Social Welfare History Group The Social Welfare History Group was organized in 1956. The stated purpose was to promote research and educational activities in social welfare history. Members include historians, social workers, and others interested in the history of social welfare. From the first newsletter of the Committee on the History of Social Welfare,…
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Daniel Coit Gilman’s Contributions to Social Work
This article brings the reader some evidence of social work history that has at the very least been neglected. Most people when asked who are the founders of social work were will mention Jane Addams, Mary Richmond, the Abbotts and maybe Ida Cannon, Charles Loring Brace and S. Humphreys Gurteen. The name of Daniel Coit Gilman is never included in the list of the greats. The case I shall make to you today is that his contributions to helping create the profession were at least as great as those still listed.
Continue Reading »Child Welfare League of America
“Formally established January 2, 1921, the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) has been one of the most important national organizations in the history of American child welfare. The creation of the CWLA coincided with the end of the progressive era and the beginning of another: an era dedicated to establishing national policies and standards combined with developing and disseminating program materials and practices to affiliate members thereby raising the quality of child caring services throughout the nation.”
Continue Reading »American Association of Public Welfare Officials
In 1930, as the financial depression progressed President Herbert Hoover appealed to the association to assist in developing public relief programs in the different states, counties and cities. Thus, the initial project of the new association was to help President Herbert Hoover’s Emergency Committee for Employment (later named the President’s Organization for Unemployment Relief) in gathering information on the need for emergency public relief and to develop plans on how to meet those needs throughout the country.
Continue Reading »Conservative Transition in American Social Policy
Although American corporations have blasted off in the application of Internet technology, the research that led to the development of the Internet was done in the government sector of the United States, not the business sector as you might expect
Continue Reading »American Social Policy in the 1960’s and 1970’s
As the decade of the 1960s began, the United States had the “highest mass standard of living” in world history.1 The strong American postwar economy of the late 1940s and 1950s continued into the 1960s.
Continue Reading »Great Depression: American Social Policy
One observer pointed out to Franklin D. Roosevelt upon taking office that, given the present crisis, he would be either the worst or greatest president in American history. Roosevelt is said to have responded: “If I fail, I shall be the last one.” By the time Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932, the traditional ideologies and institutions of the United States were in a state of upheavel. Americans who had grown up promoting the ideology of the “deserving and undeserving poor” and the stigma of poor relief were now standing in line for relief.
Continue Reading »Three Notable African American Women in Early Child Welfare
Written by Wilma Peeples-Wilkins, Boston University. “For the most part, social welfare history has focused on efforts to protect dependent and delinquent white immigrant children. Information on the care of African American children has been excluded. Because of racial separation and discrimination, information describing the care of African American children has often been left out. It is important to call special attention to this situation.”
Continue Reading »Social Work and Aftercare of the Mentally Ill in Maryland
“The question of affording proper care for patients discharged from hospitals for the insane is by no means a new one. The best and most satisfactory method of administering this aid has not yet been entirely decided…” (Arthur P. Herring, Secretary of the Maryland Lunacy Commission, September 14, 1910).
Continue Reading »Experiencing Aging: A Social Group Worker’s Self-Reflection
The concept “experiencing aging” is different than ‘’aging’. It is a proactive state of being. It is not theory. Rather it is what exists uniquely in the mind and heart of each elderly member. Group workers are ever seeking to find it in their group members and to help the members find it in themselves and in each other.
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