Search Results for: social work

Dewitt, Larry W.

Larry W. Dewitt is the former public historian at the U. S. Social Security Administration. He was a Fellow at the Council for Excellence in Government during 1993–1994, and is a member of the Society for History in the Federal Government and the Organization of American Historians. A member of the National Academy of Social…

George Bush and the Americans with Disabilities Act

Not historians but rather partisan politicians in the middle of contested campaign, Harkin and Hoyer perhaps did not understand that the ADA was indeed an exception. The acceptance of the ADA by President George Bush and his administration was far from grudging.

Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was a cornerstone of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” (McLaughlin, 1975). This law brought education into the forefront of the national assault on poverty and represented a landmark commitment to equal access to quality education.

March on Washington, D.C.: Rev. King’s “I Have a Dream” Speech

On August 28, 1963, more than 250,000 people from across the nation came together in Washington, D.C. to peacefully demonstrate their support for the passage of a meaningful civil rights bill, an end to racial segregation in schools and the creation of jobs for the unemployed. It was the largest demonstration ever held in the nation’s capital, and one of the first to have extensive television coverage. The march is remembered too as the occasion for Reverend Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech.

National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933

Economists, scholars, politicians, and the public at large were deeply divided as to the underlying causes of the Great Depression and the best means to bring it to an end. In the months following Roosevelt’s inauguration, his advisers, along with members of Congress and representatives from business and labor, drafted the legislation that was introduced in Congress on May 15, 1933, as the National Industrial Recovery Act. The division of opinions about the Depression was reflected in those who drafted NIRA, and the act drew both praise and criticism from across the political spectrum. Nevertheless, the urgency of the economic situation (with unemployment exceeding 30 percent in many parts of the country) pressured Congress to act.

Emergency Relief and Construction Act of 1932

President Herbert Hoover said: “I expect to sign the relief bill on Tuesday. I do wish to express the appreciation which I have and I know that the country has to those leaders of both political parties who have cooperated to put the bill into effective shape and to eliminate the destructive proposals which were from time to time injected into it.

Zimand, Savel

Savel Zimand (1891-1967 ) Journalist and Administrator of Health Services Savel Zimand was born in Iasi, Romania, on May 14, 1891. After studying at the University of Berlin’s Seminar of Oriental Languages and the Höhere Webeschule from 1909 to 1912, he emigrated to the United States in 1913 and became a naturalized citizen in 1919. …

Witte, Edwin E.

Edwin E. Witte ( 1887 – 1960 ) — Reformer, Teacher, Administrator and Father of Social Security Edwin Witte’s career was approximately evenly divided between university teaching and serving as a State or Federal official. For him these areas of activity were closely related. He was a part of the “Wisconsin Idea” of public…

Tubman, Harriet

Tubman had made the perilous trip to slave country 19 times by 1860, including one especially challenging journey in which she rescued her 70-year-old parents. Of the famed heroine, who became known as “Moses,” Frederick Douglass said, “Excepting John Brown — of sacred memory — I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than [Harriet Tubman].”

Taylor, Graham

Graham Taylor (May 2, 1851 – September 26, 1938): Minister, Social Reformer, Educator and Founder of Chicago Commons Settlement House Early Years: Graham Taylor was born in Schenectady, New York on May 2, 1851, the second son of Dutch-reformed minister William James Romeyn Taylor and Katherine (nee Cowenhoven) Taylor. Following his mother’s death in…