Abstract
The Townsend movement, which sought pensions for the elderly in the Great Depression, was much larger in some states than others and its size fluctuated in the 1930s. Frustration or grievance theory predicts that the movement would be stronger when and where old people suffered more. The challenger perspective expects greater growth when and where indigenous organizations of the aged already existed. Political opportunity theories expect challenges to flourish when and where openings are provided by members of the polity or by related challenges. We supplement these theories by exploring the concept of political opportunity from an institutionalist perspective, assessing the model by comparing it with the other perspectives to account for longitudinal and cross-sectional differences in the movement’s strength. Although some support for each perspective was found, the movement was spurred most by indigenous organizations and different forms of political opportunity. We suggest an expansion of Tilly’s polity model, to recognize that the political party system can influence challenges and that the structure and policies of the state can aid challenges as well as hinder them.
Reprinted from American Sociological Review, vol. 56, no. 2 (April 1991), pp. 250–65.
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References
Altmeyer, Arthur (1966) The Formative Years of Social Security (Madison, WI.: University of Wiscons in Press).
Amenta, Edwin and Bruce G. Carruthers (1988) “The Formative Years of U.S. Social Spending Policies: Theories of the Welfare State and the American States During the Great Depression.” American Sociological Review, vol. 53, pp. 661–78.
Amenta, Edwin, Yvonne Zylan and Bruce G. Carruthers (1989) “A Hero For the Aged? The Townsend Movement and Social Spending Policies For the Aged in America, 1934–1950,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco.
Barnes, Donna (1984) Farmers in Rebellion: The Rise and Fall of the Southern Farmers’ Alliance ( Austin: University of Texas Press).
Bennett, David H. (1969)Demagogues in the Depression: American Radicals and the Union Party, 1932–1936 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press).
Brandeis, Elizabeth (1935) “Labor Legislation,” in John R. Commons (ed.), History of Labor in the United States, 1896–1932, vol. III ( New York: Macmillan ), pp. 399–700.
Brinkley, Alan (1982) Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin and the Great Depression ( New York: Random House).
Cantril, Hadley (1941) The Psychology of Social Movements ( New York: John Wiley and Sons).
Chandler, Lester V. (1970) America’s Greatest Depression, 1929–1941 ( New York: Harper & Row ).
Congressional Quarterly (1985) Guide to U.S. Elections, 2nd edn ( Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly).
Conyngton, Mary (1934) “Extent and Distribution of Old-Age Depen-dency in the United States.” Monthly Labor Review, vol. 38, pp. 1–10.
Davies, James C. (1962) “Toward a Theory of Revolution.” American So-ciological Review, vol. 27, pp. 5–19.
Dryzek, John and Robert E. Goodin (1986) “Risk-Sharing and Social Justice: The Motivational Foundations of the Post-War Welfare State,” British Journal of Political Science, vol. 16, pp. 1–34.
Edwards, P. K. (1981) Strikes in the United States, 1881–1974 ( New York: St. Martin’s Press ).
Epstein, Abraham ( 1938, 1968) Insecurity: A Challenge to America ( New York: Agathon Press).
Freeman, Jo (1973) “The Origins of the Women’s Liberation Movement,” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 78, pp. 792–811.
Gamson, William A. (1975) The Strategy of Social Protest (Homewood, Il: Dorsey).
Gamson, William A. (1980) “Understanding the Careers of Challenging Groups.” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 85, pp. 1043–60.
Goodwyn, Lawrence (1978) The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America ( New York: Oxford University Press).
Grand Army of the Republic (1921) Journal of the 54th National Encamp-ment of the Grand Army of the Republic ( Washington, DC: US Govern-ment Printing Office).
Grand Army of the Republic (1931) Journal of the 64th National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office).
Griffin, Larry J., Michael E. Wallace and Beth A. Rubin (1986) “Capital-ist Resistance to the Organization of Labor Before the New Deal: How?Why? Success?” American Sociological Review, vol. 51, pp. 147–67.
Hansen, Susan B. (1983) The Politics of Taxation: Revenue Without Repre-sentation ( New York: Praeger).
Hofstadter, Richard (1952) The Age of Reform ( New York: Vintage).
Holtzman, Abraham (1963) The Townsend Movement: A Political Study ( New York: Bookman).
Hurja, Emil (1935) materials Relating to the “National Inquirer,” presi-dential preference polls, FDR Library: Hurja Papers, Box 72.
Jenkins, J. Craig (1985) The Politics of Insurgency: The Farm Worker Move-ment in the 1960s ( New York: Columbia University Press).
Key, V. O. (1949) Southern Politics in State and Nation ( New York: Knopf).
