Where did Francis Townsend live?
Where did the Townsends live after the war?
What was Townsend's plan for retirement?
When did the Townsend Plan reach its peak?
Who was Robert Earl Clements?
What was the purpose of the Townsend Plan?
The Townsend Plan was a scheme of old-age pensions devised by Dr. Francis E. Townsend in an effort to alleviate the desperate economic circumstances of the elderly in America and to stimulate a general economic recovery during the Great Depression.
How did Francis Townsend influence the creation?
How did Francis Townsend influence the creation of financial security for retired Americans? His formation of 'Townsend clubs' helped pressure the government into creating social security. His formation of 'Townsend clubs' helped pressure businesses into offering pensions for retirees.
What did Dr Townsend propose to help the American people?
The basic idea of the Townsend Plan was that the government would provide a pension of $200 per month to every citizen age 60 and older. The pensions would be funded by a 2% national sales tax (more precisely, a "transactions tax").
Which was Francis Townsend best known for during the New Deal era quizlet?
Which was Francis Townsend best known for during the New Deal era? employees bargaining with employers.
Who was the California doctor who called for old age pensions from the government?
Dr. Francis Townsend, a physician from Long Beach, Calif., began pushing his "Townsend Plan" to cure the depression. His idea was to give everyone over 60 years of age a Federal pension of $200 a month provided he spent it.
What was the main goal of the Townsend movement quizlet?
created by Dr. Francis Townsend, a former public health official, he proposed that the federal government pay citizens over age 60 a pension of $200 dollars a month, he believed this plan would increase spending and remove people form the labor force, freeing up jobs for the unemployed.
Who created the Social Security Act of 1935?
RooseveltRoosevelt in 1935, created Social Security, a federal safety net for elderly, unemployed and disadvantaged Americans. The main stipulation of the original Social Security Act was to pay financial benefits to retirees over age 65 based on lifetime payroll tax contributions.
Who was Father Townsend?
Francis Everett Townsend (/ˈtaʊnzənd/; January 13, 1867 – September 1, 1960) was an American physician who was best known for his revolving old-age pension proposal during the Great Depression.
Social Welfare History Project The Townsend Plan
The Townsend Plan’s Pension Scheme By Larry DeWitt, SSA Historian’s Office, December 2001. Research Note: #17: This Research Note discusses in some detail the economic problems with the very popular Old-Age Revolving Pension Plan (aka the Townsend Plan promoted and publicized by Dr. Francis E. Townsend) of the 1930’s.Although virtually every establishment economist and political ...
Learn about this topic in these articles
Many older people supported Francis E. Townsend’s plan to provide \$200 per month for everyone over age 60. At the same time, conservatives, including such groups as the American Liberty League, founded in 1934, attacked the New Deal as a threat to states’ rights, free enterprise, and the open…
role in U.S. history
Many older people supported Francis E. Townsend’s plan to provide \$200 per month for everyone over age 60. At the same time, conservatives, including such groups as the American Liberty League, founded in 1934, attacked the New Deal as a threat to states’ rights, free enterprise, and the open…
Where was Francis Townsend born?
Life and career. Francis Everett Townsend was born the second of six children on January 13, 1867, in Fairbury, Illinois. After Townsend contracted swamp malaria as an infant, the Townsend family moved to Nebraska where Townsend had two years of high school education. In 1898, Townsend borrowed $1,000 from his father and moved to Southern ...
Who was Townsend talking to?
Townsend talks with Senator Sheridan Downey. In September 1933, Townsend wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper (the Long Beach Press-Telegram ), and launched his career as an old-age activist.
What was the Townsend Plan?
The Townsend Plan. The Townsend Plan proposed that every person over 60 be paid $200 per month. The Old-Age Revolving Pension fund was to be supported by a 2% national sales tax. There were three requirements for beneficiaries under the Plan: they had to be retired; they had to be "free from habitual criminality;".
When did the Townsend Plan close?
The movement continued after the Roosevelt administration adopted Social Security in 1935 and beyond Townsend's death in 1960. In 1978, The Associated Press reported that the National Townsend Plan would be shut down by the end of February that year, with only state chapters surviving, and that by then it had a "dwindling and aging membership."
Who was the public health officer who died in the 1930s?
Clements later masterminded the Townsend Plan. In 1930, at the start of the Great Depression, Townsend became a Long Beach city public health officer at age 63, but lost his job three years later. Townsend died in Los Angeles on September 1, 1960.
Who said we have to have Social Security?
Frances Perkins , President Roosevelt' s Secretary of Labor, in her memoir, The Roosevelt I Knew (p. 294) says that Roosevelt told her, "We have to have it [Social Security]. Congress can't stand the pressure of the Townsend Plan unless we have a real old-age insurance system.".
What did Townsend do in his 60s?
In his late 60s, Townsend decided to do something about the financial devastation of the elderly poor. He envisioned a program where the federal government would provide a $200 per month pension to every American over the age of 60, and saw this financed through a 2% tax on all business transactions.
What did Townsend support?
Many in Congress, pressured to support the Townsend Plan, preferred being able to support the Social Security Act, which for the first time provided a safety net for Americans too old to work. Townsend considered this an inadequate substitute and began angrily attacking the Roosevelt administration.
