“Great Injustice”: Social Status and the Distribution of Military Pensions after the Civil War

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-160
Author(s):  
Russell L. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Pension System ◽  
Social Position ◽  
Manual Labor ◽  
Union Army ◽  
Enlisted Men ◽  
The Social ◽  
True Ability

In recent years, historians have paid increased attention to the Civil War pension system created for Union army soldiers and their families. It has come to be seen as a milestone in the evolution of U.S. social policy. Despite the overall appearance of generosity and of unbiased treatment for applicants, however, individuals actually experienced the system very differently based on the social status of the soldier involved. Looking at pension legislation, its implementation, and nearly one thousand pension claim files, this article argues that three types of status discrimination appeared in the distribution of pensions: Pension laws paid larger amounts to officers and their families, the Pension Bureau used ability to perform manual labor to determine the level of disability regardless of the applicants' true ability to earn a living, and claims based on the service of officers generally were decided more quickly and more favorably than those of enlisted men. Because military ranks reflected the soldiers' civilian social position—most manual laborers served as enlisted men, for example—these biases meant that individuals of higher social status received significantly better treatment than those of lower civilian status.

scholarly journals Diaspora Policies, Consular Services and Social Protection for Spanish Citizens Abroad

2020 ◽  
pp. 457-472
Author(s):  
Pau Palop-García
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Economic Hardship ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Policy Strategy ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 1950S

Abstract This chapter outlines the social protection policies that Spain has adopted to target Spanish nationals abroad. First, it describes the diaspora infrastructure and the key engagement policies developed in the last years by Spain. Subsequently, the chapter focuses on five social protection policies: unemployment, health care, pensions, family-related benefits, and economic hardship. The findings reveal that Spain has adopted a diaspora strategy that targets different emigrant groups such as exiles of the Civil War and early Francoism and their descendants, Spaniards that emigrated to other European countries during the 1950s and 1960s, and new emigrants that left the country due to the consequences of the financial crisis of 2008. Findings also show that, although Spain has developed a wide array of services to target its diverse diaspora, it still lacks a comprehensive scheme of social protection abroad. Moreover, the results suggest that Spain has adopted a subsidiary social policy strategy abroad that is triggered when the social protection offered by states of reception is lacking.

The Position of Women

2018 ◽  
pp. 54-64
Author(s):  
Richard M. Titmuss
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Vital Statistics ◽  
Social Position ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Women's Suffrage ◽  
Suffrage Movement ◽  
The Social ◽  
Applied Social Science

This chapter talks about the satisfaction of recalling some of the achievements of the Women's Suffrage Movement in Britain, especially in a period when the possibilities of social progress and the practicability of applied social science are being questioned. The development of the personal, legal, and political liberties of half the population of the country within the span of less than eighty years stands as one of the supreme examples of consciously directed social change. The chapter then draws together some of the vital statistics of birth, marriage, and death for the light they shed on the changes that have taken place in the social position of women. Then, it suggests that the accumulated effect of these changes now presents the makers of social policy with some new and fundamental problems.

Geneva's philanthropists around 1900: a field made of distinctive but interconnected social groups

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
THOMAS DAVID ◽  
ALIX HEINIGER ◽  
FELIX BÜHLMANN
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Methods ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Position ◽  
Social Field ◽  
The Social ◽  
Quantitative And Qualitative Methods

ABSTRACTThis article analyses the social profile of Geneva's philanthropists around 1900. It shows that, contrary to what the literature on philanthropy argues, philanthropists belonged to varied social groups defined by diverse forms of capital (economic, social and cultural) and were involved in philanthropic activities related to their social status. Together, those philanthropists formed a social field. They were connected to each other and even needed to collaborate on specific issues. The article argues that interconnections between actors reinforced their social position. By examining this field through both quantitative and qualitative methods, the article highlights relationships and ties between actors and shows how they collaborated on the basis of commonly held principles.

Miles in Armis Strenuus: The Knight at War

1995 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 201-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Prestwich
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Social Position ◽  
Military Equipment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Voice ◽  
The Military

War was more important to medieval knights than to many of their historians. They have been more concerned to debate shifts in the social status and numbers of knights, than to examine their military role. Varied scenarios of knights rising in social status, gaining a more powerful political voice as they became wealthier, and of declining knights, increasingly aggrieved at their failure to maintain their position in society, have vied one with another. Military obligation has, of course, proved to be a battlefield on paper for many historians, but debate on this has not always been informed by awareness of the muddy realities of war. It would be reasonable to suppose that major transformations in the social position of English knights were a response to, or at least a reflection of, changes in their military functions. Yet the only link that is commonly made is the assumption that changes in the social position of English knights were in some measure the result of the rising costs of the military equipment they needed to possess.

Book Reviews

2011 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 464-466
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
American Civil War ◽  
Union Army ◽  
Prisoner Of War ◽  
The Social ◽  
Brown University ◽  
Army Soldiers ◽  
The U.S

Kaivan Munshi of Brown University reviews “Heroes and Cowards: The Social Face of War” by Dora L. Costa and Matthew E. Kahn. The EconLit Abstract of the reviewed work begins “Explores the effect of peers on people's behavior, drawing upon the life histories of white and black Union Army Soldiers from the American Civil War. Discusses loyalty and sacrifice; why the U.S. Civil War; building the armies; heroes and cowards; prisoner-of-war camp survivors; the homecoming of….”

