Search Results for: Social Welfare History Project

Watts, Lucian Louis (1888 – 1974)

Lucian Louis Watts was a Virginia statesman who advocated for government services to support blind citizens. As the first Executive Secretary of the Virginia Department for the Blind and Visually Impaired, he promoted campaigns to prevent blindness, oversaw the development of educational programs for blind adults, and was instrumental in the introduction of sight-saving classes for children with impaired vision in Virginia’s public schools.

Josephine Newbury Demonstration Kindergarten, Richmond, Va.

Before the Newbury Center opened in 1957, there was no education available in a school setting in Richmond or the surrounding counties for children younger than five. Preschool itself was an innovative concept then. The facility was purpose-built to become a model preschool for the training of teachers and the design of innovative curriculum.

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.

The United Order of Tents of J.R. Giddings and Jollife Union

The United Order of Tents is a Christian benevolent organization, founded in 1867 by two formerly enslaved women, Annetta Minkins Lane of Norfolk, Va., and Harriet R. Taylor of Hampton, Va. The largely secret society is the oldest Black women’s organization in the United States.

Colored Conventions Movement

From Colored Conventions Project, 2022. Starting in 1830 and continuing until well after the Civil War, free, freed and self-emancipated Blacks came together in state and national political conventions. Tens of thousands of Black men and women from different walks of life traveled to attend meetings publicly advertised as “Colored Conventions.” where they strategized about how they might achieve educational, labor, and legal justice.

John J. Smallwood and the Temperance, Industrial and Collegiate Institute

John J. Smallwood and the Temperance, Industrial and Collegiate Institute by James I. Randall October 10, 2022 John Jefferson Smallwood (September 19, 1863–September 29, 1912), founder and president of the Temperance, Industrial and Collegiate Institute in Claremont, Va., achieved much before his untimely passing at the age of 49 in 1912. Despite slavery before, and…

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

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

Maclachlan, H. D. C.

H. D. C. Maclachlan Social reformer, community leader and advocate for juvenile courts Alice W. Campbell Hugh David Cathcart Maclachlan, D. D. (1869-1929) was born March 16, 1869 in Barrhead, Renfrewshire, Scotland. As a young man, he earned A. M. and B. L. degrees from the University of Glasgow. Then, in 1894, Maclachlan came…

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Economic Inequality: An Introduction

By Steve Greenlaw, Ph. D., 2020. Brought up on the Declaration of Independence and the idea that all people are created equal, Americans have traditionally described themselves as living in a classless society. This classless society meant that individual effort and talent contributed to one’s place in society. The vast majority of Americans, it has been believed, are middle class. Looking at the data, however, it’s clear that economic inequality exists. But what is it? Economic inequality is the unequal distribution of income (earnings) or wealth (net worth or savings) in a society.