Search Results for: war on poverty

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)

West Virginia Colored Orphans Home (1899-1956) by Sarah H. Shepherd Founding and Early History In the early 1900s, the booming mine and lumber industries in West Virginia drew Black migrants from the South, a foreshadowing of the Great Migration of African Americans to Northern, Midwestern, and Western states. In the dangerous coal regions of West…

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 by Alice W. Campbell, VCU Libraries The author is grateful to Ray Bonis, Special Collections and Archives, for bringing the ESL photograph and coverage of the event to my attention. and to John McClure of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture for help identifying several members of the Equal Suffrage…

Contemporary Housing Issues

Housing has been an issue throughout American history, from urbanization to overcrowding. While this article does not provide an exhaustive list or analysis of all of America’s issues related to this topic, gentrification, affordable housing, eviction, and homelessness are all issues that have risen to prominence in recent years.

Tenement House Reform

Primary sources related to tenement house reforms in the State of New York and the passage of the New York State Tenement House Act of 1901.

What is Social Welfare History?

Social welfare history reflects the lives of people living, being educated, working and voting in the nation. It is an interdisciplinary study of the evolution of charitable works, organized activities related to social reform movements and non-profit or public social services designed to protect or benefit individuals, families and citizens of the larger society.

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.