1. Quoted in Susan Ware, Beyond Suffrage Women in the New Deal (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 42.Google Scholar

2. Quotation is from a manuscript autobiography of Mrs. Elizabeth Tilton, cited in Chambers, Clarke A., Seedtime of Reform American Social Service and Social Action, 1918–1933 (Westport, Conn., 1963), 2.Google ScholarLemons, J. Stanley, The Woman Citizen Social Feminism in the 1920s (Chicago, 1973).Google Scholar In fact, the current trend among women's historians is to see the New Deal as, in part, the culmination of female reform activity since the Progressive Era. See Ware, Susan, Partner and I Molly Dewson, Feminism, and New Deal Politics (New Haven, 1987)Google Scholar; Cott, Nancy F., The Grounding of Modern Feminism (New Haven, 1987)Google Scholar; Gordon, Linda, Heroes of Their Own Lives: The Politics and History of Family Violence (New York, 1988), esp. 297Google Scholar; Perry, Elisabeth Israels, Belle Moskowitz: Feminine Politics and the Exercise of Power in the Age of Alfred E. Smith (New York, 1987).Google Scholar The most recent dissenter from this view is Payne, Elizabeth Anne, Reform, Labor, and Feminism Margaret Dreier Robins and the Women's Trade Union League (Urbana, Ill., 1988).Google Scholar

3. Lubove, Roy, Professional Altruist The Emergence of Social Work as a Career, 1880–1930 (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), 171–72.CrossRefGoogle ScholarEhrenreich, John H., The Altruistic Imagination: A History of Social Work and Social Policy in the United States (Ithaca, 1985), 58–60.Google ScholarTrolander, Judith A., Professionalism and Social Change: From the Settlement House Movement to Neighborhood Centers, 1886 to the Present (New York, 1987), 2.Google Scholar

4. Rosenberg, Rosalind, Beyond Separate Spheres: Intellectual Roots of Modern Feminism (New Haven, 1982), xxii, 244–46Google Scholar; Cott, The Grounding of Modem Feminism, 215–39; O'Neill, William, Everyone Was Brave: A History of Feminism in America (New York, 1969), esp. 250.Google Scholar See also Drachman, Virginia G., Hospital with a Heart: Women Doctors and the Paradox of Separatism at the New England Hospital, 1862–1969 (Ithaca, 1984)Google Scholar; Mohraz, Judy Jolley, “The Equity Club: Community Building Among Professional Women,” Journal of American Culture 5 (Winter 1982): 34–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hummer, Patricia M., The Decade of Elusive Promise: Professional Women in the United States, 1920–1930 (Ann Arbor, 1979), esp. 49, 113, 125.Google Scholar

5. See, for example, Furner, Mary O., Advocacy and Objectivity: A Crisis in the Professionalization of American Social Science, 1865–1905 (Lexington, KY, 1975).Google Scholar See also Ross, Dorothy, “The Development of the Social Sciences,” in The Organization of Knowledge in Modern America, 1860–1920, eds. Oleson, Alexandra and Voss, John (Baltimore, 1979), 107–38.Google Scholar

6. Here I get support from Trolander, Professionalism and Reform, 44–45; Elizabeth K. Hartley, “Social Work and Social Reform: Selected Women Social Workers and Child Welfare Reforms, 1877–1932,” Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1985, 429–32; Antler, Joyce, Lucy Sprague Mitchell: The Making of a Modem Woman (New Haven, 1987)Google Scholar, and her The Educated Woman and Professionalization: The Struggle for a New Feminine Identity, 1890–1920 (New York, 1987)Google Scholar; and Morantz-Sanchez, Regina, Sympathy and Science: Women Physicians in American Medicine (New York, 1985).Google Scholar

7. This new literature on gender and the welfare state includes Abramovitz, Mimi, Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Policy from Colonial Times to the Present (Boston, 1988)Google Scholar; Gordon, Linda, “What Does Welfare Regulate?” Social Research 55 (Winter 1988): 609–30Google Scholar; Gordon, Heroes of Their Own Lives; Nelson, Barbara J., “The Gender, Race, and Class Origins of Early Welfare Policy and the Welfare State: A Comparison of Workmen's Compensation and Mothers' Aid,” in Women, Change and Politics, ed. Louise Tilly and Patricia Gurin (New York, 1990), 226–38Google Scholar; Koven, Seth and Michel, Sonya, “Gender and the Origins of the Welfare State,” Radical History Review 43 (Winter 1989): 112–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sapiro, Virginia, “The Gender Bias of American Social Policy,” Political Science Quarterly 101 (1986): 221–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. Linda Gordon has shown, for instance, that between 1910 and 1930, as child welfare work was being professionalized, social workers shifted the focus of their protective work from the “drunken immigrant father” to the “incompetent, insensitive, and possibly untrained mother in need of professional guidance”; Gordon, Heroes of Their Own Lives, 61.

