| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Public Pensions: Gender and Civic Service in the States, 1850–1937. By Susan M. Sterett. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003. xii, 222 pp. $39.95, ISBN 0-8014-3984-1.)
Susan M. Sterett has added an important perspective to recent social welfare scholarship. Her insight is that state court litigation after the Civil War played a major role in shaping state public pension legislation, especially as new groups were added to the eligibility list.	1
The provision of state public pensions began with Civil War veterans and firefighters. It then spread to other public employees and later to those deemed worthy, such as widowed women with children, blind people, injured workers, and elder citizens. The courts became involved with such legislation when taxpayers brought suit alleging that public money was being spent, not for the general welfare, but for special interests.	2
The state courts used a number of standards, usually based on case precedents, to make their decisions on the constitutionality of public pensions. In the case of Civil War veterans, an important issue was whether the former soldiers had served the individual states. If they had, as a number of state courts ruled, then they would be eligible.	. . .

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