What was Townsend's pension plan?
Townsend’s Old Age Revolving Pension Plan. The Progressive Era had seen several moves to establish old-age pensions and national health insurance , but with the Depression, many reformers focused on unemployment insurance. In his late 60s, Townsend decided to do something about the financial devastation of the elderly poor.
How many Townsend clubs were there in 1934?
He sold pamphlets, badges, and other items, and financed a national weekly mailing. In mid-1935, Townsend said that there were 7,000 clubs with 2.25 million members, most of them older people.
What was Townsend's main interest during the Great Depression?
During the Great Depression, when Townsend himself was in retirement age, he became interested in how the federal government could provide old age pensions. His project inspired the 1935 Social Security Act, which he found inadequate.
Where was Francis Townsend born?
Francis Townsend was born on January 13, 1867, on a farm in Illinois. When he was an adolescent his family moved to Nebraska, where he was educated through two years of high school. In 1887, he left school and moved to California with his brother, hoping to strike it rich in the Los Angeles land boom. Instead, he lost almost everything. Dejected, he returned to Nebraska and finished high school, then began to farm in Kansas. Later, he started medical school in Omaha, funding his education while working as a salesman.
Who is Jone Johnson Lewis?
Jone Johnson Lewis is a women's history writer who has been involved with the women's movement since the late 1960s. She is a former faculty member of the Humanist Institute. our editorial process. Jone Johnson Lewis.
The Forerunner of Social Security
Ever heard of Social Security? It's the government program that gives social welfare benefits to the elderly and others in need. Well did you know that Social Security might not have passed when it did if it were not for the efforts of Dr. Francis Townsend? That's right. Many of us have never heard of him, but Dr.
A Doctor with a Dream
Francis Townsend was born poor and would struggle with poverty and unemployment throughout much of his life. He was born in Fairbury, Illinois, in 1867. He moved around to a few different states working random jobs.
A Plan to Help the Elderly
So what was Townsend's idea? The simply named Townsend Plan was a proposal to give a monthly retirement pension to the elderly, in the hopes of keeping them out of poverty.
Political Activism
Over the next couple of years, the Townsend Plan gained immense popularity. Millions of people, in fact, saw it as the solution to the Depression. Townsendites wrote to Congress, put ads in newspapers, held conventions, and eventually collected tens of thousands of signatures to petition the government to make the Townsend Plan a reality.
Where did Francis Townsend live?
Francis Everett Townsend was born into a farm family near Fairbury, IL on Jan. 13, 1867. The family moved to Nebraska, where Francis attended Franklin Academy. Initially, he migrated to California expecting to get rich in the land boom, only to end up poor. After a few years at farming and odd jobs in Kansas and Colorado, Townsend entered the Omaha Medical College, graduating in 1907. He set up practice in South Dakota, where he remained until he entered the Army Medical Corps in World War I. He married a nurse, Minnie Bogue.
Where did the Townsends live after the war?
After the war the Townsends lived in Long Beach, Calif. But Townsend’s private medical practice did not prosper so he took a position as assistant city health director. Because of the Great Depression, he soon lost that job.
What was Townsend's plan for retirement?
In 1933 he proposed a plan whereby the Federal government would provide every person over 60 a $200 monthly pension.
When did the Townsend Plan reach its peak?
Supporters of the Townsend Plan continued to agitate for higher benefits after the Social Security Act’s passage in August 1935 and reached its peak of support in the months after the law was enacted. During the time his movement gathered strength and power, Dr. Townsend got into politics with some old cronies.
Who was Robert Earl Clements?
Robert Earl Clements, a young real estate broker, signed on as promoter and fund-raiser, and on New Year’s Day 1934 the two opened the first headquarters for their new “Old Age Revolving Pensions, Ltd.”. In short order, the Townsend movement emerged as a political force with which to be reckoned.
Overview
Francis Everett Townsend was an American physician who was best known for his revolving old-age pension proposal during the Great Depression. Known as the "Townsend Plan", this proposal influenced the establishment of the Roosevelt administration's Social Security system. He was born just outside Fairbury, Illinois, where he is memorialized by a post office named in his honor.
Life and career
Francis Everett Townsend was born the second of six children on January 13, 1867, in Fairbury, Illinois. After Townsend contracted swamp malaria as an infant, the Townsend family moved to Nebraska where Townsend had two years of high school education. In 1898, Townsend borrowed $1,000 from his father and moved to Southern California to develop a hay farming business. The business was not successful, and Townsend enrolled in Omaha Medical College when he was 31…
The Townsend Plan
The Townsend Plan proposed that every person over 60 be paid $200 per month. The Old-Age Revolving Pension fund was to be supported by a 2% national sales tax.
There were three requirements for beneficiaries under the Plan:
• they had to be retired;
Investigation
A Congressional committee was established in February 1936 to investigate Townsend. One of the findings was that the Townsend organisation had raised over a million dollars and that Townsend had received a salary of $12,000 for the previous 12 months.
While being questioned Townsend became angry at the questioning and stormed out. He was prosecuted for contempt of Congress and sentenced to 30 days in prison. However President R…
External links
• US Social Security Administration, "The Townsend Plan Movement," Social Security History.