52842

Page 119

82 Journal or American Ethnic History / Fall 1992 shared the shame associated with having a family member in an institution. Italian immigrants were more able to depend on family members than the Irish - many of whom lived in the Homes for the Aged of the Little Sisters of the Poor - because of differences in marriage patterns. Irish men and women were much less likely, and Italians much more likely to marry and have children than the general population. According to my study of New York families, in 1925 the east and south European-born men and women were more likely to live with children than the American and west European-born elderly .72 Transformation of American agrarian poor laws into an industrial based welfare program was especially significant for the elderly . But the religious influence on over-all Progressive reform affected children before filtering into care for dependent adults. In 1898 the Catholic Home Bureau for Dependent Children in New York City condemned institutions, promoting home placement and the principle that no family should be broken by destitution alone. Gradually the principle energized by Catholic child-care workers would also dominate social workers concerned with the elderly . 73 Incoming immigrants outpaced the ability of social agencies to cope. In 1910 the United Hebrew Charities was convinced that public provision was essential to save private relief societies from bankruptcy. By 1915, even with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor was unable to collect sufficient funds to continue its program supporting orphaned children, compelling them to discard a long-standing opposition to public funding. Later that year Child Welfare Boards were introduced in counties and cities to dispense widows' pensions outside the existing poor relief machinery. The new boards were expected to remove the stigma of pauperism and take the payment of funds outside the hands of politically appointed, hence suspect, poor relief officers. Child welfare boards paved the way for public aid to the needy of all ages. 74 During the 1920s charitable societies "discovered" the problem of old age poverty. Even though old age was cited for a small proportion of families aided by the Community Organization Society (COS), the number of families with a dependent elder doubled between 1922, when only 6.4 percent of the COS families had an elderly member, to 9.5 percent (442 families) in 1928. Twice as many families were put on allowances (31 cases in 1926, 68 cases in 1928). Although the sentiment expressed in a 1929 memo from the Society's central office seems obvious, the approach was new . Weiler 83 When an aged couple have had a stable home ... when their personal relationships have been wholesome, and they are fairly self-maintaining physically and mentally, it is desirable to keep them in the community. It may however be a wise precaution to . .. enter each on the waiting list of an appropriate institution. It may be desirable to supplement the earnings of the partially selfsupporting person who has preserved a sense of independence, who has his own social and recreational resources.75 A new perception of adequate living standards, explained a 1930 Community Organization Society memo, meant that what fifty years earlier "would have passed unnoticed because of their commonness," deserved charitable support. Equally significant, the multiplication of agencies had "greatly accelerated the discovery of cases."76 Just w nen professional social workers undertook special efforts for the elderly poor, a group of advocates focused on pensions. The surge of attention to the elderly culminated in the establ ishment of th e New York Commission on Old Age Security in 1929. The subsequent re form o f New York poor laws concerning the elderly in turn helped pave the way for the Social Security Act of 1935. Social workers joined the pension movement. If the elderly received public aid, then charitable resources could be concentrated on people amenable to rehabilitation. Hence, emphasis shifted from providing housing and personal care, more of which went to women, to providing income based on prior workforce participation, which would mostly benefit men. Ironically, the Social Security Act, as part of a continuing policy of labor market control, established a bifurcated structure that separated benefits to the poor from those available to all citizens. 77 Means-tested poor relief remained under state control and private charity continued to supplement aid to the "worthy" poor. In the zeal to divorce old-age pensions from poor relief and its worst segment, the almshouse, state and later federal payments to institutions were banned. Since the laws ignored home nursing care, local welfare officials reimbursed women with ailing husbands who took other invalids into their homes for fees . As a result, the proprietary nursing homes were born that ultimately replaced the almshouses. 7M Once the barrier to public aid was removed in the 1940s, homes for the aged expanded, but the profit-making homes quickly outpaced those with religious sponsorship. Most of the homes established during the period of expansion before 1930 continued to exist, but growth stagnated after the advent of s~ al security and reform of the poor laws. The role of public funding has ~ /