The prejudice against welfare recipients predated her, and if you look back, ever since the Aid to Dependent Children program (later Aid to Families with Dependent Children) was created in the 1930s, you can find stories about people getting money that they dont deserve. But let that poor woman be a black woman and the ghost of the original "welfare queen," Linda Taylor, rises. . Levin argues that she belongs in the pantheon of American grifters, up there with P. T. Barnum, Huck Finns Pa and Anna Delvey characters who captivate us with promises that we will learn something about ourselves, if only we could catch them. She was able to move through the world, sowing all this destruction, and whether its the press or law enforcement or politicians, nobody cares about at all. She was written about like she was a shapeshifter, right? To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. [7] Chicago Detectives Jack Sherwin and Jerry Kush, who took the report, recognized her from a similar, previous report and she came under suspicion for false reporting, for which she was later charged. This presents an interesting conundrum. People are seen suspiciously. You mention this idea of the welfare rights movement earlierits hard to even imagine, if you are going to advance an argument for a social program, say Medicare for All, anybody advocating for a right to something referred to as welfare. Its like the whole term was poisoned. His first protagonist, a detective, wondered if Taylor acted alone or if she was part of or aided by a larger criminal organization. A 1983 publication sponsored by the Department of Justice, for example, estimated annual Aid to Families With Dependent Children overpayments at between $376 million and $3.2 billionnot [2] Loyd and Taylor moved to Florida and subsequently married in March 1986. It doesnt benefit you. Through dogged reporting, Levin succeeds in building a timeline of her life, but she remains tantalizingly out of grasp, always one step ahead of our detective reporter who is left shuffling receipts from the wastebasket and scanning the horizon for her shadow. And because her story is very complicated and not particularly congenial ideologically to anyone. Americans have always been suspicious of social welfare programs. If Taylor was a character in a movie, people would dismiss her as an implausibility. I think it was definitely both. in 1976, then-california governor ronald reagan introduced the nation to linda taylor, a 47-year-old chicago welfare recipient whom reagan made infamous as the original "welfare queen." "if you are a slum dweller," reagan claimed in what now seems a very trump-esque speech, "you can get an apartment with 11foot ceilings, with a 20foot balcony, But the original "welfare queen" was demonized for the least of her crimes. The very concept of welfare has been poisoned; youll notice universal basic income advocates opted for a technocratic term that carefully walks on the other side of the street. (U.S. TV series), "The Truth Behind The Lies Of The Original 'Welfare Queen', "Alleged 'Welfare Queen' Is Accused of $154,000 Ripoff", "Newborn baby abducted from Chicago hospital 55 years ago found living in Michigan", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Linda_Taylor&oldid=1109434353, Pages using infobox criminal with known for parameter, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 9 September 2022, at 20:25. We are also given multiple versions of Taylors biography, including her presumably manufactured claim to be the daughter of an illegal gambling tycoon in order to inherit his fortune, but with so many incomplete fragments, half-truths, and outright lies, I wasnt convinced that any account was more or less convincing than the others. [1][2], After he had lost the Republican nomination to Gerald Ford, Reagan said in an October radio broadcast to voters that "her take is estimated at a million dollars", a claim which, according to her biographer Josh Levin, appears to be unsourced. Levin even suggests that she committed murder. [12] Taylor's son has said that his mother frequently took other people's children, and law enforcement also suspected her in the case, but the abduction of Paul Fronczak was never solved. This past Wednesday, November 17, a regal portrait by the celebrated artist Amy Sherald sold for $3.9 million, double its $1.2 million-to-$1.8 million estimate, in the 20th-century and . Chicago journalists hastened to dub Taylor the "welfare queen. Just because, superficially at least, she so neatly fit all of the most pernicious and racist stereotypes about welfare recipients, about how they were getting rich while the ordinary taxpayer American was working hard and their tax dollars were going to somebody who didnt work and was a cheater and all that stuff. If she was a child trafficker, as is suggested, whom was she trafficking children to or from? Within a couple weeks of that original story, the Tribune started referring to her as the welfare queen, because, according to the Tribune, she had stolen this huge amount of public aid money and was also driving a Cadillac. This is a person who had a history and a path through her life and charted this course through America. The Truth Behind The Lies Of The Original Welfare Queen. Nursing Clio is a collaborative blog project that ties historical scholarship to present-day political, social, and cultural issues surrounding gender and medicine. The Queen. Yeah, thats right. As Eric Schnurer writes at The Atlantic, its actually not so clear. Please consider becoming a member of WABE today. Linda Taylor (born Martha Louise White; c. January 1926 - April 18, 2002) was an American woman who committed extensive welfare fraud and, after the publication of an article in the Chicago Tribune in fall 1974, became identified as the "welfare queen". The 'welfare queen' label is overwhelming used to indicate black women, and use of the term leads the public to support cuts to welfare. I think thats right, and the fact that Reagan took up her story and that it got into this political factchecking machine, which we do really still have today, I think that really made it so that the truth of what she had done or hadnt done became of lesser importance to the media, as opposed to the story of is Reagan telling the truth or is Reagan lying. Rumors in the family indicated that her father was black, but Lydia White could have been convicted of a felony under Alabama's law against interracial relationships if she admitted this. In the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan and the GOP settled on a strategy: Building off their "silent majority" dog whistle that signaled a backlash to the civil rights movement, Republicans conjured a racist "welfare queen" myth, pretending that too many lazy, parasitic Americans were getting rich off of unemployment benefits that deterred them from getting a job. In the popular imagination, the stereotype of the welfare queen is thoroughly raced shes an indolent black woman, living off the largesse of taxpayers. She began her sentence at Dwight Correctional Center on February 16, 1978. It also deepens our understanding of the narratives and reality around welfare. 3 billion a year!!! The figure of the "welfare queen"that term had been used a tiny bit before Linda Taylor, but it really came into prominence because of its association with Taylor. The fable of Chicago's 'welfare queen' Our country despises poor people. [6], Throughout her life, Taylor presented herself as being of various racial and ethnic identities, including Black, Asian, Hispanic, and Jewish. Linda Taylor in 1944, after being arrested for vagrancy in Washington State. [2][3], On August 8, 1974, Taylor filed a police report claiming that she had been robbed of $14,000 in "cash, jewelry, and furs". He explained that he was living with her at the time, that several other white infants were in her home, and that she left the house in a white uniform on the day of the kidnapping. Original #1: 08/21/07: 5: I HATE these welfare queens!!!! The story of the woman famously referred to as a "welfare queen" in Ronald Reagan's 1976 campaign is far more bizarre and unsettling than the stereotype she became the emblem for, as a stellar . What I do know, however, is that if I was writing Levins The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth, I wouldnt structure the narrative as he has. [2][5] The identity of Taylor's biological father is uncertain. Levins choice to center his narrative on the white men who brought Taylor to national attention, however, betrays this opportunity. Are we certain J.F.K.s gravedigger checks out? Linda Taylor is portrayed as a singularly awful human being. If you havent read Josh Levins amazing story at Slate the woman upon whom the term welfare queen was originally bestowed youre missing out on a fascinating and disturbing profile of an unlikely political figure. Born Martha Miller, she was listed as white in the 1930 Census, just like everyone else in her family. [8], Upon her return to Illinois, prosecutors opened a 31-count indictment against Taylor for fraud, perjury and bigamy, alleging that she had received welfare and Social Security checks under multiple names. But then she goes on to genuinely horrible stuff. Her fraudulent claims have since been estimated at $40,000 over a number of years. FORMER PRESIDENT REAGAN: She has used 127 names, so far, posed as a mother of 14 children at one time, 7 at another and, once while on welfare, posed as an open-heart surgeon, complete with office. It was a different news environment, too. recieving 8.5 million dollars a day from us americans. Women detained under the American Planand women arrested for "morals offenses" more broadly, including disorderly conduct, vagrancy, waywardness, and prostitutionoften had remarkable difficulty getting a job. Grammatizator theme by Adam Turner. Yeah, and there are stories written about, you know, welfare queen has a successor, whether its in Chicago