Poverty Knowledge

Alice O'Connor was formerly the Assistant Director of the Project on Social Welfare and the American Future at the Ford Foundation, the Director for the Programs on Persistent Urban Poverty and International Migration at the Social Science Research Council, a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago, and a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. She is currently Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

• Acknowledgments ix Introduction 3 PART ONE 23 Chapter 1. Origins: Poverty and Social Science in The Era of Progressive Reform 25 Chapter 2. Poverty Knowledge as Cultural Critique: The Great Depression 55 Chapter 3. From the Deep South to the Dark Ghetto: Poverty Knowledge, Racial Liberalism, and Cultural "Pathology" 74 Chapter 4. Giving Birth to a "Culture of Poverty": Poverty Knowledge in Postwar Behavioral Science, Culture, and Ideology 99 Chapter 5. Community Action 124 PART TWO 137 Chapter 6. In the Midst of Plenty: The Political Economy of Poverty in the Affluent Society 139 Chapter 7. Fighting Poverty with Knowledge: The Office of Economic Opportunity and the Analytic Revolution in Government 166 Chapter 8. Poverty's Culture Wars 196 PART THREE 211 Chapter 9. The Poverty Research Industry 213 Chapter 10. Dependency, the "Underclass," and a New Welfare "Consensus": Poverty Knowledge for a Post-Liberal, Postindustrial Era 242 Chapter 11. The End of Welfare and the Case for a New Poverty Knowledge 284 Notes 297 Index 359

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2001 "In this thoroughly researched and clearly written book, O'Conner offers a comprehensive look at the changing ways American experts have thought about poverty in the 20th Century... A rewarding read."--Library Journal "O'Connor provides the most up-to-date history of poverty and welfare in the US in this highly recommended [book]... Her argument is unique, controversial, and convincing."--Choice "Poverty Knowledge has many strengths. It is a well-written analysis by a historian with substantial experience in the not-for-profit organizations that funded and substantively influenced much of the production of poverty knowledge over the past two decades... The descriptive materials alone will make this book an essential addition to the history of the social sciences... [It] will be essential reading for historians of the social and policy sciences."--Robert F. Kelly, Contemporary Sociology "O'Connor's book surpasses previous accounts of American approaches to poverty and makes a very significant contribution to critical writing on the welfare state."--Ruth Crocker, American Historical Review "A book that should be read by everyone engaged in poverty knowledge and social policy."--Deborah L. Little, American Journal of Sociology "This deeply researched and panoramic book is intellectual history at its best."--Thomas Jackson, The Historian "A brief review cannot do justice to the richness and subtlety of this fine study... [O'Connor's] argument is on the whole deeply compelling: over the course of the twentieth century, poverty knowledge became, despite the best intentions of its liberal practitioners, a partisan tool for those seeking to control, marginalize, or dismiss the claims of the poor, not for those working to end poverty."--Sonya Michel, Isis