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Poster on mother's pensions, featuring a woman holding a young child and a map of the US with over 20 states shaded in.
Poster on mother's pensions. (Courtesy of National Child Labor Committee Collection, LOC).

First state laws for mother's aid, or "mothers' pensions," introduced in Illinois and Missouri.

1911

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Poster on mother's pensions. (Courtesy of National Child Labor Committee Collection, LOC).

Public conversation spreads across the country about single mothers–specifically widows. As such, pension programs are created to provide grants to mothers with one or more children under the age of 15, and include restrictions on how much the mother can work outside the home. The programs are largely only available to white women and many of them carry strict regulations against Black women accessing the funds. While the laws technically support all white single mothers, in reality mothers who are divorced, were never married, or were abandoned are also denied this cash support.