ABSTRACT
With the passage of the National Assistance Act in 1948, the British Parliament swept away the remaining vestiges of the Poor Law, which for centuries had been the last recourse for the poorest members of the population. The legislation was one of several acts that defi ned the modern welfare state after the Second World War-a welfare state that signifi cantly expanded governmental responsibility for health, education, and social security. The National Assistance Act set out not only to centralize and reorganize poor relief, but also to create a new vocabulary and philosophy that would eliminate the stigma of the Poor Law system. In contrast to the relief systems in place before the war, inextricably linked in popular memory with humiliating abuses of the means test, the post-war welfare state celebrated the government’s role in the realization of social rights and common citizenship. Politicians introduced welfare legislation to the public in populist terms that emphasized inclusion and destigmatization, and many Britons took the message to heart. Poor women with children, for example, turned to the state for assistance in record numbers in the two decades following passage of the National Assistance Act in 1948.
