UR history professor receives congressional research grant

May 25, 2018

Eric Yellin, associate professor of history at the University of Richmond, has received a grant from The Dirksen Congressional Center for his project, “Social Security: A Social History.”

The $3,125 grant will fund Yellin’s research at the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C., this summer where he will review congressional papers of the Special Committee on Aging.

“Congress has always been the home of Social Security and congressional representatives were the key links between Social Security and ordinary citizens after World War II,” said Yellin. “I aim to bring new insights into what it was like to grow old in America during the postwar era.”

Ultimately, Yellin intends to publish a book that explores what it meant to receive government assistance in an era of middle-class mobility and how notions of employment, retirement, age, class and race were shaped by the interaction between state and society.

Yellin has taught at the University of Richmond since 2007.

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 The Dirksen Congressional Center, named for the late Senate Minority Leader Everett M. Dirksen, is a private, nonpartisan nonprofit research and educational organization devoted to the study of Congress. Since 1978, the Congressional Research Grants program has invested more than $1,000,000 to support over 462 projects.