Kitschelt, Herbert P. (1986) “Political Opportunity Structures and Pol-itical Protest: Anti-Nuclear Movements in Four Democracies.” British Journal of Political Science, vol. 16, pp. 57–85.
Kornhauser, William (1959) The Politics of Mass Society ( New York: Free Press).
Kousser, J. Morgan (1974) The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880–1910 ( New Haven, CT: Yale University Press ).
Lewis, Sinclair ( 1935, 1970) It Can’t Happen Here ( New York: New American Library).
March, James and Johan P. Olsen (1984) “The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life,” American Political Science Review, vol. 78, pp. 734–49.
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McCarthy, John D. and Mayer Zald (1977) “Resource Mobilization in Social Movements: a Partial Theory,” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 82, pp. 1212–39.
Merton, Robert K. and Alice S. Rossi (1968) “Contributions to the Theory of Reference Group Behavior,” in Robert K. Merton (ed.), Social Theory and Social Structure ( New York: The Free Press ), pp. 279–334.
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Morris, Aldon D. (1984) The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change ( New York: The Free Press).
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Oberschall, Anthony (1973) Social Conflict and Social Movements ( Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall).
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Quadagno, Jill S. (1988) The Transformation of Old-Age Security: Class and Politics in the American Welfare State (University of Chicago Press).
Rogin, Michael Paul (1967) The Intellectuals and McCarthy: The Radical Specter ( Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press).
Shefter, Martin (1983) “Regional Receptivity to Reform: the Legacy of the Progressive Era.” Political Science Quarterly, vol. 98, pp. 459–83.
Skocpol, Theda (1979) States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge University Press).
Skocpol, Theda (1985) “Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research,” in Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschmeyer and Theda Skocpol (eds), Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge University Press), pp. 3–37.
Smelser, Neil (1962) Theory of Collective Behavior (New York Free Press).
Stark, Rodney and William Sims Bainbridge (1985) The Future of Religion ( Berkeley: University of California Press).
Tarrow, Sidney (1988) “National Politics and Collective Action: Recent Theory and Research in Western Europe and the United States,” Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 14, pp. 421–40.
Tilly, Charles (1975) “Revolutions and Collective Violence,” in Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby (eds), The Handbook of Political Science ( Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley ), pp. 483–555.
Tilly, Charles (1978) From Mobilization to Revolution ( Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley).
Townsend, Francis E. (1943) New Horizons: An Autobiography, edited by Jesse George Murray ( Chicago: J. L. Stewart).
Townsend National Weekly(1938–1950) (Chicago: Townsend National Weekly).
Troy, Leo and Neil Sheflin (1985) U.S. Union Sourcebook ( West Orange, NJ: Industrial Relations Data and Information Services).
US Bureau of the Census (1932) Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1931 ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office ).
US Bureau of the Census (1935) Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1935 ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office ).
US Bureau of the Census (1938) Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1938 ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office ).
US Bureau of the Census (1941) Religious Bodies, 1936, Vol. I ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office ).
US Bureau of the Census (1942) Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1942 ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office ).
US Bureau of the Census (1948) Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1948 ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office ).
US Bureau of the Census (1975) Historical Statistics of the United States: From Colonial Times to 1970 ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office ).
US Congress House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means (1935) Hearings on the Economic Security Act ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office).
US Congress House of Representatives (1936) Hearings Before the Select Committee Investigating Old Age Pension Organizations, seventy-fourth congress, second session, vols. 1 and 2 ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office ).
US Congress Senate Committee on Finances (1935) Hearings on the Economic Security Act ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office).
US Social Security Board (1937) Social Security in America: The Factual Background of the Social Security Act as Summarized From Staff Reports to the Committee on Economic Security ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office).
US Social Security Board (1938) “Special Types of Public Assistance.” Social Security Bulletin, vol. 1, pp. 44–50.
Valelly, Richard M. (1989) Radicalism in the States: The Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party and the American Political Economy (University of Chicago Press).
Walsh, Edward J. (1981) “Resource Mobilization and Citizen Protest in Communities Around Three-Mile Island.” Social Problems, vol. 29, pp. 1–21.
Witte, Edwin E. (1943) “American Post-War Social Security Proposals.” American Economic Review, vol. 33, pp. 825–38.
Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) (1927–1929) Report of the Annual Convention of the National WCTU (Minneapolis: Woman’s Christian Temperance Union).
Altmeyer, Arthur (1966) The Formative Years of Social Security (Madison, WI.: University of Wiscons in Press).
Amenta, Edwin and Bruce G. Carruthers (1988) “The Formative Years of U.S. Social Spending Policies: Theories of the Welfare State and the American States During the Great Depression.”American Sociological Review , vol. 53, pp. 661-78.
