Storming Caesar's Palace

It was a spring day on the Las Vegas strip in 1971 when Ruby Duncan, a former cotton picker turned hotel maid, the mother of seven, led a procession. Followed by an angry army of welfare mothers, they stormed the casino hotel Caesars Palace to protest Nevada_s decision to terminate their benefits. The demonstrations went on for weeks, garnering the protesters and their cause national attention. Las Vegas felt the pinch; tourism was cut by half. Ultimately, a federal judge ruled to reinstate benefits. It was a victory for welfare rights advocates across the country.In Storming Caesars Palace, historian Annelise Orleck tells the compelling story of how a group of welfare mothers and their supporters built one of this country_s most successful antipoverty programs. Declaring that "we can do it and do it better" these women proved that poor mothers are the real experts on poverty. In 1972 they founded Operation Life, which was responsible for all kinds of firsts for the poor in Las Vegas--the first library, medical center, daycare center, job training, and senior citizen housing. By the late 1970s, Operation Life was bringing millions of dollars into the community each year. And these women were influential in Washington, D.C.--respected and listened to by the likes of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Ted Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter.Ultimately, in the 1980s, Ruby Duncan and her band of reformers lost their funding with the country_s move toward conservatism. But the story of their incredible struggles and triumphs still stands as an important lesson about what can be achieved when those on welfare chart their own course.

Annelise Orleck is associate professor of history and women's and gender studies at Dartmouth College. She is the author of Common Sense and a Little Fire and Soviet Jewish Americans and coeditor of The Politics of Motherhood. Orleck lives in Thetford Center, Vermont, with her partner and their two children.