Research Catalog

Title

Launching the war on poverty : an oral history / Michael L. Gillette.

Author

Gillette, Michael L.

Publication

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2010.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xx, 458 p. : ill.; 24 cm.

Summary

Head Start, Job Corps, Foster Grandparents, College Work-Study, VISTA, Community Action, and the Legal Services Corporation are familiar programs, but their tumultuous beginning has been largely forgotten. Conceived amid the daring legislation of the 1960s, these programs originated as weapons in Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, an offensive spearheaded by a controversial new government agency. Within months, the Office of Economic Opportunity created an array of unconventional initiatives that empowered the poor, challenged the established order, and ultimately transformed the nation's attitudes toward poverty. In Launching the War on Poverty, historian Michael L. Gillette weaves together oral history interviews with the architects of the Great Society's boldest experiment. Forty-nine former poverty warriors, including Sargent Shriver, Adam Yarmolinsky, and Lawrence O'Brien, recount this inside story of unprecedented governmental innovation. The interviews capture the excitement and heady optimism of Americans in the 1960s along with their conflicts and disillusionment. This new edition of Launching the War on Poverty adds the voice of Lyndon Johnson to the story with excerpts from his recently released White House telephone conversations. In these colorful and brutally candid conversations, LBJ exercises his full arsenal of presidential powers, political leverage, and legendary persuasiveness to win one of his most difficult legislative battles. The second edition also documents how the OEO's offspring survived their volatile origins to become broadly supported features of domestic policy.

Series Statement

Oxford oral history series

Uniform Title

Oxford oral history series.

Subject

• 1963-1969
• Poverty > United States
• Economic assistance, Domestic > United States
• Politicians > United States > Interviews
• United States > Social policy
• United States > Politics and government > 1963-1969

Genre/Form

• interviews.
• Interviews
• Interviews.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Camelot confronts the culture of poverty -- The war on poverty task force -- Creating the community action program -- Employment versus poverty -- Rural programs -- The enactment of poverty legislation -- The office of economic opportunity : "the most action in town" -- The job corps -- The community action program -- An early success : Project Head Start -- Advocates for the poor : VISTA and the legal services program -- Delegated programs -- Challenges to Head Start -- The job corps under siege -- "Keeping the trash in one pile" : legislative battles -- OEO's struggle to endure -- Epilogue and assessments.

ISBN

• 9780195387278 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 0195387279 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2009038655

OCLC

438055299

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library