“Benefit of the Doubt”: African-American Civil War Veterans and Pensions

2008 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry M. Logue ◽  
Peter Blanck
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Civil War ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Pension System ◽  
American Civil War ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Union Army ◽  
War Veterans ◽  
Pension Income ◽  
Two Stages

Laws that provided pensions for Union army veterans were putatively color-blind, but whites and African Americans experienced the pension system differently. Black veterans were less likely to apply for pensions during the program's early years. Yet, no matter when they applied, they encountered two stages of bias, first from examining physicians and then, far more systematically, from Pension Bureau reviewers. The evidence suggests that pension income reduced mortality among African-American veterans, underscoring the tangible results of justice denied.

XIV. The Social Status of Chaucer's Franklin

PMLA ◽  
1926 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Hall Gerould
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Social Position ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
The Social ◽  
Edward Iii ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Subject

An uncertainty as to the social position of franklins in general, and of Chaucer's Franklin in particular, has occasionally manifested itself since the early part of the nineteenth century. In 1810, Todd quoted an elaborate note from Waterhous's Commentary on Sir John Fortescue's De Laudibus Legum Angliae, which tended to show that franklins did not belong to the gentry. Todd was unable to square this with the fact that (Chaucer's Franklin was “at sessiouns,” since by a statute of Edward III, which he cited, justices were seigneurs, and that he was “ofte tyme” a knight of the shire, since by another statute members of parliament were “chivalers et serjantz des meulz vaues du paies.”) Todd was thus left in doubt as to the gentility of the Franklin. As a later examination of Fortescue's remarks will show, it is not he but his commentator who must be blamed for lowering the status of Chaucer's sanguine country gentleman. If Todd had been of firmer mind, or if he had studied the subject more deeply, he would not have left the matter in doubt—a trap for unwary feet in later times.

ROLE OF PENSION SYSTEM IN REALIZATION OF THE STATE SOCIAL POLICY

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 68-74
Author(s):  
Nargiza Jiyanova ◽  
◽  
Baxodir Raximjonov
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Pension System ◽  
The State ◽  
Financial Resources ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Pension Systems ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Markets

Timely financing of pensions and social benefits in Uzbekistan will provide stable income for development of the financial and economic markets. In this article the theoretical value of pensions is defined, the social advantage of pensions reveals, organizational and legal bases of development of pensions are explained and also financial resources of pension systems are analyzed

scholarly journals Once more on some issues of commemorative culture

Sociologija ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 304-324
Author(s):  
Djokica Jovanovic
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Social Position ◽  
The State ◽  
Former Yugoslavia ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Yugoslav Wars

This text discusses some aspects of commemorative culture in our society. On one hand, commemorative culture belongs to the batch of ideas that make up the corpus of ideological ritualization of the past that divinizes the state (or, more precisely, divinizes a particular ideological order). However, the established commemorative culture in our country has been intrinsically fenced up by the nature of the ex-Yugoslav wars during the end of the previous century. It is essential to note that Serbia was not officially a participant in the wars which prevented the recognition of the social status of the people who actually took part in the wars. This fact further meant that it was even less likely that these individuals would be able to make their social position socially institutionalized which deprived them of their hard-earned social status, creating all kinds of unsolved social issues. These individuals remain unacknowledged nowadays as well. Those, as such, do not belong to commemorative culture. This is, at the same time, the rationale for the official non-recognition of the events and dates that marked the wars leading to the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia. The author of this paper thinks that it is necessary that a consensus be reached within the virtual boundaries of the now non-existent country about the nature of its commemorative culture. Only In such culture can all the newly founded states and relevant individuals be firmly grounded.

scholarly journals Política social y autogobierno en el núcleo de la conspiración carlista antirrepublicana

2020 ◽  
pp. 133-164
Author(s):  
Manuel Martorell
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Armed Force ◽  
Social Crisis ◽  
Political Expression ◽  
First Semester ◽  
Spanish Regions ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

RESUMEN El presente trabajo busca mejorar el conocimiento sobre la forma de pensar de quienes impulsaron en Navarra la organización del Requeté, la fuerza armada con la que el carlismo participó en la Guerra Civil de 1936. Para ello se realiza una detallada lectura del semanario a.e.t., que, durante el primer semestre de 1934, fue su órgano de expresión política. Tras su lectura, se puede concluir que, entre sus motivaciones, estaban, principalmente, la defensa de la religión, pero también la política social de la Iglesia para resolver la grave crisis social de España y hacer frente a una amenaza revolucionaria, además de exigir la «reintegración foral plena» para las distintas regiones españolas. LABURPENA Lan honek, Nafarroan Requeté erakundea bultzatu zuten pertsonen pentsamendu moduari buruzko ezagutza hobetzea du helburu, karlismoak 1936ko Gerra Zibilean parte hartzeko erabili zuen indar armatua. Horretarako, a.e.t. astekariaren irakurketa zehatza burutzen da, zeinak 1934ko lehengo seihilekoan, haien adierazpen politikoaren organo zentrala izan zen. Bere irakurketaren ondoren, ondoriozta daiteke, haien motibazio printzipalen artean, erlijioaren defentsa, Elizak Espainako krisi sozial larriari aurre egiteko gizarte politika burutzea eta mehatxu iraultzaileari erantzun bat bilatzea zeudela, Espainako eskualdeen foru berreskuratzea exijitzeaz gain. ABSTRACT The present work seeks to improve the knowledge about the way of thinking of those who promoted the organization of Requeté in Navarra, the armed force with which Carlism participated in the Civil War of 1936. For this, a detailed reading of the weekly a.e.t. is carried out, which, during the first semester of 1934, was its organ of political expression. After its reading, it can be concluded that, among its motivations, there were, mainly, the defense of religion but also the social policy of the Church to solve the serious social crisis of Spain and to face a revolutionary threat, in addition to demanding the «Full foral reintegration» for the different Spanish regions.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document