Family Service Association of America: Part II By John E. Hansan, Ph.D. Editor’s Note: As listed in the historical time line in Part I, in the year 1905 “….Executives of 14 charity organization societies agreed to exchange form letters, printed material record forms, material describing charity organization, etc., each month. Charities, the periodical issued by…
Continue Reading »The industrial growth that followed the Civil War created crowded urban areas and led to poverty on a scale never before witnessed in the United States. Cities were filled with rural and immigrant poor families required to live in unsanitary and unsafe housing and work in dangerous factories. Then, in 1873, an economic depression in Europe combined with the turbulence of the post-Civil War years, led to a collapse of the American economy and what is known as “The Long Depression.” Banks and businesses failed, unemployment rose to 14% and those who retained their jobs saw wages cut to as little as one dollar per day.
Continue Reading »Written by Michael Barga. The Children’s Aid Society of Pennsylvania (CAS of PA) was formed in 1882 and was one of the first organizations dedicated to the care of children. The organization’s work has combined policy and direct service over the years, and the Society’s responsiveness to communal needs is especially highlighted through their efforts in times of war, depression, and social discord.
Continue Reading »“Educational Alliance: A History of a Lower East Side Settlement House,” by EJ Sampson. “The Educational Alliance…balanced the growing professionalization of settlement house work by becoming community-based, and kept its emphasis on encouraging public civic culture even as in other ways it aligned with a social service “agency” model. And it kept it eyes on its Jewish origins not only in its neighborhood work, but in negotiating its internal ethos. “
Continue Reading »At the latter end of the depression, the Quaker community had begun working with professionals in hopes of better organizing their aid to the disadvantaged. In 1879, the contact between the groups culminated in the Philadelphia Society for Organizing Charitable Relief and Repressing Mendicancy (SOC), which later became known as Family Service of Philadelphia. Within two years, SOC had 9,000 contributors.
Continue Reading »“Reformation as an End in Prison Discipline: Report of The Standing Committee,” by F. H. Wines, Chairman. ,A presentation at the Fifteenth Annual Session of The National Conference Of Charities And Correction, 1888. “We assert, therefore, that there can be no recognition of reformation as an end in prison discipline in any prison where the warden or superintendent is not, by his education, habits of thought, personal character, and conviction of duty, qualified to administer to convicts the moral treatment which they require.”
Continue Reading »Presentations and reports of standing committees at the annual meetings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction during the late 19th century reveal that social welfare leaders and progressives were actively involved in efforts to reform the nation’s criminal justice system.
Continue Reading »By F. H. Wines, LL. D., Chairman of Committee on Treatment of Criminals. “The subject assigned to this committee is the treatment of the criminal, a subordinate phase of the larger problem of the treatment of crime. The criminal is the concrete embodiment of the abstract conception of crime. Crime is an act, while the criminal is the agent of the act; but there can be no act without an actor, and it is through the criminal that the law strikes at crime, which it is the aim of the law to prevent or to suppress, caring little for the criminal actor, but much for the victim of his deed.”
Continue Reading »Hastings Hornell Hart (1851-1932): Prison Authority, Children’s Advocate and President the National Conference of Charities and Correction in 1893 By John E. Hansan, Ph.D. Introduction: In 1884 the Minnesota Board of Corrections and Charities submitted its First Report to the Legislature. It was compiled and written by Hastings Hornell Hart, the Secretary of the Board….
Continue Reading »History of State Boards (1863 – 1891) Report of Committee at the Twentieth Annual Session of the National Conference of Charities and Correction in 1893 Committee Members: Oscar Craig, New York; W. F. Slocum, Jr., Colorado; Herbert A. Forrest, Michigan; Samuel G. Smith, Minnesota; M. D. Follett, Ohio. Ed. Note: This entry was condensed…
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