Search Results for: child labor

Union Settlement, New York City

“Since 1895, Union Settlement has served the people of East Harlem. We believe the key to our endurance lies in our adaptability. East Harlem has long been a portal community whose population shifts with each new trend in immigration…”

Hudson Guild

Written by John E. Hansan, Ph.D. “The Hudson Guild is a community-based social services organization rooted in and primarily focused on the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City.”

South End House, Boston, MA

Written by John E. Hansan, Ph.D. “The house is designed to stand for the single idea of resident study and work in the neighborhood where it may be located. . . . The whole aim and motive is religious, but the method is educational rather than evangelistic. A second, though hardly secondary, object….will be to create a center, for those within reach, of social study, discussion, and organization.”

Woods, Robert Archey

Robert Archey Woods (December 9, 1865—February 18, 1925) — Settlement House Pioneer, Founder of South End House the First Settlement in Boston, Social Reformer, Author and Educator Introduction: Robert A. Woods was born in Pittsburgh, PA., on Dec. 9, 1865, the fourth of five children in a family of Scottish-Irish immigrants. His father, Robert, was…

Mental Health America – Origins

In 1908, Clifford Whittingham Beers published his autobiography “A Mind That Found Itself.” The publication chronicled his struggle with mental illness and the shameful state of mental health care in America. In the first page of his book, Beers reveals why he wrote the book: “…I am not telling the story of my life just to write a book. I tell it because it seems my plain duty to do so. A narrow escape from death and a seemingly miraculous return to health after an apparently fatal illness are enough to make a man ask himself: For what purpose was my life spared? That question I have asked myself, and this book is, in part, an answer….”

Beers, Clifford Whittingham

This entry is about Clifford Whittingham Beers, the founder of Mental Health America and a pioneer in advocating for improved treatment of mental illness. It was excerpted from the booklet “Clifford W. Beers: The Founding of Mental Health 1908-1935” produced by The Human Spirit Initiative, an organization with a mission to inspire people to desire to make a difference and then act on it. Note: Michael Gray, working with Ted Deutsch, Deutsch Communications Group authored the narrative from which this entry is taken.

Orphan Trains

Between 1854 and 1929 the United States was engaged in an ambitious, and ultimately controversial, social experiment to rescue poor and homeless children, the Orphan Train Movement. The Orphan Trains operated prior to the federal government’s involvement in child protection and child welfare. While they operated, Orphan Trains moved approximately 200,000 children from cities like New York and Boston to the American West to be adopted. Many of these children were placed with parents who loved and cared for them; however others always felt out of place and some were even mistreated.

Scudder, Vida Dutton

Vida Dutton Scudder (Dec. 15, 1861, Madura, India—Oct. 9, 1954) — Educator, social worker, author, social gospel movement activist By Angelique Brown, MSW Introduction: Vida Scudder was involved in social change inside and outside of the Episcopal Church. A self described class-conscious and revolutionary socialist, she spent a large part of her life attempting to…