The New Deal and Beyond: Social Welfare in the South since 1930.

The New Deal and Beyond: Social Welfare in the South since 1930. Edited by Elna C. Green. (Athens, Ga., and London: University of Georgia Press, c. 2003. Pp. xx, 275. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 0-8203-2482-5; $49.95, ISBN 0-8203-2481-7.)

As the editor of this book acknowledges, the title is a bit of a misnomer because the essays do not cover all aspects of social welfare in the South since 1930. Instead the book consists of five select chapters on welfare in the South during the New Deal years and five chapters on welfare in the South between 1960 and 1980. Most of the chapters in the second section deal with various aspects of the Great Society.

The first two chapters in the book, one written by Georgina Hickey and the other by Brenda J. Taylor, address gender and race in two New Deal programs--the Works Progress Administration and the Farm Security Administration. Both discuss the varying interests of middle-class reformers and working-class welfare recipients. Ann Short Chirhart also covers gender and race in her chapter on the limited but significant improvements in schooling for blacks and whites in Georgia. Jeffrey S. Cole examines how the assumption of responsibility for transients by the federal government affected southern communities, and Ted Olson looks at the effect that construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway had on local residents. A notable omission from this section of the book (as the editor acknowledges) is any discussion of Social Security programs, including old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.

In the second section of the book, which deals with welfare beyond the New Deal, Jill Quadagno and Steve McDonald explain how segregation of hospitals (though not of nursing homes) ended with Medicare. In other chapters, Robert R. Korstad and James L. Leloudis discuss how student volunteers for the North Carolina Fund prefigured the national War on Poverty; Kent B. Germany demonstrates how the Great Society opened doors for black politicians in New Orleans; and Susan Youngblood Ashmore reveals the important impact that the Catholic Church had by sponsoring Head Start programs in Mobile. The last chapter of the book, by Marsha S. Rose, is the only one that deals with private welfare--the Kentucky Foundation for Women founded by Sallie Bingham in 1986. As in the first section, there is a lot missing, including any discussion of welfare in the 1940s, 1950s, 1980s, and 1990s and of programs such as Food Stamps, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and Temporary Aid to Needy Families.

Although the book is not all-inclusive, it is nonetheless a worthy successor to Green's earlier volume entitled Before the New Deal: Social Welfare in the South, 1830-1930 (Athens, Ga., 1999). Both books focus on the uniqueness of welfare in the South yet do not neglect the ways in which southern welfare policies and practices mirrored those in other parts of the country. This volume particularly emphasizes the interaction between federal welfare policies and state and local political, economic, and social interests. In her introduction to this volume, Green also points out further areas for research in social welfare in the South.

One of the great strengths of the book is that nearly all of the authors pay close attention to issues of race, gender, and politics. The authors are also careful to point out both the strengths and the weaknesses of the programs they analyze. Thus, even though the range of topics is limited, those that are included in this volume are handled with considerable sophistication and should be of interest to historians both of the South and of social welfare.

PRISCILLA FERGUSON CLEMENT

Penn State University