| Reviews / Comptes Rendus | Labour/Le Travail, 54

Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Susan M. Sterett, Public Pensions: Gender and Civic Service in the States, 1850–1937 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press 2003)

PUBLIC PENSIONS provides a fascinating exploration of the history of pensions paid by American state and local governments. The atypicality of the United States, which differed dramatically from countries in Europe, is particularly well documented in this very impressive monograph. As Sterett notes, "what in other countries [was] a social right of citizenship" was, in the United States, "a return for work ." (102) The civic reluctance that surrounded the extension of pensions, and the debates that attended their introduction, help to explain the anomalous paucity of social welfare benefits in the United States historically and today. Public Pensions also exhibits a well-developed sensitivity to issues of gender, race, and class that adds greatly to its analysis.

Sterett explains that it was firefighters and soldiers who first received governmental pensions in recognition of their "service" in dangerous and important work. The courage and daring involved in such activity, and the protection of those who were weak and vulnerable allowed proponents of these pensions to characterize such work as "manly" and "independent." The masculine work of fire-fighting and military combat set the framework for the expansion of pensions to the police in the late 19th century, although legislators initially balked over extending pensions to police matrons or female police telegraph officers, who were described as "noncombatant employees."

By the early 20th century, private corporations began to install their own version of pensions in the United States, but offered them only to the sector of the workforce that was skilled, white, native-born, and male. Governments, in turn, extended pensions to teachers, who were also predominantly white and native-born, but mostly female. Offering peculiar analogies to military service, proponents of teachers' pensions tried to equate female teachers to "privates in the army ... who were most likely to wear out in the service." The analogy fit awkwardly with the "feminine qualities considered so valuable for teaching," (96) but the image of privates enlisted in an educational army apparently outweighed the image of substitute mothers. Thus "masculinized," teachers' pensions received strong and growing support. The argument that teachers had "earned" their pensions accorded with the dominant belief that white, native-born individuals were independent and had earned their pay. The extension of pensions to all public servants eventually followed, and by the time of the New Deal, even ordinary waged labour was included. A pension system meant that employees were no longer dependent upon the state. They possessed something more akin to a property entitlement and could be "proud of their service and of a pension they had earned and their dependents and heirs deserved."(78)

Sterett's fine historical research examines how recalcitrant American taxpayers tried to stem the tide of expanding public pensions. The pension programs that successfully passed through state legislatures were challenged in the courts, which regulated state spending under the "public purpose" doctrine, and slowed down the introduction of workers' compensation and pensions for the blind and the elderly. American legislatures could tax and spend only for a public purpose, could not take property without just compensation, and were prohibited from enacting "class" legislation that benefited one class at the expense of others. Spending for private benefit or special privilege, as distinct from compensation for service, was prohibited under many state constitutions. The thinking was that pensions ought not to be distributed to those who had not "served," that such individuals should instead be directed to private charities that would screen them according to their moral worth. All of these principles were dissected and enforced through the courts, as disgruntled taxpayers waged litigation to dispute the expenditure of public funds.

Some sense of the approach taken by the courts is provided in a 1906 decision of the Ohio Supreme Court, which struck down pensions for the blind, explaining that this was a chilling precedent upon a slippery slope:

If a bounty may be conferred upon individuals of one class, then it may be upon individuals of another class, and if upon two, then upon all. And if upon those who have physical infirmities, then why not upon other classes who for various reasons may be unable to support themselves? And if these things may be done, why may not all property be distributed by the state? (130)

The class implications of such litigation were stark. Among the many remarkable cases that Sterett draws upon is the 1899 Bush v. County of Orange in which pension legislation was struck down as unconstitutional because it did not serve the public purpose. The lawyer who successfully argued the case, William D. Guthrie, was a nationally prominent railroad attorney and partner in the law firm that later became Cravath, Swaine, and Moore, who, when not "reorganizing railroads," was "crusading in courts against taxes and government regulation."

Pensions for indigent mothers, introduced in the second decade of the 20th century, were constructed on an entirely separate ideological basis. The recipients were never viewed as having provided "service," the work they had done was not seen as dangerous, and their pensions were understood to be charitable largesse issued to dependents, rather than honourable work meriting reward. The dangerousness of childbirth and the risk of maternal morbidity were completely disregarded. If pensions were deemed to be a return for service completed, mothering did not qualify on this count either. As Sterett notes, "child rearing is work in progress and work to come, not work past." (165) Sterett emphasizes that the provision of good child care was deemed an insufficient reason to pay women, and that courts and local officials tenaciously refused to recognize the work of mothering. "Only destitute and desperate mothers appeared...deserving of public support," (125) and child rearing was seen as "more worthy of pity than of gratitude." (128) Each new pension eventually judged constitutional sheltered its recipients from the poorhouse. Firemen, soldiers, police, teachers, public servants, the blind, injured workers ... all eventually received their due in turn. The outsiders were women with children, who were resolutely restricted to the stigmatization of poor relief.

Public Pensions illustrates how substantially state constitutions shaped the evolution of American social welfare. Judicial decisions struck down many pension plans before the ink was dry on the new programs. And the shadow of the law loomed large, causing many state legislators and commissioners to modify or drop pension programs before irate taxpayers could even issue a writ. Sterett brings her history through to the era of the New Deal, when constitutionality finally became a non-issue as states enacted constitutional provisions that would allow them to legislate old-age and unemployment relief. The carrot of federally-funded social security grants appears to have been a major motivation here.

To understand the history of poor relief in the United States, which as Sterett so convincingly shows was unlike any other country in the world, one has to understand state constitutions. This excellent book adds immensely to our understanding of pensions, work, dependency, and American constitutional culture. It constitutes an extraordinary contribution to the scholarship on this very important topic.


Constance Backhouse University of Ottawa

Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.