In this pathbreaking history, Donna J. Guy shows how feminists,
social workers, and female philanthropists contributed to the
emergence of the Argentine welfare state through their advocacy of
child welfare and family-law reform. From the creation of the
government-subsidized Society of Beneficence in 1823, women were at
the forefront of the child-focused philanthropic and municipal
groups that proliferated first to address the impact of
urbanization, European immigration, and high infant mortality
rates, and later to meet the needs of wayward, abandoned, and
delinquent children. Women staffed child-centered organizations
that received subsidies from all levels of government. Their
interest in children also led them into the battle for female
suffrage and the campaign to promote the legal adoption of
children. When Juan Peron expanded the welfare system during his
presidency (1946-1955), he reorganized private charitable
organizations that had, until then, often been led by elite and
immigrant women.
Drawing on extensive research in Argentine archives, Guy reveals
significant continuities in Argentine history, including the rise
of a liberal state that subsidized all kinds of women's and
religious groups. State and private welfare efforts became more
organized in the 1930s and reached a pinnacle under Juan Peron,
when men took over the welfare state and philanthropic and feminist
women's influence on child-welfare activities and policy declined.
Comparing the rise of Argentina's welfare state with the
development of others around the world, Guy considers both why
women's child-welfare initiatives have not received more attention
in historical accounts and whether the welfare state emerges from
the top down or from the bottom up.
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