U.S. Public Policy History
Graduate Student
B.A., Columbia University
Office: HSSB 3212
Hours:
Advisor: Alice O'Connor
In Spring 2007, I received my M.A in History from UCSB.
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My dissertation, "Public at Work: Public Employment, the New Deal, and the American Welfare State," seeks to re-interpret the New Deal by placing the problem of mass unemployment and the solution of direct government provision of jobs to the unemployed at the center of our understanding of New Deal liberalism and the American welfare state. "Public at Work" will chart the development of public employment policy from 1932-1979, focusing on the formative years of the New Deal, and arguing that in these years, a group of "public employment progressives" developed a distinctive political economy and ideology that influenced discussions about Social Security and post-war economic planning.
In addition to charting the history of public employment as a "shadow" New Deal project, this dissertation will argue for a theoretical reconceptualization of the New Deal from theoretical constructions that assume sequential transitions from one project or New Deal to another to models that see multiple projects co-existing,
developing at different paces, each with their own ideological and intellectual traditions, and and clashing and combining at moments of potential political change.
