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From Suffrage to the Senate America's Political Women: An Encyclopedia of Leaders, Causes & Issues

Kuhn, Margaret (Maggie) E. (1905-1995)

A founder and the convening president of the Gray Panthers, Maggie Kuhn became an advocate for older Americans after her forced retirement when she was 65 years old. As she searched for a way to continue working, she met with other social activists who had been or were soon to be forced into retirement. In 1970, the Gray Panthers emerged from those gatherings. Kuhn advocated “fundamental social change that would eliminate injustice, discrimination and oppression in our present society.” She sought a legal prohibition against mandatory retirement, supported publicly owned and democratically controlled utilities, and advocated health insurance paid totally by the government. She led efforts for regulation of the hearing aid and nursing home industries, presented position papers to the American Medical Association, and testified before congressional committees on the fragmentation of services for the elderly. Regarding a welfare reform bill, she told a congressional committee: “Public welfare in this country does not need reforming; it needs radicalization. To merely rearrange the outdated, unworkable concepts of the Elizabethan Poor Laws is not a solution.”

Born in Buffalo, New York, Kuhn earned her BA from Flora Stone Mather College of Case Western Reserve University in 1926. She continued to write, travel, and lecture until her death at the age of 89.

See also: Welfare

References: H. W. Wilson, Current Biography Yearbook, 1978 (1978); The New York Times, April 23, 1995.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
"Kuhn, Margaret (Maggie) E. (1905-1995)." From Suffrage to the Senate America's Political Women: An Encyclopedia of Leaders, Causes & Issues, edited by Suzanne O’Dea, Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Suffrage3e_0536.
APA 7th
Kuhn, Margaret (Maggie) E. (1905-1995). From Suffrage to the Senate America's Political Women: An Encyclopedia of Leaders, Causes & Issues, In S. O’Dea (Ed.), Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Suffrage3e_0536.
CMOS 17th
"Kuhn, Margaret (Maggie) E. (1905-1995)." From Suffrage to the Senate America's Political Women: An Encyclopedia of Leaders, Causes & Issues, Edited by Suzanne O’Dea. Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Suffrage3e_0536.