The main purpose of social work is to advocate for those who have no voice. Throughout history, many individuals have served as role models and proponents of social justice, helping to create policies and programs so future generations can benefit. Jane Addams, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Rachel Carson, and Harriet Tubman worked tirelessly and devoted their entire lives to the pursuit of justice. We have learned through their sacrifices that change is just one person away, and that it takes tremendous force to shift the political landscape of social welfare policy.
Jane Addams is considered by many to be the first major contributor to the field of social work. After receiving a bachelor’s degree from the Rockford College for Women, she battled poor health and frequent hospitalizations (“Jane Addams – Biography”). When she was 27, she went to Europe and visited Toynbee Hall, a settlement house in London (“Jane Addams – Biography”). After seeing what was being done for the poor at Toynbee Hall, Addams wanted to create something similar in Chicago to address the needs of underrepresented populations (“Jane Addams – Biography”). She opened Hull House in 1889 as a place for the poor to come and receive whatever type of assistance they needed (“Jane Addams – Biography”).
Along with her friend Ellen G. Starr, Addams raised money for Hull House, recruited women from affluent families to volunteer their time, and gave speeches to the public about the needs of the community (“Jane Addams – Biography”). What initially began as a place to care for the sick and take care of children turned into a full-scale facility with an art gallery, a public kitchen, a gymnasium, a swimming pool, a boarding school for girls, and other sections (“Jane Addam...
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...d not be where we are today without the contributions of women like those mentioned, and that we must continue the fight for social justice as a means to honor the labors of those who came before us.
Works Cited
Blau, J. (3rd Edition). (2010). The dynamics of social welfare policy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Gordon, A.D. (2000). Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. American National Biography Online. Retrieved from http://www.anb.org/articles/15/15-00640.html.
Larson, K.C. (2003). Harriet Tubman Life. Retrieved from http://www.harriettubmanbiography.com/index.html.
Lear, L. (1998). The life and legacy of Rachel Carson. Retrieved from http://www.rachelcarson.org.
“Fugitive Slave Act.” Retrieved from http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h137.html.
“Jane Addams – Biography.” Retrieved from http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1931/addams.html.
Mary Richmond and Jane Addams were two historic social workers that were known for their great work in the history of social work profession. They gravitated their focus on real world social problems. Which in today’s era social workers of today, also gravitas on bringing social justice for the injustice on behalf of the clients.
Martha Ballard was a midwife in Hallowell, Maine in the early eighteenth century. She is the author of the diary that inspired A Midwife’s Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Martha Ballard was an extremely busy woman with her medical duties and was very serious about being a midwife. Nothing was trivial to Martha she was serious about her work and community. She was an independent woman of her time and valued her autonomy. Her job highlighted how compassionate and caring she was towards her community. She never turned anyone away, and she would help anyone in need regardless of race, social rank, or economic standing. She relied on her connections to the people in the community in many ways. Martha was a pillar of her community because of her
Sklar, Kathryn Kish. “Hull House in the 1890’s: A Community of Women Reformers.” In Women and Power in American History, 3rd edition, edited by Kathryn Kish Skylar and
Patience Wright, formerly known as Patience Lovell, was born in 1725, in Long Island New Jersey to a “well-to-do-Quaker family” (MacLean, 1). At that time in America, women were not allowed to own property or make any kind of salary; it was custom for women to carry out their duties to marry and raising a family. Fortunately for Wright, the Quakers “believed women should have rights and education equal to men’s”, and being raised in a Quaker family gave her the independent and outgoing personality she is becomes known for later in her life. At the age of four, Wright’s family moved to Bordentown, New Jersey (Magliaro, 1). As a child Patience always had a special interest in art. Her sister and she would use wet dough to sculpt figurines and use grains or plant extracts to make paint (MacLean, 1).
Two Works Cited Victoria Bissell Brown's introduction to Twenty Years at Hull-House explains the life of Jane Addams and her commitment to insight social change to problems that existed during the turn of the 20th century. As a reaction to the hardships of a changing industrial society, Addams decided to establish a settlement house in the West side of Chicago to help individuals who had suffered from the cruelties of industrialization. Rejecting the philosophies that stemmed from the Gilded Age, such as social Darwinism and the belief that human affairs were determined by natural law, Addams was a progressive who wanted government to be more responsive to the people.
Addams, whose father was an Illinois state senator and friend of Abraham Lincoln, graduated in 1881 from Rockford College (then called Rockford Women’s Seminary). She returned the following year to receive one of the school’s first bachelor’s degrees. With limited career opportunities for women, she began searching for ways to help others and solve the country’s growing social problems. In 1888, Addams and her college friend, Ellen Gates Starr, visited Toynbee Hall, the two women observed college-educated Englishmen “settling” in desperately poor East London slum where they helped the people. This gave her the idea for Hull House.