Amenta, Edwin, Yvonne Zylan and Bruce G. Carruthers (1989) “A Hero For the Aged? The Townsend Movement and Social Spending Policies For the Aged in America, 1934–1950,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco.
Barnes, Donna (1984) Farmers in Rebellion: The Rise and Fall of the Southern Farmers’ Alliance ( Austin: University of Texas Press).
Bennett, David H. (1969) Demagogues in the Depression: American Radicals and the Union Party, 1932–1936 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press).
Brandeis, Elizabeth (1935) “Labor Legislation,” in John R. Commons (ed.), History of Labor in the United States, 1896–1932, vol. III ( New York: Macmillan ), pp. 399–700.
Brinkley, Alan (1982) Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin and the Great Depression ( New York: Random House).
Cantril, Hadley (1941) The Psychology of Social Movements ( New York: John Wiley and Sons).
Chandler, Lester V. (1970) America’s Greatest Depression, 1929–1941 ( New York: Harper & Row ).
Congressional Quarterly (1985) Guide to U.S. Elections, 2nd edn ( Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly).
Conyngton, Mary (1934) “Extent and Distribution of Old-Age Depen-dency in the United States.” Monthly Labor Review, vol. 38, pp. 1–10.
Davies, James C. (1962) “Toward a Theory of Revolution.” American So-ciological Review, vol. 27, pp. 5–19.
Dryzek, John and Robert E. Goodin (1986) “Risk-Sharing and Social Justice: The Motivational Foundations of the Post-War Welfare State,” British Journal of Political Science, vol. 16, pp. 1–34.
Edwards, P. K. (1981) Strikes in the United States, 1881–1974 ( New York: St. Martin’s Press ).
Epstein, Abraham ( 1938, 1968) Insecurity: A Challenge to America ( New York: Agathon Press).
Freeman, Jo (1973) “The Origins of the Women’s Liberation Movement,” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 78, pp. 792–811.
Gamson, William A. (1975) The Strategy of Social Protest (Homewood, Il: Dorsey).
Gamson, William A. (1980) “Understanding the Careers of Challenging Groups.” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 85, pp. 1043–60.
Goodwyn, Lawrence (1978) The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America ( New York: Oxford University Press).
Grand Army of the Republic (1921) Journal of the 54th National Encamp-ment of the Grand Army of the Republic ( Washington, DC: US Govern-ment Printing Office).
Grand Army of the Republic (1931) Journal of the 64th National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office).
Griffin, Larry J., Michael E. Wallace and Beth A. Rubin (1986) “Capital-ist Resistance to the Organization of Labor Before the New Deal: How?Why? Success?” American Sociological Review, vol. 51, pp. 147–67.
Hansen, Susan B. (1983) The Politics of Taxation: Revenue Without Repre-sentation ( New York: Praeger).
Hofstadter, Richard (1952) The Age of Reform ( New York: Vintage).
Holtzman, Abraham (1963) The Townsend Movement: A Political Study ( New York: Bookman).
Hurja, Emil (1935) materials Relating to the “National Inquirer,” presi-dential preference polls, FDR Library: Hurja Papers, Box 72.
Jenkins, J. Craig (1985) The Politics of Insurgency: The Farm Worker Move-ment in the 1960s ( New York: Columbia University Press).
Key, V. O. (1949) Southern Politics in State and Nation ( New York: Knopf).
Kitschelt, Herbert P. (1986) “Political Opportunity Structures and Pol-itical Protest: Anti-Nuclear Movements in Four Democracies.” British Journal of Political Science, vol. 16, pp. 57–85.
Kornhauser, William (1959) The Politics of Mass Society ( New York: Free Press).
Kousser, J. Morgan (1974) The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880–1910 ( New Haven, CT: Yale University Press ).
Lewis, Sinclair ( 1935, 1970) It Can’t Happen Here ( New York: New American Library).
March, James and Johan P. Olsen (1984) “The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life,” American Political Science Review, vol. 78, pp. 734–49.
Marwell, Gerald and Pamela Oliver (1984) “Collective Action Theory and Social Movements Research.” Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, vol. 7, pp. 1–27.
Marx-Karl and Friedrich Engels (1848, 1978 ) “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” by Robert C. Tucker (ed.), The Marx Engels Reader ( New York: W. W. Norton ), pp. 499–500.
Mayhew, David R. (1986) Placing Parties in American Politics (Princeton University Press).
McAdam, Doug (1982) Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency (University of Chicago Press).
McAdam, Doug, John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald (1988) “Social Movements,” in Neil J. Smelser (ed.), The Handbook of Sociology ( Beverly Hills, CA: Sage ), pp. 695–737.
