"The year George Washington was finishing his first term as president, 1792, William Larned was beginning his first term as overseer of the poor for Providence, Rhode Island. Larned would be re-elected for another thirty-five one-year terms and arguably exercised more authority over locals than...

Machine generated contents note: Introduction Ezra Rosser; Part I. Welfare and Federalism: 1. The tools in the battle: federalism, entitlement, and punishment across the US social welfare state Wendy Bach; 2. Laboratories of suffering: toward democratic welfare governance Monica Bell, Andrea...