Molly Ladd-Taylor, author of Mother-Work and Fixing the Poor, is a prominent historian of gender and social policy, particularly for the United States. Her groundbreaking research places impoverished mothers, dependent children, and institutionalized people at the centre of analysis, joining their most private experiences with the public worlds of politics and policy. Her ambitious, engaged and canonical scholarship has reshaped historical understanding of welfare, eugenics, and the state.