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History (4,530 posts)

Social Security Act: 1939 Amendments

HomePage2ssamendSSA

The original Social Security Act provided only retirement benefits, and only to the worker. The 1939 Amendments made a fundamental change in the Social Security program. The Amendments added two new categories of benefits: payments to the spouse and minor children of a retired worker (so-called dependents benefits) and survivors benefits paid to the family in the event of the premature death of a covered worker. This change transformed Social Security from a retirement program for workers into a family-based economic security program (the 1939 Amendments also increased benefit amounts and accelerated the start of monthly benefit payments to 1940). The 1939 Amendments thus became a pivotal turning-point. Indeed, the 1939 law is probably second in importance only to the original Act itself in shaping Social Security in America.

BBC Radio 4′s Mad Houses

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madhousesBBC

Ken Arnold explores how three European countries variously tell the history of mental illness. What do museums of madness tell us about who we were and who we are? Ken Arnold, Head of Public Programmes at the Wellcome Trust, visits three of Europe’s old ‘mad houses’ that are now museums in Aarhus in Denmark, Haarlem in the Netherlands and Ghent in Belgium. Two of these institutions still function as psychiatric hospitals.

The morbidity and mortality linked to melancholia: two cohorts compared, 1875-1924 and 1995-2005

History of psychiatry

For over a century, melancholia has been linked to increased rates of morbidity and mortality. Data from two epidemiologically complete cohorts of patients presenting to mental health services in North Wales (1874–1924 and 1995–2005) have been used to look at links between diagnoses of melancholia in the first period and severe hospitalized depressive disorders today and other illnesses, and to calculate mortality rates.

Revisiting mental hygiene: Josef Lundahl’s interpretation of modern psychiatry in Sweden at the beginning of the twentieth century

History of psychiatry

The aim of this essay is to highlight the literary and scientific works of a Swedish psychiatrist, Josef Lundahl, an advocate of the mental hygiene concept. A close reading of his texts is used to provide an example of how the concept of mental hygiene was understood by a psychiatrist and practitioner of mental hygiene.

Social work with families; social case treatment .. (1918)

CaptureswwfiaINternet Archive | Cornell University Library

pt. I. The approach to social case treatment: The opportunities of social case treatment, by K. de Schweinitz. Case work and social reform, by Mary Van Kleeck. The normal family, by Margaret F. Byington.–pt. II. Social case work with the physically or mentally handicapped: Offsetting the handicap of blindness, by Lucy Wright. The cripple and his place in the community, by Amy M. Hamburger. The sick, by Edna G. Henry. Principles of case work with the feeble-minded, by Catherine Brannick. Case work in the field of mental hygiene, by Elnora E. Thomson.–pt. III. Social case work with the socially handicapped: The fatherless family, by Helen G. Tyson. Desertion and non-support in family case work, by Joanna C. Colcord. The illegitimate family, by Amey E. Watson. The foster care of neglected and dependent children, by J.P. Murphy. Essentials of case treatment with delinquent children, by H.W. Thurston. The homeless, by S.A. Rice. Alcohol and social case work, by Mary P. Wheeler. The immigrant family, by Eva W. White. The soldiers’ and sailors’ families, by W.F. Persons

Fictional obscenities: lesbianism and censorship in the early 20th century

tanbNational Archives

How was the concept of obscenity governed in the absence of specific statutes that defined what was and was not obscene? To what extent was this governance an effect of the time and place in which it emerged? Drawing on early twentieth century case studies, all of which are compiled from files in the National Archives, Dr Louise Chambers investigates these questions in relation to the banning of novels whose narratives featured same sex relations between women.

The Uses of History in the Unmaking of Modern Suicide

j of social history 2

This paper explores the notion that the writing of history has played a role in the making of modern suicide, and that it can have its uses in its “unmaking.” Examples of the making of modern suicide come from the writings of nineteenth century doctors concerned with formulating new medical truths of suicide, and who came to describe well-known historical “suicides” (e.g., that of Cato) in terms of pathology as part of this project.

