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Journal of Policy History 15.2 (2003) 223-264



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Transforming the Progressive Era Welfare State:
Activists for the Blind and Blind Benefits

Thomas A. Krainz


On the evening of 21 November 1918, more than one hundred people gathered at Sullivan's Hall in Denver, Colorado, to celebrate voters' recent approval of the Act for the Relief of the Adult Blind, a statewide initiative commonly referred to as blind benefits or blind pensions or blind aid. The new law guaranteed up to $300 annually in cash relief for each impoverished blind resident. The evening's entertainment included piano, violin, and vocal solos and duets as well as readings of poetry and literature. While people listened, they enjoyed a simple assortment of sandwiches, pies, and doughnuts. The electoral victory capped years of hard work by a small group of dedicated activists, most of whom were themselves blind. One leader of the local blind community, Mrs. Jennie Jackson, addressed the gathering to thank those who had helped to secure the initiative's approval and to proclaim joyously that "the adoption of this bill will be a great benefit to many of the blind of this state." 1

Not only did Jackson's prediction prove correct for the indigent blind, as the new measure substantially increased relief levels compared to previous practices, but the blind benefit law also culminated a radical transformation in the delivery of aid. The blind community successfully created and independently controlled its own portion of the state's welfare pie, a piece consisting of several coordinated programs. Clients and potential clients of welfare had become the authorities and administrators of public aid. Also, blind benefits helped to initiate the permanent fragmentation of the welfare state, [End Page 223] which resulted in targeting specific relief programs and policies for specific groups.

The events in Colorado were by no means completely unique. In fact, statewide blind benefit laws were passed first in the Midwest—Ohio (1898), Illinois (1903), and Wisconsin (1907)—followed by several western and New England states. By 1919, thirteen states had approved specific blind aid measures, and one state, Kansas, had a general pension law that covered a number of disabilities, including blindness. 2 Colorado's blind benefits measure became the eleventh such law passed in the country. What makes the situation in Colorado noteworthy was that the state's blind aid act became the nation's most successful. By 1920, Colorado had the highest percentage of blind residents receiving public aid in the country, and the state's blind community had every intention of further increasing these numbers as well as the levels of support. 3 In addition to this success, Colorado's enthusiasm first for Progressivism and then for the antistatism that characterized the 1920s offers a unique setting to explore the struggles of a small group of disabled people to expand and maintain state services during two very different political climates.

In recent years, scholars have increasingly turned their attention to the development of America's welfare policies, generating one of the most active and productive fields of study. Inspired by new feminist research, by recent debates over the state and the polity, and by social control theories, scholars have investigated the Progressive Era with particular intensity. Despite their many differences, historians generally view the Progressive Era as a time of major transformation in America's welfare practices. Many scholars have identified the changes in welfare policies during the early twentieth century as responsible for creating a gendered two-track welfare system that channeled women and men into not only different types of relief but also treated women as dependents and men as independents. 4 Indigent single mothers, for example, often received mothers' pensions, a means- and behavioral-tested relief administered by social workers or county commissioners, while men obtained workmen's compensation or job-related pensions, forms of aid lacking any means or behavioral qualifications and administered by state boards. This gendered split in welfare practices during the Progressive Era, authors argue, laid the foundation for President Franklin Roosevelt...

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