Harry Hopkins

by June Hopkins

From 1912 to 1940, social worker Harry Hopkins committed himself to the ideal of governmental aid and care for impoverished Americans. During the Progressive era, Hopkins worked as an advocate for and administrator of work-relief and widows' pensions in New York City. Those formative experiences profoundly influenced his contribution to welfare legislation during the New Deal years - including the landmark Social Security Act of 1935, the bedrock of the American welfare state. In Harry Hopkins: Sudden Hero, Brash Reformer, his granddaughter, June Hopkins, not only broadens our understanding of the political and cultural currents that led to that signal legislation, but also sheds considerable light on the present welfare debate and the life and career of one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth century.