or California. The Racial Ideas That Dont Neatly Line Up. The result is a page-turner, but one that repeatedly loses sight of its purpose. Baltimore General Business Amy Sherald Painting "Welfare Queen" Sells for $3.9 Million November 18, 2021 What first drew my attention was the figure. He presents Linda Taylor not as a parable for anything grand, but as a singular American scoundrel who represented nothing but herself. Rose Termini, without any prompting, begins the narrative of her sons kidnapping by saying that Taylor once told me she was a nurse and she got around a lot with kids. According to Termini, Taylor would often dress in a white uniformshe says she saw the getup with her own eyes. Released on bond, Taylor fled the state and was a fugitive until October 9, 1974, when she was caught in Tucson, Arizona. And while Reagans critics on the left argued that the woman was a fabrication, Levin reminds us at length that she wasnt. If you have time for only one long read this weekend, you should really holler at Levins mesmerizing story of this colorful, maddening figure who somehow became central to one our countrys most intractable and racially charged policy debates. You can listen to that interview in the player at the top of the page. Maternal Grief in Black and White: Enslaved Mothers and Antislavery Literature on the Eve of War, Menstrual Advocacy Is Flowing and Flowering, Language Barriers and Poorer Health Outcomes, Anacleto Palabay in the Metropole: Public Health, Migration, and Deportation in the Case of a Filipino Leprosy Patient, Weather Bad and Whales Un-cooperative: The Misadventures of Mid-Century Whale Cardiology Expeditions, Empathy in the Archive: Care and Disdain for Wet Nursing Mothers. So many people thought that she just never even existed, that the welfare queen trope was just not based on a specific person, that Reagan had just made the whole thing up. If you want to prove that Reagan is a liar, it doesnt really help your cause to say yeah, this woman is actually accused of murder! As Gordon explains, poverty is an economic condition lack of money while pauperism is an internal, moral, or psychological problem. . When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. As Josh Levin discusses in a new book titled "The Queen," the original welfare queen was Linda Taylor, a career criminal guilty of terrible crimes that likely included kidnapping and murder. But Levins story isnt merely fascinating. In the second . Other claims Reagan made about her "three new cars", including a Cadillac, were true. Thats what I hoped to do. [8][9], Upon investigating her, Sherwin discovered Taylor was wanted on welfare fraud charges in Michigan. But it was really around the time of the civil rights movement and the welfare rights movement in the 60s and then into the 70s that the popular perception of welfare became really racialized. Linda Taylor was surrounded. A bevy of inspector general reports found improper payment levels of 20 to 40 percent in state TANF programs but when you look at the reports, the payments appear all to be due to bureaucratic incompetence (categorized by the inspector general as either eligibility and payment calculation errors or documentation errors), rather than intentional fraud by beneficiaries. At other times, Levin suggests that she seemed to know precisely which lever to pull, which name to use, which tragedy to invoke, in order to get what she wanted. Another earlier husband and ostensible father to some of her children was white, and during that marriage she gave birth to kids who alternately appeared black, unmistakably white, or racially ambiguous. His euphemism was the woman in Chicago, but the message was clear. Her remains were cremated. This week: how politicians used one outlier's story to turn the public against government programs for the poor. People who knew her family told Levin that she had Native American ancestry. I dont remember the headlines off the top of my head, but there are like plays on words around welfare queen gives up her throne, because this person has scammed $250,000. A " welfare queen " is a derogatory term used in the United States to refer to women who allegedly misuse or collect excessive welfare payments through fraud, child endangerment, or manipulation. [2] Taylor died of a heart attack on April 18, 2002, at Ingalls Memorial Hospital outside Chicago. Levin addresses all that, but his real goal is to put a face to Reagans bogeywoman, tracking every alias, every scam, every duped husband and every dodged arrest. You look at so many archival stories or things where people are revisiting things from the past, its interesting to me how often its a question of frameI think of many MeToo stories and how many of them the information was out there, but we see it differently with a certain perspective. Reagan was taking information that was publicly reported in news outlets that had good journalistic reputations. Theres a sickly woman who winds up dead shortly after