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Better Than The Poorhouse?: The Origins Of Mothers’ Aid In Maine, Rebecca White

Maine History

Rebecca White’s article examines the origins of a new state-funded welfare system in Maine through the prism of the 1917 “Act to Provide for Mothers with Dependent Children,” also known as mothers’ aid or mothers’ allowance legislation. This law established a centralized Mothers’ Allowance Board in Augusta to oversee applications and administer state funding to eligible Maine families. This represented a shift from traditional town-based poor services to a state-funded system of aid for those considered to be worthy. This article details the sparse landscape of public and private charity available to families in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries …