Tag Archives: social security

Unemployment Insurance Project

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Project description: This project of 15 oral histories provides a survey of the history and development of the Unemployment Insurance Service in the United States. The interviewees discuss the relationship of unemployment insurance to the Social Security Board, to the Department of Labor and to organized labor. They offer useful background on various areas of New Deal activity.

Regulatory significance: This collection deals with a number of regulatory issues related to rule-making, monitoring, and enforcing of unemployment insurance, with interviewees who worked on unemployment insurance from the 1930s up to 1980. According to the project abstract, the participants describe policy development for unemployment insurance in terms of eligibility requirements, disqualification, merit and experience ratings, duration, benefit formulas, and supplemental and temporary extended benefits. There are interesting comparisons of state and federal programs and the degree of control in each case, together with examples of lobbying on state and national levels, and problems of financing the programs.

Repository: Columbia Center for Oral History

Interview dates: 1980-1982

Digital access: Only abstracts. No online transcripts or audio.

Physical access: For transcripts and audio, researchers may visit the Columbia Center for Oral History.

Link: http://oralhistoryportal.cul.columbia.edu/document.php?id=ldpd_4074555

Interviewees: Ralph Altman; Joseph M. Becker; Geraldine Beideman; Saul Blaustein; Philip Booth; Eveline M. Burns; Ewan Clague; Wilbur J. Cohen; Edward L. Cushman; Margaret M. Dahm; Robert B. Edwards; Robert C. Goodwin; William Haber; Curtis P. Harding; Russell Hibberd; J. Eldred Hill, Jr.; Edward L. Keenan; Leonard Lesser; Wilbur D. Mills; William U. Norwood; William Papier; Beman Pound; George S. Roche; James M. Rosbrow; Harold Rosemont; Murray A. Rubin; Marion Williamson.

Women in the Federal Government Project

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Project description: The purpose of the project was to interview selected women who held civil service or appointed positions and to make the interview transcripts available to students and researchers interested in tracing the careers and contributions of women in the federal government. The project, which includes nine oral histories, focuses on women who began their government careers during the first half of the twentieth century, and includes narrators from such varied fields as law, education, economics, business, engineering, and medicine. Related interviews may be available at the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, which helped fund the project.

Regulatory significance: A few of these interviews suggest regulatory significance. The oral history with Caroline Ware involves consumer protection and the Food and Drug Administration. Other interviewees discuss social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and regulation to address employment discrimination.

Repository: Columbia Center for Oral History

Interview dates: 1981-1988

Digital access: Only abstracts. No online transcripts or audio.

Physical access: For transcripts and audio, researchers may visit the Columbia Center for Oral History.

Link: http://oralhistoryportal.cul.columbia.edu/document.php?id=ldpd_4073685

Interviewees: Ida Craven Merriam, Margaret Joy Tibbetts, Mabel Deutrich, Katnerine Brownell Oettinger, Caroline Ware, Ellen Black Winston, Mildred McAfee Horton, and Mary Dublin Keyserling.

Social Security Project

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Project description: This project had the dual aim of presenting personal recollections about the origins and early years of social security in the United States, and of exploring the legislative history of medicare. Pioneers in the social insurance movement tell about many who were prominent in its early years, including John B. Andrews, John R. Commons, and Frances Perkins. There are descriptions of the activities and personnel of the American Association for Labor Legislation and the American Association for Social Security. Special emphasis is given to experiences with the Committee on Economic Security and the growth and organization of the Social Security Board. Recollections of early attempts to enact government health insurance, the work of the Committee on Costs of Medical Care and the Committee on Economic Security, the National Health Conference of 1938, the Wagner Bill, 1939, the Wagner-Murray-Dingell Bill, and the Forand Bill, 1957, provide background about the precursors of the medicare program. The bulk of the Medicare recollections focus on the period 1960-65. Included are interviews of members of the Social Security Administration, the Kennedy entourage, organized labor, the National Council of Senior Citizens, the United States Senate, the insurance industry, Blue Cross, the House Ways and Means Committee, the American Hospital Association, and American Medical Association. [Description from the finding aid]

Regulatory significance: This collection will be of immense value to researchers interested in the origins of social insurance programs in the United States for the elderly, specifically the Social Security Act of 1935 and the 1965 revision that resulted in Medicare. Several interviewees reflect on the role of the American Medical Association and other lobbyists who tried to influence the acts, and should shed light on the evolution of co-regulation (regulation in this case of medical care by both public and private entities). Given the range of interviewees, this collection should also be a rich source for a wider range of regulatory activity across other agencies and levels of government.

Repository: Columbia Center for Oral History

Interview dates: 1965-1967

Digital access: Only abstracts. No online transcripts or audio.

Physical access: For transcripts and audio, researchers may visit the Columbia Center for Oral History.

Link: http://oralhistoryportal.cul.columbia.edu/document.php?id=ldpd_4072542