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Hamilton Madison House

Madison House was founded by two young German Jews in 1898 to fight some of the serious problems of the day. Hamilton House was established in 1902 to help the new Italian immigrants who were suffering from Tuberculosis

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Catholic Charities USA

“Catholic Charities USA (CCUSA) is a national association of local and diocesan Catholic charitable agencies founded as the National Conference of Catholic Charities (NCCC) on the campus of The Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington, D.C. in 1910. The organization, which became CCUSA in 1986, has grown into one of the largest social welfare associations in the nation, and currently has 1,735 branches throughout the United States.” Written by Jack Hansan

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Immigration: A Report in 1875

Mr. Kapp has tersely stated the rule which governs the movement of emigration to the United States: ” Bad times in Europe regularly increase and bad times in America invariably diminish immigration.” In the present instance, certainly, there can be no doubt that “‘ bad times in America ” have led to the diminished numbers. However serious the great failures of the autumn of 1873, and the general depression of trade throughout the country subsequently, have been felt to be by those at home, they have seemed much.

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Terrell, Mary Church

Mary Church Terrell was one of the first African American women to receive a college degree. She was a charter member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Colored Women’s League of Washington. She also helped found the National Association of Colored Women, and served as its first national president. The Mary Church Terrell house in the LeDroit Park neighborhood of Washington was named a National Historic Landmark

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Migration of Negroes Into Northern Cities 1917

In the first place, this movement of Negroes, while it is larger and more widespread due to the present unusual conditions, has been going on for the past three or four decades. It may not have attracted as much attention because it was going on quietly and at a slower rate. But there has been a steady stream and the moving causes are the same. An indication-of this fact is the increase of Negro population since.1880 in the following nine northern and border cities: Boston, Greater New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Evansville, Indianapolis, Chicago, and St. Louis. Between 1880 and 1890 the Negro populationof these nine cities increased about 36.2 per cent. From 1890 to 1900 it increased about 74.4 per cent and from 1900 to 1910 about 37.4 per cent.

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Social Work: What is the Job of a Community Organizer? – 1948

Community organization must never be seen as merely a job. We are working with the materials out of which a community is built, a cooperative society is fashioned. We are in the thick of the personal, group, and inter-group relationships that make up modern social life. The community organization worker needs a sense of vocation. He is performing an essential function. He is a producer and conserver of social values. He has a vital and crucial role to play in the social drama of our time-the role of a servant of democracy.

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Social Security: The Roosevelt Administration

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s philosophy was: that Government has a positive responsibility for the general welfare. Not that Government itself must do everything, but that everything practicable must be done. A critical question for F.D.R. was whether a middle way was possible– a mixed system which might give the State more power than conservatives would like, enough power indeed to assure economic and social security, but still not so much as to create dictatorship.

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Social Security: Early History

This is a portion of Special Study #1, a lecture Dr. Bortz, the first SSA Historian, developed as part of SSA’s internal training program. It features an extensive overview of social policy developments dating from pre-history up to the passage of the Social Security Act in 1935.

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Bonus March

Following WWI, a pension was promised all returning service men to be administered in 1945. As the Great Depression took shape, many WWI veterans found themselves out of work, and an estimated 17,000 traveled to Washington, D.C. in May 1932 to put pressure on Congress to pay their cash bonus immediately. The former soldiers created camps in the Nation’s capital when they did not receive their bonuses which led to their forcible removal by the Army and the bulldozing of their settlements.

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Social Work Training: A 1905 Report by Graham Taylor

In 1903-4 announcement was made of the establishment in London at the initiative of Mr. C. S. Loch and the Charity Organisation Society of a “School of Sociology and Social Economics.” The same year the New York Charity Organization Society supplemented its summer school by winter courses arranged chiefly for charity workers employed during the day.
Encouraged by the demand for training, the existence of which was demonstrated by such partial advantages as had been offered, the “New York School of Philanthropy” was opened the same year with a curriculum extending through eight autumn and winter months and including a full rounded course of training, with many lines of specialized study.

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