Derthick, Martha. The Influence of Federal Grants: Public Assistance in Massachusetts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970.
“This book reports an important study of the impact of federal aid on public assistance programs and their administration in a state which had a highly developed public assistance program when the Social Security Act was enacted in 1935. It examines in depth the ways in which the federal supervisory agency . . . utilized the Social Security Act and the bureau rule-making authority to shape the state assistance programs according to the federal view of how and what these programs should be. It is a fascinating account of how the state legislature, the governor, the Civil Service Commission, and the state and local departments of public welfare were persuaded, cajoled, maneuvered, and finally forced to conform to the ideas of a small group of strong-minded federal officials.
. . . Plainly this book should be required reading for all social workers, students of social policy, and social-policy-makers at whatever level of government. The book is carefully researched, competently written, and temperate and fair in its interpretation.”
-Alton A. Linford, in a review of the book in Social Service Review 44, no. 2 (June 1970)