Women's associations and the enactment of mothers' pensions in the United States.

The Mothers' pension were the earliest welfare benefits, apart from the poor relief in the United States. Statutes regarding these benefits in most states in the United States were implemented in the 1910s. The economic conditions, culture, ideology, electoral politics, labor and women's voluntary groups influenced these state enactments. The women's voluntary groups exerted an important influence on Mothers' pension enactments long before American women were granted the right to vote.

Mothers' pensions were the first explicit welfare benefits established outside of poor relief in the United ...

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