91B0FBB4-04A9-D5D7-16F0F3976AA697ED
C9A22247-E776-B892-2D807E7555171534

Forty years ago on January 8, 1964, when President Lyndon Johnson declared his historic "war on poverty" nearly 50 million American were living in poverty. In his first State of the Union Address Johnson declared that his administration, "today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America."  He created a new Office of Economic Opportunity to coordinate social programs for the poor but when he left office in 1969 the war on poverty was far from won.

Maurice Isserman, professor of history at Hamilton College, says, "Since the 1960s Americans have been told that the 'war on poverty' was an expensive failure, and that its failure proved the folk wisdom that 'you can't solve problems by throwing money at them.' In fact, as Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once commented, the war on poverty was 'over-sold and underfinanced' to the point that its failure was inevitable."

The man given credit for influencing Washington policymakers to tackle poverty in the 1960s was Michael Harrington, the author of The Other America. Isserman in his biography of Harrington wrote, "[The Other America] defined poverty as a social and moral issue worth confronting." Isserman explained that, according to James Sundquist, a political scientist who helped draft the war on poverty legislations, "The measures enacted [up though 1963] … were dealing separately with such problems as slum housing, juvenile delinquency, unemployment -- were separately inadequate." Sundquist credited Harrington's book with ending the "piecemeal" thinking about domestic problems.

The resulting Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 combined old and started new programs like VISTA, Neighborhood Youth Corps, Head Start, Job Corps and Community Action Program. As spending for the Vietnam War increased, the already poorly financed war on poverty lost further ground and did little more than frustrate the poor and their advocates.

###

Hamilton College professor of history Maurice Isserman is an expert on 20th-century U.S. history, particularly the 1960s. An expert on reform and radical movements Isserman is widely acknowledged to be the preeminent historian of the American left. A former Fulbright grant-winner, he is co-author of America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s. His book, The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington, has been named to countless non-fiction "must-read" lists. Newly revised editions of his books World War Two, The Korean War, and The Vietnam War, were published in 2003.  His current research is on the history of mountaineering. Isserman has recently returned from England, where he was on academic exchange with Pembroke College and Oxford University.
Isserman may be reached at 315-859-4414 or misserma@hamilton.edu


Adair Comments on Poverty
The 2002 U.S. Census reported 34.6 million American's living in poverty. Vivyan Adair, professor of women's studies at Hamilton College, says, "We have moved from an ethos that challenges us to commit a war on poverty to one that allows us to enact a war on the poor."

She says, "Increasingly rather than assisting the poor in exiting poverty, we blame, mock and ridicule them."  Since the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996" and then reauthorization of this welfare reform act in 2002, Adair says policy has been crafted, not to help but rather to "discipline and punish" the poor by prohibiting them from earning educational degrees and forcing them into low-wage, dead-end jobs with which they cannot adequately support their families.

###

Vivyan Adair is studying representations of women on welfare, and analyzing the impact of welfare reform. A former welfare recipient, Adair obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Washington. She is currently a professor at Hamilton College and director and founder of Hamilton's ACCESS Project, a pilot program that assists disadvantaged parents in New York obtain a higher education. She is the author of From Good Ma to Welfare Queen, A Genealogy of the Poor Woman in American Literature, Photography and Culture, a study that explores literary, photographic and cultural representations of poor American women and offers a view of the interlocking systems of race, gender and class oppression (2000). Adair is also co-editor of Women, Poverty and the Promise of Education in America, (Temple University Press, 2003).
Contact Holly Foster hfoster@hamilton.edu or (315) 859-4068 to schedule an interview.

Help us provide an accessible education, offer innovative resources and programs, and foster intellectual exploration.

Site Search