| Description |
In August of 1964, Congress responded to President Lyndon B. Johnson's declaration of War on Poverty, passing the Economic Opportunity Act (EOA). Three months later, Johnson secured a landslide victory for a second term, and for the last time in the twentieth century, the Utahns gave their electoral votes to a Democratic presidential candidate. From the very beginning, Utahns have had a complicated relationship with the federal government, insisting that federal officials leave them alone, while at the same time, benefitting greatly from many federal programs. Within the context of this complex history, this dissertation examines the implementation of the EOA antipoverty programs in Utah and analyzes how Utahns responded to them. Using Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) records, the public papers of elected officials, and newspaper coverage-both statewide and local-this study outlines how political and religious leaders and the general public responded to the EOA. The architects of the EOA established a number of programs to target the causes of poverty, and this dissertation describes the establishment of those programs in Utah and the local response to each. Individual chapters focus on the extent and nature of poverty in the state prior to the passage of the law and specific EOA programs designed to improve the lives of the state's rural poor, including Native Americans and migrant workers, and the poor living in urban areas. Programs spotlighted include the Neighborhood Youth Corps, Volunteers in Service to America, Community Action Programs, Head Start, Upward Bound, Legal Services, and Job Corps, the largest and most economically significant EOA program in Utah. Though many expressed their dislike of federal involvement in social matters and of individual EOA programs, groups in the state applied for OEO aid and gradually established the full complement of programs to assist the poor. Whether they liked or disliked them, Utahns employed similar arguments as people across the nation to justify their feelings about each program. While the EOA did not end poverty in Utah, it succeeded in creating programs that improved the lives of many residents, and they continue to positively impact many people, more than fifty years later. |
