This collection is organized into the following 11 small series: MWRO ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION, MWRO ACTIVITIES, CLIPPINGS ON MWRO ACTIVITIES, MWRO NOTICES AND PUBLICATIONS, OTHER ORGANIZATIONS, MASSACHUSETTS DEMOCRATIC PARTY, STATE WELFARE LEGISLATION, STATE WELFARE ADMINISTRATION, FEDERAL FAMILY ASSISTANCE, REPORTS AND PAPERS, and EPHEMERA.
The records document the public activities of the Massachusetts Welfare Rights Organization and other groups concerned with public welfare in Massachusetts and on the national level. Two kinds of material predominate: 1) mimeographed leaflets and mailings produced by organization staffs for distribution to members, the press, and the public; and 2) photocopied newspaper clippings reporting members' and leaders' activities.
There are few records of the ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION of the MWRO headquarters and the offices of its local affiliates. There are no financial records, no minutes of executive board meetings, and no correspondence between the headquarters and the affiliates or between the staffs of the MWRO and the NWRO. The major administrative records are requests for funds and manpower made to government agencies and private organizations and individuals. These include summaries of the history, programs, and aspirations of the MWRO and a few of its affiliates.
The CLIPPINGS are the major source documenting the efforts of the MWRO to publicize its positions and win benefits for its members from local welfare offices. The file begins in July 1968 and provides detailed coverage of MAW and MWRO activities for the next year and a half. There are fewer items for 1970 and 1971, at least in part because there were fewer activities to report. Most are from Boston daily papers: the Globe, the Herald Traveller, the Record American, and occasionally the Christian Science Monitor or the Bay State Banner. The file as received included much general reporting of state and national welfare news from these papers and from the New York Times, but most items not naming the MWRO were separated from the collection. All the papers but the Herald Traveller are available on microfilm from the State Historical Society Library. The file also has clippings from elsewhere in the state. These describe organizing and membership activities in Somerville, Worcester, Springfield, Holyoke, Quincy, Adams, Chelsea, Cape Cod, and Lynn. Of special interest is the coverage of the campaign for free lunches in Chelsea public schools between October 1969 and March 1970 and the organizing drive and demands for benefits in Cape Cod towns in 1969.
The papers also document activities, 1969-1972, of OTHER ORGANIZATIONS in the Boston area whose interests overlapped with those of the MWRO. Most of these were dominated by professionals and civic leaders, and their main activities were gathering information and developing alternative public policies, Most of the items are mimeographed, but there is some correspondence between staff members of different organizations.
The papers on the MASSACHUSETTS DEMOCRATIC PARTY, 1970, originated mainly with the candidates or with the state convention. The only items demonstrably related to MWRO activity are a speech on public welfare by Boston Mayor Kevin White and a critical response by MWRO President Roberta Grant. There is no evidence anywhere in the collection of personal ties between anyone in the MWRO and any public official except some miscellaneous correspondence sent to staff member Michael Kerr by State Sen. Jack Backman, in whose district the headquarters was located.
The files on STATE WELFARE LEGISLATION and STATE WELFARE ADMINISTRATION contain two kinds of items: 1) legislative and administrative documents produced by the government, and 2) criticisms of laws and policies produced by social action groups. The state files emphasize the struggle over House 5453B in 1969 and the implementation of the flat grant system of welfare payments in 1970. The file on the FEDERAL FAMILY ASSISTANCE PLAN contains criticisms of President Nixon's proposal and alternatives to it offered by members of Congress and by private organizations in 1970 and 1971.
The REPORTS AND POSITION PAPERS deal with the MWRO, with Massachusetts welfare administration, and with broader questions of social and welfare policy in the United States. Several were written by students and professors in the Boston area. The EPHEMERA is a single folder.
