Search Results for: war on poverty

Eras

Eras in Social Welfare History Social welfare policy and programs in America have roots going back to early Colonial days. Some entries may appear in more than one time period, as historical periods overlap and events or issues may persist over multiple eras. Use the search bar (at upper right) to locate additional programs…

Elderly Homeless Crisis: History and Origins

The growing number of elderly persons experiencing homelessness requires an extensive overhaul of the welfare systems originally designed to assist houseless individuals. Elderly persons are more likely to need medical assistance, supportive housing, and disability assistance, services that the U.S. government is straining to accommodate.

Reciprocal Aid: Fraternalism and Early Social Welfare History

By Sarah Shepherd. Fraternalism fulfilled a crucial role in society. It was a social club as well as an early form of social welfare through the principle of reciprocal aid.

Ora Brown Stokes and the Richmond Neighborhood Association

Ora Brown Stokes founded and was the driving force behind the Richmond Neighborhood Association (RNA), an organization which has received little attention despite its centrality to social welfare work among Richmond’s African Americans between 1912 and 1924, particularly among children and young women.

Precarious Learners: Race, Status and the Making of Virgin Islands Education from 1917-1970

When the United States purchased the Danish West Indies (now U.S. Virgin Islands) from Denmark in 1917, the change in the islands’ political status profoundly impacted the educational options afforded to those residing in the territory. Being new subjects of a U.S. empire primarily concerned with preventing enemy expansion in the Caribbean basin both improved and complicated Virgin Islanders’ access to comprehensive education. For those residing in the U.S. Virgin Islands, American citizenship both exposed and exacerbated the precarious conditions of learning and belonging in a U.S. territory. Warped by a history of racialized domination and economic deprivation, education for Black Virgin Islanders has long been fraught by the conditions of precarious citizenship.

West Virginia Colored Orphans Home (1899-1956)

By Sarah H. Shepherd, 2022. Black politician and businessman, Charles McGhee (1858-1937), was serving as a pastor in Bluefield, West Virginia when he was confronted by the lack of support for Black orphans after the death of his brother-in-law in a mining accident. In the Jim Crow South, few state resources, if any, were dedicated to African Americans. Black orphans were not admitted to white orphanages and faced significant hardships. McGhee founded an orphanage and school for these children.

Education of Deaf and Blind African Americans in Virginia, 1909-2008

History of Virginia’s first school for African American deaf and blind children.

Fellowship of Reconciliation USA

The Fellowship of Reconciliation USA (FOR-USA) was founded in 1915 by pacifists opposed to U.S. entry into World War I. Open to men, women, and people of all classes and races, its membership would include Jane Addams, Bishop Paul Jones, Grace Hutchins, A. J. Muste, and Bayard Rustin.

Virginia Home and Industrial School for Girls

The Virginia Home and Industrial School for Girls opened in Bon Air, Va., in 1910 as a reform school for the “care and training of incorrigible or vicious white girls … without proper restraint and training, between the ages of eight and eighteen years.”

Your Girl and Mine (suffrage film)

Your Girl and Mine was the first large-scale suffrage film. Also referred to as a “photo-play,” the film was a collaboration between the National American Woman Suffrage Association and Selig Studio of Chicago. This article in The Times-Dispatch includes a lengthy synopsis of the film’s plot, which revolves around the trials of women and children who have few legal rights. Poverty, child labor, tenement housing, alcohol abuse, and child custody battles all play out in the course of the melodrama.