Harry Hopkins: Sudden Hero, Brash Reformer (The World of the Roosevelts) - Softcover

NA, NA; Loparo, Kenneth A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0230613659 ISBN 13: 9780230613652

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008

Synopsis

From 1912 to 1940, social worker Harry Hopkins committed himself to the ideal of government responsibility for impoverished Americans. This look at Hopkins' life and social work career broadens our understanding of the political and cultural currents that led to the Social Security Act of 1935, the bedrock of the American welfare state. Hopkins' experiences as an advocate and administrator of work relief and widows' pensions in New York City during the Progressive Era informed his contribution to welfare legislation during the New Deal years. Written by his granddaughter June Hopkins, this book not only clarifies the emergence of welfare policy but sheds considerable light on the present welfare debate. It also illuminates the life of one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth century.

About this title

About the Author:

June Hopkinsis assistant professor of history at Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, GA. She is Harry Hopkins' granddaughter.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A scholarly biography of one of the great American policy makers and innovators of the 20th century. Hopkins was among the most powerful advisors to Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the New Deal and Second World War. He was in on the creation of some of the boldest experiments in social welfare reform and government assistance to the poor in the nation's history. And he headed many of the national relief agencies that helped to carry millions of Americans through the Great Depression and left enduring legacies to current social policies. Yet this man, so identified with succor and relief in such American cities as New Orleans, Atlanta, and New York, was a son of small-town Iowa. What propelled him from modest origins to the pinnacle of national influence is the subject of this academic study by his granddaughter. Adding to existing scholarship about the man and the work in which he was for decades so deeply involved, Hopkins (History/Armstrong Atlantic State Univ.) emphasizes her grandfather's upbringing and education in the world of Grinnell, Iowa, where he also attended its renowned college and drank deep draughts of the Social Gospel and Christian activism. In concentrating on his preNew Deal social workthe freshest part of her bookHopkins reveals her ancestor's openness to new thought and experience and his easy respect for and reliance on women for ideas and guidance. There's still, however, a whiff of the dissertation about the book; we don't get as much sense of who this man was, strange when the biographer is also a close family member. Nevertheless, Hopkins's research adds considerably to the history of modern American welfare policy. (7 b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0230613659
• ISBN 13: 9780230613652
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 281