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The American Dole: Unemployment Relief and the Welfare State in the Great Depression. By Jeff Singleton. (Westport: Greenwood, 2000. x, 243 pp. $65.00, ISBN 0-313-31400-4.)
In this detailed, fascinating, and well-researched study, Jeff Singleton of Boston College points out the rarely examined rise in relief caseloads between 1930 and 1935. His subtle revisionist interpretation challenges current understanding of the central importance of the passage of the Social Security Act of 1935 in arguing that the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations intended to end "the dole"-direct cash or in-kind relief to the unemployed.
Drawing on earlier examples from Liberty Loan drives and Community Chest fund raising, Herbert Hoover avoided a public, national system of unemployment relief by relying on private and public agencies at the local and state level. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins hoped to...