Amidst the current debates on the future of welfare, one voice has been conspicuously absent: that of the unemployed and underprivileged. The result of almost a half-century of research, America Before Welfare traces the leadership and activities of the unemployed from industrialization to the outbreak of World War II. It is at once a profound work of history and an anecdotal window onto America's past, in the days before FDR's New Deal.

"Will appeal to all interested in U.S. history . . . . a splendid example of `history from the bottom up.'" - New York Review of Books

"Gracefully written and assiduously researched." - Village Voice Literary Supplement

"A heroic and even optimistic history, a narrative of the struggles of oppressed people and their progressive allies against social injustice." - The Nation