Social Welfare History Project admin Page 30

Christodora Settlement House, 1897-1939

Written by June Hopkins, Ph. D., History Department, Armstrong Atlantic State University. “Almost one hundred years ago, when Christina Isobel MacColl and her friend Sarah Carson founded Christodora Settlement House in the slums of New York City’s Lower East Side…these two indomitable women, inspired by such social activists as Jane Addams and Lillian Wald, intended to settle in the slums and form bonds of “love and loyalty” with their immigrant neighbors while helping them adjust to the mean streets and squalid tenements of urban America.”

Progressive Values: The Seedbed for New Deal Policies

The cultural and political currents that shaped American society during the early decades of the twentieth century had a decided effect on the configuration of the American welfare system as it appeared in the 1930s.

Progressive Era

Progressivism is a term commonly applied to a variety of responses to the economic and social problems that arose as a result of urbanization and the rapid industrialization introduced to America in the 19th Century.

The Longest Day

A chill returned as the sun disappeared behind the ruins of the World Trade Center. Renee Fleming, accompanied by the orchestra of St. Luke’s, sang God Bless America. I waved to a police officer wearing a light blue windbreaker. The words NYPD COMMUNITY AFFAIRS were printed in white block letters on the back of her jacket.

Social Work and Aftercare of the Mentally Ill in Maryland

“The question of affording proper care for patients discharged from hospitals for the insane is by no means a new one. The best and most satisfactory method of administering this aid has not yet been entirely decided…” (Arthur P. Herring, Secretary of the Maryland Lunacy Commission, September 14, 1910).

Defining Community

Until the Civil War to be oriented to the community as a social reference was in conflict with Individualism which was the dominant American philosophy. The way these ideas played against each other illuminates an important part of the American experience, one that continues to be active today.

Group Approach with Physicians Working in a Medical Intensive Care Unit in a Public Hospital

In the fall of 1979, under the leadership of Jerome Lowenstein, M.D., a Humanistic Medicine program was initiated at New York University Medical School. The purpose of the program was to provide medical students and physicians an opportunity to discuss and examine the non-medical aspects of medical education…

Experiencing Aging: A Social Group Worker’s Self-Reflection

The concept “experiencing aging” is different than ‘’aging’. It is a proactive state of being. It is not theory. Rather it is what exists uniquely in the mind and heart of each elderly member. Group workers are ever seeking to find it in their group members and to help the members find it in themselves and in each other.

Redefining the Federal Role in Social Welfare: 1995

The November 1994 congressional elections transformed the perennial debate over how much of the national income should be allocated for social welfare, how broadly or narrowly should the welfare responsibility of government be defined, what populations or institutions should receive benefits or administer them, and how to divide the costs.

Current Issues and Programs in Social Welfare

American social welfare, thanks to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Social Security Act of 1935, is furthered currently by two major categories of cash support programs: social insurances? and public assistance. Social insurances are based on the prior earnings and payroll contributions of an individual, while public assistance, commonly known as “welfare,” is based on the financial need of an individual.