While Addams was a great organizer and reformer, it must be noted that she had the help of several ambitious women at Hull House who were progressive thinkers in their own right. Furthermore, she would have never been able to achieve so much without the many donations that she was able to secure from philanthropists. Today, the 13 buildings that surrounded the Hull House settlement have been destroyed, but the original mansion still stands as a museum. The Jane Addams Hull-House Association still operates in Chicago.
Elizabeth Blackwell was notably one of the most influential people to both medicine and women’s rights. Although her most famous achievement was being the first woman to graduate from medical school, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell's accomplishments did not end there, she devoted her life to helping others-both in healing and in education, and also with the help of colleagues founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. She was one of the most influential women of her time.
Marshall, Heather. “ A Woman With a Cause: An Overview of Judy Brady’s Influential Essay ‘I
Dayton, Ohio has a well known history that stretches back for Centuries. Sometimes, you take for granted the history of where you were born, but if you take a time line and look back, its clear to see how important it was to reflect on the different stages of triumph and victory that certain historical places like the one that will be talked about in this paper, that is The Woman’s Club. (This historical site) The Woman’s Club has been around for decades, and has been a very important tool for the history of Dayton. The history of this Club includes the survival of the Dayton flood and also the Great Depression which was around the 1930’s. You may think that The Woman’s Club was just for women but they did help men in some ways too but rooming was specifically, mostly only for women during the time when they rented rooms for overnight stay. An interesting fact about The Woman’s Club is that they have a ghost in their basement. Inside the basement there is a bar and this is where the men came to get a beverage. Going up into the main hall which is the historical part of the building where there is a wooden structure that is so beautiful and has a classical design to it. The history still lives in this beautiful structured building today. If the first owner of this beautiful structured place was still alive (Robert Steele) today, he probably would be happy to know that his classical, unique structured building was built for good use today and that people still value the history of The Woman’s Club as though it is something to remember. Today, The Woman’s Club is very important to Dayton because of its’ long lasting history. The history of The Woman’s Club starts out as the beginning of a brand new home, Robert Steele’s home who...
From the humble beginning of Social Work there have been many people who have tirelessly worked, fought, and dedicated their life advocating for the people in our world who are disadvantaged. Furthermore, many of these people have been women who not only were strong enough to fight for the rights of others, but also had to fight the forces whom thought that women where in some way second hand citizens themselves. These women were brave and determined enough to break out of the box that society placed them in, and stand up for the social injustices that they seen taking place, and try to make a difference. Of the many women from the early days of Social Work none fought harder for social reform than Grace Abbott. Grace Abbott spent her life fighting to enact legislation for the betterment of society as a whole. This work would eventually earn her the nickname “the mother of America’s forty-three million children.”
Dolgoff, R. & Feldstein, D. (2003). Understanding social welfare (7th ed). New York, Allen & Bacon
Social justice is a core value in the social work field. We define social justice as, “all citizens would possess equal fundamental rights, protection, opportunities, obligations and social benefits (Kirst-Ashman & Hull, 2015, p. 29). Unfortunately, we understand there are many members in today’s society that are not receiving social justice. Some may not want help and believe that s/he is able to do it on their own and then there are the individuals that we may not know about that could really use our help. Our jobs as social workers is to help those who need help no matter if they are rich, poor, disabled, white, Hispanic, it does not matter because everyone should be treated equally. As NASW states, “The original mission of social work had much to do with championing the rights of society’s most vulnerable members, from children to homeless people to the physically disabled” (NASW: National Association of Social Workers, 2015, para. 1).
Florence Nightingale was born into a wealthy family involved in elite social circles. Her mom was interested in socializing, however Florence did not inherit this trait. Florence preferred not to be the center of attention, and often got into arguments with her mother, who was usually very controlling of her. Florence did not get much say in decisions. Florence’s father was a wealthy landowner and provided her with a good education including lessons in German, French, and Italian. She had always wanted to help people, which led to her being active in philanthropy starting at a very young age. Florence had decided she wanted to be a nurse when she was 16 years old, a decision her parents did not agree with. For women in the Victorian age, it was rare for women to have jobs. Women usually took care of children and looked after the house. Florence rejected a marriage proposal when she was 17, once again setting herself apart from the typical Victorian woman. In 1844, she became a nursing student at the Lutheran Hospital of Pastor Fliedner in Kaiserwerth, Germany. There were not very many nurses back then, let alone a female nurse.
When they are in need we must do everything in our power to make a change. Sometimes this involve advocating for them to see a change in social problems. The definition of a social worker states that they are trained person that carries out work with the aim of alleviating conditions of those in need (12). This often calls the need for social justice. After learning about social workers throughout history, I realize there’s multiple ways to help those in need (11). They’ve been able to implement social welfare for the public.