John Sorensen is the Executive Director of the Abbott Sisters Project and the co-editor of The Grace Abbott Reader (2008) for the University of Nebraska Press. He has organized major Abbott events for the New York Public Library, the Chicago Humanities Festival, Chicago Public Radio, etc. The Abbott Sisters Project is a not-for-profit operation (active since…

Catherine (Katy) Papell  (d. 2013) was involved in social work activities since 1940. A 1937 graduate of the University of Michigan, Dr. Papell received a Master’s of Arts degree from Columbia University’s Teachers College in 1938 and a Masters in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania in 1950. She was awarded a Doctorate of…

Sonya Michel, Ph.D., Professor Emerita, American Studies and History, University of Maryland. Her research areas include gender and social policy in the U.S. and in comparative perspective, and she is particularly interested in the relationship between the public and private sectors and social provision. Among her publications are Children’s Interests/Mothers’Rights: The Shaping of America’s Child…

Jerry D. Marx, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work at the University of New Hampshire. Before earning his Ph.D. at the Boston College Graduate School of Social Work, Marx served as Executive Director for eight years of a family service, nonprofit agency in Portland, Maine. Marx’s research interest is community…

Andrew Malekoff, is Executive Director / CEO for North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, Roslyn Heights, New York where he has worked since 1977. He is a NY State licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) and credentialed alcoholism and substance abuse counselor (CASAC). Malekoff has been editor of the journal Social Work with Groups since…

Kriste Lindemeyer, Ph.D. is Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences & the Graduate School, Rutgers-Camden, and a tenured position as Professor of History . Dr. Lindemeyer’s areas of expertise are childhood in the United States during the 20th Century and the U.S. Children’s Bureau. Her books include: The Greatest Generation Grows Up: Childhood in…

David Klaassen was Curator/Archivist, of the Social Welfare History Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries from 1975 until his retirement in 2011. Selected publications include: “The Archives of Social Welfare in the United States, in Paul Stuart and John Herrick, eds., Encyclopedia of Social Welfare History (Sage, 2004); “The Archives of Social Welfare,” in Richard L. Edwards,…

June Hopkins, Ph.D. was Professor of History at Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, GA from 1998 until her retirement in 2016. She received her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, her M.P.A. from Pace University, her M.A. from California State University, Northridge, and her Ph.D. from Georgetown University. She specializes in U.S. social history…

Ellen Herman, Ph.D., is Professor, Department of History University of Oregon. Dr. Herman is a historian of the modern United States who is especially interested in the human sciences, social engineering, and therapeutic culture. Her most recent book is Kinship by Design: A History of Adoption in the Modern United States (University of Chicago Press,…

John E. Hansan, Ph.D. (1930 – 2019) was a career social worker with a doctorate in social welfare policy from Brandeis University. He worked for 45 years in human service programs at the local, state, and national levels. His early career was staffing and directing settlement houses in Kansas City, MO, Philadelphia, PA, Peoria, IL…