Mutual Aid, State Welfare, and Organized Charity: Fraternal Societies and the “Deserving” and “Undeserving” Poor, 1900–1930

Few terms have recurred so often in the work of American social welfare historians as “deserving” (or worthy) and “undeserving” (unworthy). These concepts, of course, describe criteria employed by private and government agencies to determine eligibility for social welfare assistance. A special object of concern in the literature has been their use, in particular misuse, by charity organizations and welfare agencies during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.