
Frances Fox Piven (born October 10, 1932) is an American professor of
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and ...
and
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...
at
The Graduate Center,
City University of New York
The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the public university system of New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven senior colleges, seven community colleges and seven pr ...
, where she has taught since 1982.
[Frances Fox Piven Papers – Biographical Note](_blank)
, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College
Smith College is a private liberal arts women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith and opened in 1875. It is the largest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite women's c ...
, Five Colleges Archives & Manuscript Collections
Piven is known equally for her contributions to social theory and for her social activism. A veteran of the
war on poverty
The war on poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a nationa ...
and subsequent welfare-rights protests both in New York City and on the national stage, she has been instrumental in formulating the theoretical underpinnings of those movements. Over the course of her career, she has served on the boards of the
ACLU
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". ...
and the
Democratic Socialists of America
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is a Left-wing politics, left-wing Democratic Socialists of America#Tendencies within the DSA, multi-tendency Socialism, socialist and Labour movement, labor-oriented political organization. Its roots ...
, and has also held offices in several professional associations, including the
American Political Science Association
The American Political Science Association (APSA) is a professional association of political science students and scholars in the United States. Founded in 1903 in the Tilton Memorial Library (now Tilton Hall) of Tulane University in New Orleans, ...
and the
Society for the Study of Social Problems
The Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) is an organization founded in 1951 in counterpoint to the American Sociological Association.
History
The Society was founded in 1951 by Elizabeth Briant Lee and Alfred McClung Lee. Profes ...
. Previously, she had been a member of the political science faculty at
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original c ...
.
Life and education
Piven was born in
Calgary, Alberta
Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Canadian Prairies, Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population ...
, Canada,
of Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Rachel (née Paperny) and Albert Fox, a storekeeper. Piven immigrated to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
when she was one and was
naturalized
Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the i ...
as a
United States citizen
Citizenship of the United States is a legal status that entails Americans with specific rights, duties, protections, and benefits in the United States. It serves as a foundation of fundamental rights derived from and protected by the Constitut ...
in 1953.
She was raised in
Jackson Heights, Queens, New York. She attended P.S. 148 and
Newtown High School.
She received a
B.A.
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four ye ...
in
City Planning
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
in 1953, an
M.A. in 1956, and a
Ph.D. in 1962, all from the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
.
She attended on a scholarship and she waitressed for living expenses.
Piven's dissertation at the University of Chicago was directed by
Edward C. Banfield
Edward Christie Banfield (November 19, 1916 – September 30, 1999) was an American political scientist, best known as the author of ''The Moral Basis of a Backward Society'' (1958), and ''The Unheavenly City'' (1970). His work was foundational to ...
.
Career
Piven was married to her long-time collaborator
Richard Cloward
Richard Andrew Cloward (December 25, 1926 – August 20, 2001) was an American sociologist and activist. He influenced the Strain theory of criminal behavior and the concept of anomie, and was a primary motivator for the passage of the N ...
until his death in 2001.
Together with Cloward, she wrote an article in the May 1966 issue of ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's ''The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
'' 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
The Cloward–Piven strategy is a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven.
History
Cloward and Piven were both professors at the Columbia University School of ...
". During 2006/07 Piven served as the President of the
American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fif ...
.
While at Boston University, she and her political science department colleagues
Murray Levin
Murray Burton Levin (1927–1999) was a political science professor at Boston University from 1955 through his retirement in 1989. A progressive who once had been a member of the Communist Party USA, Levin was an unreconstructed radical througho ...
and
Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922January 27, 2010) was an American historian, playwright, philosopher, socialist thinker and World War II veteran. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political sc ...
refused to go back to work after the settlement of the
1979 Boston University strike. Clerical and support staff had also gone out on strike at the time of the AAUP, and Piven, Levin, Zinn and others refused to cross their picket line, holding their classes elsewhere in solidarity with the unresolved strike. The "B.U. Five" were threatened with dismissal by B.U. President
John Silber
John Robert Silber (August 15, 1926 – September 27, 2012) was an American academician and candidate for public office. From 1971 to 1996, he was President of Boston University (BU) and, from 1996 to 2002, Chancellor. From 2002 to 2003, he again ...
.
Silber later backed down, and Piven and the others eventually returned to the classroom. Piven eventually left B.U. for C.U.N.Y.
Activism and legislation
Throughout her career, Piven has combined academic work with political action. In 1968, she signed the "
Writers and Editors War Tax Protest
Tax resistance, the practice of refusing to pay taxes that are considered unjust, has probably existed ever since rulers began imposing taxes on their subjects. It has been suggested that tax resistance played a significant role in the collapse of ...
" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. 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".
She is a member of the
Democratic Socialists of America
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is a Left-wing politics, left-wing Democratic Socialists of America#Tendencies within the DSA, multi-tendency Socialism, socialist and Labour movement, labor-oriented political organization. Its roots ...
and serves as one of the eight honorary chairs of that organization.
Piven also engaged
Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the ...
and
Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell (; born June 30, 1930) is an American author, economist, political commentator and academic who is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. With widely published commentary and books—and as a guest on TV and radio—he bec ...
in a debate in the PBS television series ''
Free to Choose''.
Writings
Some of Piven's major works include ''Regulating the Poor'' written with
Richard Cloward
Richard Andrew Cloward (December 25, 1926 – August 20, 2001) was an American sociologist and activist. He influenced the Strain theory of criminal behavior and the concept of anomie, and was a primary motivator for the passage of the N ...
, first published in 1972 and updated in 1993, which is a scrutiny of government welfare policy and how it is used to exert power over lower class individuals; ''
Poor People's Movements
''Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail'' (1977; second edition 1979) is a book about social movements by the American academics and political activists Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward. The book advanced Piven and Clowar ...
'', published in 1977, an analysis of how rebellious social movements can induce important reforms; ''Why Americans Don't Vote'', published in 1988 and a follow up book ''Why Americans Still Don't Vote'' published in 2000, each of which look at the role of current American electoral practices which tend to discourage the poor working class from exercising their right to vote;''The War at Home'' published in 2004, a critical examination of the domestic results of the wars initiated by the
Bush administration; ''Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America'', a look at the interaction of disruptive social movements and electoral politics in generating the political force for