Books by Premilla Nadasen
In this ground-breaking history of African American domestic worker organizing, scholar and activ... more In this ground-breaking history of African American domestic worker organizing, scholar and activist Premilla Nadasen shatters countless myths and misconceptions about a workforce that has been historically misunderstood. Nadasen shows how, in the 1960s and 1970s, African American household workers developed unique strategies for social change and formed unprecedented alliances with activists in both the women’s rights and the black freedom movements. Using compelling personal stories of the leaders and participants on the front lines, Household Workers Unite is a powerful account of the poor women of color whose passionate struggle for higher wages, better working conditions, and respect on the job created a sustained political movement.
The welfare rights movement was an interracial protest movement of poor women on AFDC who demande... more The welfare rights movement was an interracial protest movement of poor women on AFDC who demanded reform of welfare policy, greater respect and dignity, and financial support to properly raise and care for their children. In short, they pushed for a right to welfare. Lasting from the early 1960s to the mid 1970s, the welfare rights movement crossed political boundaries, fighting simultaneously for women's rights, economic justice, and black women's empowerment through welfare assistance. Its members challenged stereotypes, engaged in Congressional debates, and developed a sophisticated political analysis that combined race, class, gender, and culture, and crafted a distinctive, feminist, anti-racist politics rooted in their experiences as poor women of color.
The Welfare Rights Movement provides a short, accessible overview of this important social and political movement, highlighting key events and key figures, the movement's strengths and weaknesses, and how it intersected with other social and political movements of the itme, as well as its lasting effect on the country. It is perfect for anyone wanting to obtain an introduction to the welfare rights movement of the twentieth century.
In her study of the welfare rights movement, Premilla Nadasen breaks new ground by tracing the hi... more In her study of the welfare rights movement, Premilla Nadasen breaks new ground by tracing the history of a distinctive brand of feminism that emerged in the 1960s. Comprising almost exclusively single mothers on welfare, the welfare rights movement sought to organize the poor to make demands upon the system and in the process create a more humane welfare program. By recovering the voices of movement women and their experiences as mothers, racial minorities, welfare recipients, tenants, consumers, community members, feminists and activists, this book demonstrates how race, class, gender and other identities continually reshape and redefine one another.
With a comprehensive introduction and a well-chosen collection of primary documents, Welfare in... more With a comprehensive introduction and a well-chosen collection of primary documents, Welfare in the United States chronicles the major turning points in the seventy-year history of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Illuminating policy debates, shifting demographics, institutional change, and the impact of social movements, this book serves as an essential guide to the history of the nation's most controversial welfare program.
Papers by Premilla Nadasen
WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly
City of Workers, City of Struggle
Want to Start a Revolution?
Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History, 2006
Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History, 2006
Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History, 2006
Encyclopedia of Black Studies
... Introduction Carolyn Brown and Marcel van der Linden 4 ... REVIEW ESSAY Commonwealth and Com... more ... Introduction Carolyn Brown and Marcel van der Linden 4 ... REVIEW ESSAY Commonwealth and Commonism: Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Commonwealth (2009) and Peter Linebaugh's The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All (2008) Michael Merrill ...
Thursdays and Every Other Sunday Off, 2018
Feminist Formations, 2021
This article analyzes the discourses of the care crisis and its implications for how we understan... more This article analyzes the discourses of the care crisis and its implications for how we understand the practices of care. Contemporary efforts to revalue "care" in some activist and scholarly circles mark a shift away from Fordist demands of workers' rights simply because one works to a neoliberal model of justifying rights because of a worker's emotional investment in their labor. The care discourse premises the collective social good on ensuring that the more privileged are well cared for while making the needs of the less privileged contingent on the well-being of the better off. This article argues that a Black feminist analysis and the language of social reproduction are better frameworks for understanding the labor of care in the context of neoliberal social and economic relations. I draw on my research on domestic worker activists in the 1970s who resisted characterizations of their work as care or love, terms they associated with the framework of "one of the family," which was a basis for underpayment and exploitation. Instead, they demanded equal labor rights and insisted that their work be treated the same as all other forms of labor. I conclude by pointing to models of collective care, justice healing, and radical care as one possible way forward.
The Legal Tender of Gender : Welfare, Law and the Regulation of Women’s Poverty
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Books by Premilla Nadasen
The Welfare Rights Movement provides a short, accessible overview of this important social and political movement, highlighting key events and key figures, the movement's strengths and weaknesses, and how it intersected with other social and political movements of the itme, as well as its lasting effect on the country. It is perfect for anyone wanting to obtain an introduction to the welfare rights movement of the twentieth century.
Papers by Premilla Nadasen
The Welfare Rights Movement provides a short, accessible overview of this important social and political movement, highlighting key events and key figures, the movement's strengths and weaknesses, and how it intersected with other social and political movements of the itme, as well as its lasting effect on the country. It is perfect for anyone wanting to obtain an introduction to the welfare rights movement of the twentieth century.