Women, the State, and Welfare - Hardcover

Linda Gordon is the Florence Kelley Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Among her many publications are Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America and Heroes of Their Own Lives: The Politics and History of Family Violence, Boston 1880-1960.

“When readers finish this collection of essays, they will have no doubt at all that the welfare state is deeply gendered and that explanations or interpretations of the American welfare state that relegate gender to the margins rather than the center are totally inadequate.  Linda Gordon’s introduction alone is practically worth the price of the whole book.”—Susan Ware, New York University


“The collection moves beyond simplistic and ahistorical notions about the U.S. state’s effect on women and women’s effect on the state.  Gordon’s rich introductory essay, ‘The New Feminist Scholarship on the Welfare State’ is invaluable not only for relating the other essays to current social and feminist theory, but for its analysis which guides the reader through the rest of the book.  .  .  .  A welcome addition to the study of women, politics, and the welfare state.”—Ann Withorn, The Women’s Review of Books


“Gordon’s book deserves serious consideration by scholars of social welfare in the U.S. because of its challenge to take the gendered nature of the welfare system more seriously.”—Choice


“This book is one of those rareties, the well-chosen, carefully chosen volume of essays.  It provides an excellent way into American feminist historiography on women and welfare.”—Jane Lewis, London School of Economics