Sex, Public Health and Colonial Control: The Campaign Against Venereal Diseases in Germany’s Overseas Possessions, 1884-1914

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In the latter part of the nineteenth century, venereal diseases were seen not only as a problem in Germany, but also in its colonial empire. In Germany, doctors believed that through their scientific training and education they could be successful in fighting VD through the use of a biopolitics aimed to educate and regulate the bodies of targeted groups.

From Statistics to Diagnostics: Medical Certificates, Melancholia, and "Suicidal Propensities" in Victorian Psychiatry

journal of social history

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the view that “[e]very case of melancholia should be looked upon as having a suicidal tendency” dominated among British asylum physicians. However, a generation earlier medical texts on melancholia contained only sporadic references to “suicide” and fewer still to the adjective “suicidal.”

Low Morals at a High Latitude? Suicide in Nineteenth-century Scandinavia

j of social history

This paper explores the usage of suicide statistics and the emergence of suicidology in nineteenth-century Scandinavia and Finland. Drawing upon texts from Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark—with a focus on Swedish language sources—it illustrates the significance that suicide statistics gained during this period, and pays attention to the question of how the Scandinavian discussion on suicide was linked to ideas from outside the geographic area.

Backlash against American psychology: An indigenous reconstruction of the history of German critical psychology.

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After suggesting that all psychologies contain indigenous qualities and discussing differences and commonalities between German and North American historiographies of psychology, an indigenous reconstruction of German critical psychology is applied. It is argued that German critical psychology can be understood as a backlash against American psychology, as a response to the Americanization of German psychology after WWII, on the background of the history of German psychology, the academic impact of the Cold War, and the trajectory of personal biographies and institutions.

Family wages: The roles of wives and mothers in U.S. working-class survival strategies, 1880–1930

labor history

The common image of a female wage earner in the U.S. in the decades around the turn of the 20th century is that of a young, single woman: the daughter of her family. However, the wives and mothers of these families also made important economic contributions to their families’ economies. This paper argues that we need to rethink our evaluation of the economic roles played by ever-married women in working-class families.

‘A Prostitution of the Profession’? Forcible Feeding, Prison Doctors, Suffrage and the British State, 1909-1914

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Historians have castigated the British medical profession for endorsing forcible feeding during the suffragette hunger strike campaigns of 1909 to 1914. This article reconsiders the importance of medical opposition to forcible feeding by closely analysing its agendas and, importantly, by positing that the medico-ethical debates sparked in that period set the stage for ethical discourses that have recurrently resurfaced ever since.

The Chlorpromazine Enigma

j of the hx of the neurosciences

Two revolutionary drugs were introduced into psychiatry in the early 1950s for the treatment of agitated mental patients — reserpine and chlorpromazine. These drugs initiated the modern era of drug treatment for schizophrenia and other psychoses. Early research revealed that, although the pharmacological profiles of the two drugs overlapped considerably, they had different mechanisms of action.

Herbert Hill and the Federal Bureau of Investigation

labor history

This article points to previously undetected evidence demonstrating that Herbert Hill, labor director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from the 1950s to the 1970s, informed for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on his former political associates in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

Chilean Protest Murals

chile_muralsChilean Protest Murals Photograph Collection, Widener Library.

Mural depicting a man and woman in a prison cell. Avenida Libertador General Bernardo O’Higgins, Santiago, Chile, ca. 1989. Andrés Romero Spethman, photographer.

Dr. Frances Fox Piven

piven1mainSmith College Sophia Smith Collection | Boston Sunday Globe/G Vasquez

Social theorist, welfare rights activist, and political science professor Frances Fox Piven was born in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta. Raised in New York, she was naturalized in 1953, the same year she received a BA in city planning from the University of Chicago. After receiving an MA (1956) and a Ph.D. (1962) from that institution, she moved to New York where she worked as a city planner and then as a research associate for one of the country’s first antipoverty agencies, Mobilization for Youth (MFY) on New York’s Lower East Side. In 1965 Piven and her MFY colleague Richard Cloward began a career of formulating the theoretical underpinnings of anti-poverty and welfare rights movements with the publication of a paper entitled “Mobilizing the Poor: How It Can Be Done”

Personal note: I found Dr. Piven to be the most compelling presence I have ever encountered in a classroom.