually in varying degrees of military attire, crowded living space whether dorms or hastily laid out Quonset camps for married vets, packed local Legion bars, and bookstores dolling out books indiscriminately with little regard for the legislation's strictures.

This focus distorts the Bill by equating it excessively with higher education, thereby obscuring its other important tenets. Along with numerous works that have appeared over the years, three published most recently—Suzanne Mettler's Soldiers to Citizens: the G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation (2005), Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin's The GI Bill, A New Deal for Veterans, and Kathleen Frydl's The GI Bill (2009)—have provided new insights regarding this monumental legislation by treating in detail hitherto neglected aspects. [End Page 637]

The GI Bill originated as S 16l7 and HR 3917 and after passage in both houses became Public Law 346, The World War II Servicemen's Readjustment Act. It became recognizable by its "titles": Title I specified its being administered by the Veterans Administration; Title II, which did encompass education, provided for the veteran's tuition and small stipend; Title III guaranteed a low interest loan for housing, business, or a farm if the veteran qualified at a bank; Title IV provided access to medical care; and Title V allowed the discharged veteran unemployment insurance up to a year, at $20 per week.

In Frydl's far ranging study there is more than meets the eye, certainly more than analyzing the several parts of the Bill: she focuses especially on the role of the GI Bill in the evolution of state power in this country and how it became a model for doing what the New Deal was generally unsuccessful in achieving, that is, boosting "laggard social policy". Frydl's intent is cogently stated (presumably by the book's editor) in a forward piece:

Scholars have argued about U.S. state development-in particular its laggard social policy and weak institutional capacity-for generations. Neo-institutionalism has informed and enriched these debates, but, as yet, no scholar has reckoned with a very successful and sweeping social policy designed by the federal government: the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, more popularly known as the GI Bill.

Frydl's seven chapters plus introduction and conclusion, reveals the book's scope-The Roots of the GI Bill, The GI Bill, Fall from Grace, Scandal and the GI Bill, African-American Veterans, Housing, and Higher Education. In ' Roots' the author recounts historical antecedents-treating not only World War I veterans's agitating for a bonus but also the connection between veteran policy and state power and the hovering presence of the New Deal. Her notion of the citizen-soldier in the U.S. as a 'prod to power' (pp. 36) is key. The GI Bill-and the politics surrounding its becoming law-is one of the best, especially her treatment of such improbable players as Mississippi's segregationist congressman John Rankin, the American Legion, and William Randolph Hearst-all of whom variously moved the legislation along. She recognizes Title II, whatever its shortcomings, as transforming the world of higher education and Title III as helping elevate a majority of Americans to "middle class' and in the process changing the landscape of America. Despite widespread veneration for the GI Bill, Frydl devotes a chapter to scandal and another to racism-- both crucial to a full understanding of the Bill. Overcharges by real schools and the emergence of fictional ones, Frydl argues, consumed a third of the $14.5 billion spent on education. Frydl's listing "the 52-20 club" as an abuse is not, as she admits, totally justified. Many returning veterans, long separated from home were, arguably, deserving of the time which...

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