Taylor befriends her. When Ronald Reagan and his advisors wanted to undermine the very institution of social programs, he turned to a news story out of Chicagothe tale of one Linda Taylor, whod bilked the government benefits system out of so much money she was dubbed the welfare queen., The trope of the welfare queen is powerful, toxic, and stubbornly persistent. Its always a very powerful message, politically, to tell people that whatever problems that theyre having in their lives that theres a specific category of people thats to blame for it, and the people that often get the blame are the ones who are most vulnerable and dont have as much of a voice in the political process, undocumented immigrants being the most relevant example in some ways today. That she was this unique character that didnt represent anyone or anything other than herself. The Life and Crimes of Americas Original Welfare Queen, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/books/review/josh-levin-queen-linda-taylor.html. Ghetto White Trash Welfare Queen Tells All and is accused of White on White. As we head into the 2020 election with primary candidates advancing arguments for attempts to create progressive programs that decrease the gap between the haves and the have-nots will have to reckon with her long, long shadow. And its not to excuse her actions or even really to try to try to explain them, because it was important to me not to suggest causation and say because she was treated this way, this is how she treated other people. The first story published on Sept. 29, 1974, under the headline "Cops find deceitbut no one cares.". NPRs Melissa Block spoke with Josh Levin about the article. [2][3], Taylor was born to Lydia Mooney White in Golddust, Tennessee, a few months after White moved there from Summit, Alabama. What I do know, however, is that if I was writing Levin's The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth, I wouldn't structure the narrative as he has. Professional wrestler Kia Stevens turned heads in the first season of Netflix's 1980s-set comedy " GLOW " as Tamm Dawson, a mother by day and champion in the ring at night. Even Joe Biden came to deal in the imagery, advocating for reform legislation in 1988 in the Newark paper: We are all too familiar with the stories of welfare mothers driving luxury cars and leading lifestyles that mirror the rich and famous, he wrote. But that's not how Ronald Reagan told her . According to Insider, Favre's attorney Bud Holmes said that Favre never knew the money came from welfare funds. Ronald Reagan told the story of a benefit stealing "welfare queen" back in 1976 to argue for smaller, leaner government. Community Calendar From How Do You Atlanta. But her misdeeds were far more numerous and darker than. The figure of the welfare queenthat term had been used a tiny bit before Linda Taylor, but it really came into prominence because of its association with Taylor. Part of the fun of Levins book is burrowing inside his obsessive quest. The term is seen by many as a. There are hints of buying and selling children on the black market. Once in office, he gutted welfare and a million people lost their food stamps. Listen to the Podcasts: Code Switch, The Original 'Welfare Queen' and Throughline, Mass Incarceration We are exploring two aspects of race in the US: The concept of welfare and the criminal justice system. . The book purportedly reclaims the story of Linda Taylor, the original welfare queen used by Ronald Reagan as stump speech fodder in his primary bid against President Gerald Ford in 1976. Her crimes are so sprawling and confusing that at times she seems almost like a Keyser Sze master villain. [11], Taylor was released from prison on parole on April 11, 1980. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts And the welfare queen thing, it was so strong that it even erased her existence from earth. The children she claimed as her own when she was arrested by Sherwin in 1974 turned out to be her grandchildren; Levins earlier depiction of their questionable origins turns out to have been a ploy to deepen the mystery surrounding Taylors notoriety at the expense of giving us a straightforward explanation. . She became notorious in the 1970s for her . Like she would present herself as a heart surgeon or somebody who was a spiritual advisor or any of the various guises she put on to scam people or to worm her way into peoples lives, and for somebody who was so chameleonic, welfare queen was the label and that she couldnt escape and that erased all of the complexity of her life. By Anna K. Danziger Halperin June 11, 2019. The queen remains as elusive as ever. 90% of our funding comes from metro Atlanta, please give! He was kind of cherry-picking facts and planting them in a particular way, but he found this anecdote, this one-off incident, and used it to extrapolate really wildly about welfare programs generally, about welfare recipients generally.
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