True Americanism – Address of Louis D. Brandeis (1915)
Speech given by Louis Brandeis on the subject of Americanization and the essential ideals of America.
Continue Reading »Nurses Settlement, Richmond, VA – Handbook of Settlements (1911)
RICHMOND – THE NURSES SETTLEMENT 201 East Cary Street (August, 1909 -) Note: This description of the Nurses Settlement in Richmond, VA is from the Handbook of Settlements written by two settlement house pioneers: Robert Archey Woods and Albert J. Kennedy. The book included the findings of a national survey of all the known settlements in existence in 1910 and…
Continue Reading »Theological Foundations of Charity: Catholic Social Teaching, The Social Gospel, and Tikkun Olam
A look at theological principles that have motivated Catholics, Protestants, and Jews to charitable acts.
Continue Reading »Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis has been known by many names throughout history, among them “consumption,” “the white death,” and “the great white plague.” Tuberculosis remains one of the world’s most deadly diseases.
Continue Reading »Polio
Polio is caused by a virus; it affects the body by attacking the central nervous system, specifically those neurons essential for muscle activity. The first U.S. polio epidemic swept across the country in 1916, and then again in the late 1940s and 1950s.
Continue Reading »Americanization
Until the start of the 20th century, Americans typically believed in the power of the “melting pot” to create a common culture out of the various groups coming to America. However, this surge in immigration led to the creation of Americanization programs.
Continue Reading »Disability Rights & Universal Design
Disability rights originated in Boston, Massachusetts in 1846 with Samuel Gridley Howe. Howe was an advocate for education of the blind, and a supporter of the “feeble-minded.”
Continue Reading »Rankin, Jeannette (1880–1973)
Jeannette Rankin’s life was filled with extraordinary achievements: she was the first woman elected to Congress, one of the few suffragists elected to Congress, and the only Member of Congress to vote against U.S. participation in both World War I and World War II. “I may be the first woman member of Congress,” she observed upon her election in 1916. “But I won’t be the last.”1
Continue Reading »Caraway, Hattie Wyatt (1878 – 1950)
Hattie Wyatt Caraway served for 14 years in the U.S. Senate and established a number of “firsts,” including her 1932 feat of winning election to the upper chamber of Congress in her own right. Drawing principally from the power of the widow’s mandate and the personal relationships she cultivated with a wide cross–section of her constituency, “Silent Hattie” was a faithful, if staid, supporter of New Deal reforms, which aided her largely agricultural state.
Continue Reading »Principles of The Universal Negro Improvement Association (Marcus Garvey, 1922)
We of the Universal Negro Improvement Association are determined to unite the 400,000,000 Negroes of the world to give expression to their own feeling; we are determined to unite the 400,000,000 Negroes of the world for the purpose of building a civilization of their own. And in that effort we desire to bring together the 15,000,000 of the United States, the 180,000,000 in Asia, the West Indies and Central and South America, and the 200,000,000 in Africa. We are looking toward political freedom on the continent of Africa, the land of our fathers.
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