Historians disagree over the origins of the welfare state. Some maintain that the United States followed the lead of industrial nations in Europe, where the first social insurance laws were enacted in the 1880s and 1890s. Similar laws were not established in the United States until the 1930s (see Chapter 25). Marxist historians pointed to the emergence of these laws as a way for capitalism to control the working class and head off more radical change.

Other historians and social scientists have placed the origins of the welfare state in late nineteenth-century America. These scholars focus on the activities of interest groups, especially veterans', women's, and other voluntary organizations. Lobbying by these organizations resulted in an extensive aid program for Civil War veterans and, in the first two decades of the twentieth century, benefits for mothers and pensions for widows in over 40 states. Many of these benefits were more elaborate than those in Europe.

1			These two essays both trace the origins of the United States welfare systems in reform movements at the turn of the twentieth century. However, they find these roots in very different places. Whom does each author perceive as the driving forces behind this movement? What evidence do they marshal to support their arguments? In your opinion, how convincing are their theories? What, if any, contemporary ideological agendas are these authors promoting? How, if at all, should these potential biases affect our assessments of their arguments? Can and should historians work to neutralize such agendas? If so, how? http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0300/3_25/59226322/p1/article.jhtml http://www.eh.net/bookreviews/library/0237.shtml