Beginning in the mid-1930s, Western Hemisphere nations turned to social insurance legislation--guided by the new concept of social security--in response to the economic crisis of the Great Depression. Supported by the International Labor Organization (ILO), national-level policy makers introduced a range of measures in recognition of the 1935 US Social Security Act. As Europe descended into a war, inter-Americanism served as way to maintain regional economic, and later military, security. This article describes an era of social welfare diplomacy in the Americas, one in which countries south of the US border projected their own distinct visions of social policy. Regional solidarity served as an integral step in the development of ideas concerning international social and economic rights. Placing President Franklin Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy in a wider frame, this analysis of ILO inter-American activities reveals an intriguing moment in history, when leaders from several nations saw economic development, trade, future growth, social security, and labor rights as integrally bound together.

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A century after release of the 'Declaration of Sentiments,' a feminist statement countering laws that defined citizenship rights for women differently than those of men, representatives of the US Women's Bureau offered a new post-WWII testimonial, now before the United Nations General Assembly. It defended civic and political rights for women, including eligibility to hold public office and to serve as international delegates in the UN itself, asserting, 'A modern nation cannot afford to waste half of its adult populations in a state of second-class citizenship.' The women who stood behind this and other propositions in the years that followed the war used the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) -the body producing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights -to press for global action with a gendered social purpose. From the basic premise of the right to representation they developed a discourse on a realm of additional rights: towards equal treatment, family welfare, justice for refugees and other migrants, and true social inclusion. This article focuses on the ways in which US women fought for representation and access within ECOSOC institutions in order to elicit policy change in the name of justice and international humanitarian reform.

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