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Frances Fox Piven (born 1932) is a professor of political science and sociology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, where she has taught since 1982.

Life and education

Piven was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, of Russian immigrants. Piven immigrated to the United States when she was one and was naturalized as a United States Citizen in 1953. She received a B.A. in City Planning in 1953, an M.A. in 1956, and a Ph.D. in 1962, all from the University of Chicago. Piven is Jewish.

Career

Piven was married to her long-time collaborator Richard Cloward until his death in 2001. Together with Cloward, she wrote an article in the May 1966 issue of The Nation titled "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty" advocating increased enrollment in social welfare programs in order to collapse that system and force reforms, leading to a guaranteed annual income. This political strategy has been referred to as the "Cloward–Piven strategy". During 2006/07 Piven served as the President of the American Sociological Association.

Activism and legislation

Throughout her career, Piven has combined academic work with political action. For instance, in 1983 she co-founded Human SERVE (Service Employees Registration and Voter Education), an organization with the goal of increasing voter registration by linking voter registration offerings with the use of social services or state Departments of Motor Vehicles. Human SERVE's initiative was incorporated by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, colloquially known as the "Motor Voter Bill".

Piven has called for mass protests by the unemployed to effect changes in government policy.

Criticism and threats

Conservative commentator Glenn Beck has repeatedly criticized Piven, labeling her references to the May 2010 Greek protests a call to violence. Beck stated that she is an enemy of the Constitution, and that the Cloward-Piven strategy would "intentionally collapse our economic system", which in turn has led to multiple death threats against her. Comparing Beck to 1930s fascist broadcaster Charles Coughlin, Piven has replied that her references to riots are "not a call for violence"; that her critics are using "a kind of rhetorical trick that is always used to denounce movements of ordinary people, and that is to imply that the massing of people itself is violent."

Honors and awards

• American Sociological Association Career Award for the Practice of Sociology (2000)
• Charles McCoy Career Achievement Award of the Caucus for a New Political Science of the American Political Science Association (2004)
• Mary Lepper Award of the Women's Caucus of the American Political Science Association (1998)
• American Sociology Association Lifetime Achievement Award for Political Sociology
• Tides Foundation Award for Excellence in Public Advocacy (1995)
• Annual Award of the National Association of Secretaries of State (1994)
• President's Award of the American Public Health Association (1993)
• Lee/Founders Award of the Society for the Study of Social Problems
• Eugene V. Debs Foundation Prize
• C. Wright Mills Award
• Honorary Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America

Bibliography

• Labor Parties in Postindustrial Societies (Oxford University Press, 1992, ISBN 978-0-19-520927-3)
• The War at Home: The Domestic Costs of Bush's Militarism (New Press, 2004, ISBN 978-1-59558-092-4)
• Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006, ISBN 978-0-7425-6316-2)

With Richard Cloward

• Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare (Pantheon, 1971, 2nd ed: Vintage, 1993, ISBN 978-0-679-74516-7)
• Poor People's Movements: Why they Succeed, How they Fail (Pantheon, 1977, ISBN 978-0-394-72697-7)
• New Class War: Reagan's Attack on the Welfare State and Its Consequences (Pantheon, 1982, ISBN 978-0-394-70647-4)
• Why Americans Don't Vote (Pantheon, 1988, ISBN 978-0-394-55396-2)
• The Breaking of the American Social Compact (New Press, 1997, ISBN 978-1-56584-476-6)
• Why Americans Still Don't Vote: And Why Politicians Want it That Way (Beacon, 2000, ISBN 978-0-8070-0449-4)

With Lee Staples and Richard Cloward

• Roots to Power: A Manual for Grassroots Organizing (Praeger, 1984, ISBN 978-0-275-91800-2)

With Lorraine Minnite and Margaret Groarke

• Keeping Down the Black Vote: Race and the Demobilization of American Voters (New Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-59558-354-3)

The Frances Fox Piven Papers are held by Smith College.

References

1. ^ Frances Fox Piven Papers - Biographical Note, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Five Colleges Archives & Manuscript Collections
2. Ehrenreich, Barbara (November 2006). "ASA Presidents - Frances Fox Piven". ASA Footnotes. Retrieved January 24, 2011. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
3. Polner, Murray (1982). American Jewish Biographies. The Lakeville Press. Retrieved February 2, 2011.
4. Cloward, Richard (May 2, 1966). "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty". The Nation. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
5. Reisch, Michael (2001). The Road Not Taken. Brunner Routledge. ISBN 1-58391-025-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
6. Rogin, Richard (September 27, 1970). "Now It's Welfare Lib". The New York Times. p. SM16. The Cloward-Piven Strategy, as it became known, had a simple radical appeal. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
7. American Sociological Association - Results of 2005 ASA Election
8. McCain, Nina (May 20, 1979). "BU's Piven No Cloistered Academic". The Boston Globe. Retrieved January 22, 2011.
9. Piven, Frances Fox (December 22, 2010). "Mobilizing the Jobless". The Nation. Retrieved January 22, 2011.
10. ^ Stelter, Brian (January 21, 2011). "Spotlight From Glenn Beck Brings a CUNY Professor Threats". The New York Times. Retrieved January 22, 2011.
11. "Glenn Beck Targets Frances Fox Piven". The Nation. January 20, 2011. Retrieved January 22, 2011.
12. Harris, Paul (January 30, 2011). "Frances Fox Piven defies death threats after taunts by anchorman Glenn Beck". The Guardian. Retrieved January 30, 2011.
13. CUNY Faculty Home Page and Bio
14. Democratic Socialists of America - Our Structure

External links

• Frances Fox Piven faculty page at CUNY Graduate Center
• Column archives at The Nation
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Appearances on Democracy Now!
• Frances Fox Piven at IMDb
• Template:Worldcat id
• Frances Fox Piven Papers at Five College Archives & Manuscript Collections
• Frances Fox Piven vs. Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, debate, 1980, YouTube
• 2010 Rekindling the Radical Imagination - Frances Fox Piven, Brian Jones, Arundhati Roy, and Noam Chomsky, March 21, 2010, Vimeo
• Frances Fox Piven (October 15, 2010). "How Labour is (Part of) the Problem in Building the Left". Retrieved February 8, 2011.
• Frances Fox Piven (February 8, 2011). "The real threat of Glenn Beck's fantasies". The Guardian. Retrieved February 8, 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

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• American sociologists
• American political scientists
• American political writers
• American social sciences writers
• Presidents of the American Sociological Association
• Members of the Democratic Socialists of America
• City University of New York faculty
• University of Chicago alumni
• People from Calgary
• American people of Canadian descent
• 1932 births
• Living people