Attempts to define the remedial field often lose more than they gain in elaboration. Once stripped of the categories – “mental health,” “corrections,” “retardation;” unen­cumbered by the labels – “multi-problem family,” “emotionally disturbed child,” “juvenile offender;” and liberated from the technical jargon – “psycho-social diagnosis,” “therapeutic intervention,” the remedial field may be seen in its essence: which is, quite simply, people helping people.

Physicians frequently have had important parts in National Conferences, but seldom as physicians and almost never as bridging persons between medicine and social welfare. For instance, in the 1932 Conference Dr. ‘Richard Cabot gave the presidential address and Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur was one of the principal speakers. However, Dr. Cabot, who was somewhat out of step with some of his medical colleagues, spoke more as the founder of medical social work than as a representative of the medical profession, while Dr. Wilbur, past president of the American Medical Association, formerly dean of one of the leading medical schools in the country, and at the time chairman of the precedent-setting Com­mittee on the Costs of Medical Care, spoke in his capacity as Secretary of the Interior, a political appointment under President Hoover, and only mentioned medical concerns in passing in his address on the United States Children’s Bureau.

Actually, the role of concerned citizens in providing public recreational programs began in the United States as far back as 1885. Unfortunately, although the history of this involvement is spotted with some progressive movement, on the whole lackadaisical developments have failed to keep pace with changes in cultural and social patterns that occur when one ethnic group moves into a community replacing another. In 1885, for example, the first efforts to improve recreational facilities for the underprivileged were led by Joseph Lee, who was shocked to see boys arrested for playing in Boston streets; George E. Johnson was moved at the pathos of the attempts of little children to play in the narrow crowded alleys in Pittsburgh.

Imagine a network of rural villages and surrounding farms — populations of 2,000 are large. Slow transportation makes them physically isolated and economically and socially self-sufficient. Most citizens are called yeoman farmers: they own and work their land. They are militant Protestants, likely to be of a single denomination and congregated in a single church. They are democrats, proud of their revolution, jealous of their rights, scorning the pretensions of European aristocracy. They are said to be friendly and gener­ous with neighbors and strangers, but acquisitive and zealous for the main chance. Such communities were most clearly realized in the New England towns that Alexis de Tocqueville described in 1835 and in the settlements of religious groups, such as the Mormons. In many places settlers were too few and scattered to establish close ties, but where they could they did.

This paper will trace certain con­tinuities in the responses to poverty and social problems in America over the past cen­tury. It will show that despite the emphasis on “novelty,” “discovery,” and “invention,” there have been continuities in the treatment of dependency and poverty in America, which have affected the development of the social welfare system, especially where the traditional attitudes have handicapped creative responses to social problems.

Far-reaching changes have occurred in social work during the last century. When the National Conference was created in the early 1870’s the common idea was that, for the most part, poverty (and dependency) was the result of personal failure, a flaw in the moral character of the individual; the individual, therefore, not society, was responsible for economic independence. Indeed, it was widely believed that the economic and social order could not operate successfully if the state, through its poor laws, undermined the work incentive by providing citizens a degree of security through public assistance.

This bibliography was an important part of the pamphlet published by the National Conference of Social Welfare on the occasion of its 100th Anniversary. The bibliography covers the Introduction written by Clarke Chambers as well as the six essays written by leaders in the field of social welfare.