Social Welfare History Project Programs Page 34

Older Americans Act of 1965

Overview: The Older Americans Act of 1965 The Older Americans Act was originally signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 14, 1965. It established the Administration on Aging within the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and called for the creation of State Units on Aging. William Bechill was named first…

Federal Emergency Relief Act of 1933

Text from the The Federal Emergency Relief Act of 1933

Emergency Relief and Construction Act of 1932

President Herbert Hoover said: “I expect to sign the relief bill on Tuesday. I do wish to express the appreciation which I have and I know that the country has to those leaders of both political parties who have cooperated to put the bill into effective shape and to eliminate the destructive proposals which were from time to time injected into it.

Richmond, Mary

Mary Richmond is considered a principle founder of the profession of social work and the importance of professional education. She constructed the foundations for the scientific methodology development of professional social work. She searched for the causes of poverty and social exclusion in the interaction between an individual and his or her environment.

Springer, Gertrude

“Gertrude Springer has sprung from Better Times to The Survey. With this issue of the Mid-monthly, she takes over, as associate editor, the Social Practice Department…. ” (15 October 1930, p. 106.) Springer undertook field trips and initiated contacts to determine the lay of the social welfare landscape beyond New York. In pithy writing about social issues, policy, and services across the country, she never neglected to explain how things came down to affecting individuals. “Amelia Bailey,” — “Miss Bailey” to most people — was a 1930s-style virtual-reality public relief supervisor. “Miss Baily Says…” columns dealt with issues such as: “When Your Client Has a Car,” “Are Relief Workers Policemen?,” “How We Behave in Other People’s Houses.”

Steele, Carrie

Carrie Steele Logan (1829–1900) – Founder of the Carrie Steele Orphan Home in Atlanta, GA

Sanger, Margaret

Margaret (nee: Higgins) Sanger risked scandal, danger, and imprisonment to challenge the legal and cultural obstacles that made controlling fertility difficult and illegal. Ms. Sanger viewed birth control as a woman’s issue and she was prepared to take on the medical establishment, the churches, the legislatures, and the courts. She was persuasive, tireless, single-minded, and unafraid of a fight. On October 16,1916 she opened a birth control clinic in Brooklyn, was arrested, and served thirty days for distributing information about contraceptives. From that experience, Sanger moved on to assume leadership of the struggle for free access to birth control. In 1921 she founded the American Birth Control League, the precursor to the Planned Parenthood Federation, and spent her next three decades campaigning to bring safe and effective birth control into the American mainstream.

Halbert, Leroy Allen

By John E. Hansan, Ph.D. Leroy Allen Halbert (1875-1958) — Pioneer Social Worker, Director of the Nation’s First Department of Public Welfare, Advocate for the Unemployed, Social Reformer, and Author

Carstens, Carl Christian

Carl Christian Carstens (April 2, 1865 – July 4, 1939): First Executive Director Child Welfare League of America. Written by Emma Octavia Lundberg