McCarthy, John D. and Mayer Zald (1977) “Resource Mobilization in Social Movements: a Partial Theory,” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 82, pp. 1212–39.
Merton, Robert K. and Alice S. Rossi (1968) “Contributions to the Theory of Reference Group Behavior,” in Robert K. Merton (ed.), Social Theory and Social Structure ( New York: The Free Press ), pp. 279–334.
Messinger, Sheldon L. (1955) “Organizational Transformation: A Case Study of a Declining Movement.” American Sociological Review, vol. 20, pp. 3–10.
Morris, Aldon D. (1984) The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change ( New York: The Free Press).
Neuberger, Richard L. and Kelley Loe (1936) An Army of the Aged: A History and Analysis of the Townsend Old Age Pension Plan ( Caldwell, ID: The Caxton Printers).
Oberschall, Anthony (1973) Social Conflict and Social Movements ( Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall).
Perrow, Charles (1979) “The Sixties Observed,” in Mayer N. Zald and John D. McCarthy (eds), The Dynamics of Social Movements ( Cambridge, MA: Winthrop Publishers ), pp. 192–211.
Piven, Frances Fox and Richard A. Cloward (1977) Poor People’s Movements ( New York: Random House).
Quadagno, Jill S. (1988) The Transformation of Old-Age Security: Class and Politics in the American Welfare State (University of Chicago Press).
Rogin, Michael Paul (1967) The Intellectuals and McCarthy: The Radical Specter ( Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press).
Shefter, Martin (1983) “Regional Receptivity to Reform: the Legacy of the Progressive Era.” Political Science Quarterly, vol. 98, pp. 459–83.
Skocpol, Theda (1979) States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge University Press).
Skocpol, Theda (1985) “Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research,” in Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschmeyer and Theda Skocpol (eds), Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge University Press), pp. 3–37.
Smelser, Neil (1962) Theory of Collective Behavior (New York Free Press).
Stark, Rodney and William Sims Bainbridge (1985) The Future of Religion ( Berkeley: University of California Press).
Tarrow, Sidney (1988) “National Politics and Collective Action: Recent Theory and Research in Western Europe and the United States,” Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 14, pp. 421–40.
Tilly, Charles (1975) “Revolutions and Collective Violence,” in Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby (eds), The Handbook of Political Science ( Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley ), pp. 483–555.
Tilly, Charles (1978) From Mobilization to Revolution ( Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley).
Townsend, Francis E. (1943) New Horizons: An Autobiography, edited by Jesse George Murray ( Chicago: J. L. Stewart).
Townsend National Weekly(1938–1950) (Chicago: Townsend National Weekly).
Troy, Leo and Neil Sheflin (1985) U.S. Union Sourcebook ( West Orange, NJ: Industrial Relations Data and Information Services).
US Bureau of the Census (1932) Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1931 ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office ).
US Bureau of the Census (1935) Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1935 ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office ).
US Bureau of the Census (1938) Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1938 ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office ).
US Bureau of the Census (1941) Religious Bodies, 1936, Vol. I ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office ).
US Bureau of the Census (1942) Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1942 ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office ).
US Bureau of the Census (1948) Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1948 ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office ).
US Bureau of the Census (1975) Historical Statistics of the United States: From Colonial Times to 1970 ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office ).
US Congress House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means (1935) Hearings on the Economic Security Act ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office).
US Congress House of Representatives (1936) Hearings Before the Select Committee Investigating Old Age Pension Organizations, seventy-fourth congress, second session, vols. 1 and 2 ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office ).
US Congress Senate Committee on Finances (1935) Hearings on the Economic Security Act ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office).
US Social Security Board (1937) Social Security in America: The Factual Background of the Social Security Act as Summarized From Staff Reports to the Committee on Economic Security ( Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office).
US Social Security Board (1938) “Special Types of Public Assistance.” Social Security Bulletin, vol. 1, pp. 44–50.
Valelly, Richard M. (1989) Radicalism in the States: The Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party and the American Political Economy (University of Chicago Press).
Walsh, Edward J. (1981) “Resource Mobilization and Citizen Protest in Communities Around Three-Mile Island.” Social Problems, vol. 29, pp. 1–21.
Witte, Edwin E. (1943) “American Post-War Social Security Proposals.” American Economic Review, vol. 33, pp. 825–38.
Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) (1927–1929) Report of the Annual Convention of the National WCTU (Minneapolis: Woman’s Christian Temperance Union).
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Amenta, E., Zylan, Y. (1995). It Happened Here:Political Opportunity,the New nstitutionalism,and the Townsend Movement. In: Lyman, S.M. (eds) Social Movements. Main Trends of the Modern World. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23747-0_10
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