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Transforming the Progressive Era Welfare State: Activists for the Blind and Blind Benefits

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

Thomas A. Krainz
Affiliation:
Framingham State College

Extract

On the evening of 21 November 1918, more than one hundred people gathered at Sullivan's Hall in Denver, Colorado, to celebrate voters’ recent approval of the Act for the Relief of the Adult Blind, a statewide initiative commonly referred to as blind benefits or blind pensions or blind aid. The new law guaranteed up to $300 annually in cash relief for each impoverished blind resident. The evening's entertainment included piano, violin, and vocal solos and duets as well as readings of poetry and literature. While people listened, they enjoyed a simple assortment of sandwiches, pies, and doughnuts. The electoral victory capped years of hard work by a small group of dedicated activists, most of whom were themselves blind. One leader of the local blind community, Mrs. Jennie Jackson, addressed the gathering to thank those who had helped to secure the initiative's approval and to proclaim joyously that “the adoption of this bill will be a great benefit to many of the blind of this state.”

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 2003

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References

Notes

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109. Auditor of State of Colorado, 1919–1920, 130.

110. Mrs. Lute Wilcox to Governor Oliver H. Shoup, 1922, Box 26959, Colorado State Archives, Denver.

111. Bureau of the Census, The Blind Population, 1920, 110–11.

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138. Best, Blindness and the Blind, 550–54.

139. tenBroek and Matson, Hope Deferred, 59.

140. Quote, Koestler, The Unseen Minority, 178, see also 176–79; tenBroek and Matson, Hope Deferred, 59–63; Irwin, As I Saw It, 178–81.

141. The creation of the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program in 1972 attempted to standardize and unify state-run programs, including Title X; nevertheless, various disabilities and causes of poverty still receive different treatment within SSI and in other welfare programs. In fact, at the same time that the federal government created SSI, it also established a separate program for black-lung sufferers, once again fracturing the welfare state. See Berkowitz, Edward D., Disabled Policy: America's Programs for the Handicapped (New York, 1987).Google Scholar