The Psychology of Poverty: Professional Social Work and Aid to Dependent Children in Postwar America, 1946–1963

Abstract

Through a primary source analysis of professional and academic social work writings, this article describes how post–World War II (1946–63) social work researchers, educators, and clinical theorists adopted a psychological discourse to explain welfare use among single mothers. Faced with a postwar backlash against the federal entitlement program for single mothers and their children, Aid to Dependent Children, social work scholars drew on psychological narratives to protect recipients against charges of immorality and restrictive state measures. Armed with this new paradigm, many social workers theorized a distinct psychology of poverty, carved out a professional niche, and called on the federal government to provide individualized, quasi‐therapeutic services to its constituency.