9. I deeply regret that publication schedules made it impossible for me to integrate into my own analysis the ideas of Ellen Fitzpatrick as revealed in her book, Endless Crusade: Women Social Scientists and Progressive Reform (New York, 1990).Google Scholar This collective biography of four social scientists includes Abbott and Breckinridge and explores issues related to reform and social policy.

10. The best overview of women in higher education is Solomon, Barbara Miller, In the Company of Educated Women: A History of Women and Higher Education in America (New Haven, 1985).Google Scholar See also Lynn Gordon, “Women with Missions: Varieties of College Life in the Progressive Era,” Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1980. Other important studies of women in higher education include Frankfort, Roberta, Collegiate Women: Domesticity and Career in Turn-of-the-Century America (New York, 1977)Google Scholar; Palmieri, Patricia A., “Here Was Fellowship: A Social Portrait of Academic Women at Wellesley, 1895–1920,” History of Education Quarterly 23 (Summer 1983): 195–214CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Horowitz, Helen L., Alma Mater: Design and Experience in Women's Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s (New York, 1984).Google Scholar

11. Quoted in Klotter, James C., The Breckinridges of Kentucky, 1760–1981 (Lexington, KY, 1986), 197.Google Scholar For other biographical details, see also James, Edward T. et al. , eds., Notable American Women, 1607–1958, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 1:233–36.Google Scholar

12. Quotation in Edith Abbott, “Are Women Business Failures?” Harper's Weekly, 8 April 1905, 496. Biographical information is in Sicherman, Barbara et al. , eds., Notable American Women: The Modern Period (Cambridge, MA, 1980), 1–3Google Scholar; Costin, Lela B., Two Sisters for Social Justice: A Biography of Grace and Edith Abbott (Urbana, Ill., 1983), 3–40.Google Scholar

13. On difficulties after college for the generation in general, see Frankfurt, 85–98, and Antler, Joyce, “After College, What? New Graduates and the Family Claim,” American Quarterly 32 (Fall 1980): 409–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. James, 1:233–35.

15. James, 1:233–35. Abbott, Edith, “Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge Over the Years,” Social Service Review 22 (December 1948): 417–23, esp. 418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On discrimination among faculty in higher education, see Rossiter, Margaret W., Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 (Baltimore, 1982), esp. 110.Google Scholar

16. On the breaks between generations of educated women, see Antler, Joyce, “Review,” Signs 12 (Winter 1987): 386–90, esp. 387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For biographical information, see Costin, 26–38, and J. Laurence Laughlin to Abbott, 13 June 1905; Laughlin to Abbott, 9 January 1906; Carroll Wright to Breckinridge, 17 June 1905; folder 8, box 1; Laughlin to Abbott, 7 April 1906, folder 9, box 1; Grace and Edith Abbott Papers, Special Collections, University of Chicago Library, University of Chicago.

17. Rossiter, 110. Glazer, Penina Migdal and Slater, Miriam, Unequal Colleagues: The Entrance of Women into the Professions, 1890–1940 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1987), 26.Google Scholar

18. On Hull House and the meaning of settlements for women, see Davis, Allen F., Spearheads for Reform: The Social Settlements and the Progressive Movement, 1890–1914 (New York, 1967), esp. 26–39Google Scholar; and idem, American Heroine: The Life and Legend of Jane Addams (New York, 1973)Google Scholar; as well as Rousmaniere, John P., “Cultural Hybrid in the Slums: The College Woman and the Settlement House, 1889–1894,” American Quarterly 22 (Spring 1970): 45–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sklar, Kathryn Kish, “Hull House in the 1890s: A Community of Women Reformers,” Signs 10 (Summer 1985): 658–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rebecca Louise Sherrick, “Private Visions, Public Lives: The Hull-House Women in the Progressive Era,” Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1980; Hayden, Delores, The Grand Domestic Revolution: A History of Feminist Designs for American Homes, Neighborhoods and Cities (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), esp. 152–71Google Scholar; Rothman, Sheila M., Woman's Proper Place: A History of Changing Ideals and Practices, 1870 to the Present (New York, 1978), esp. 113–23.Google Scholar On professionalization among women in this period, see Glazer and Slater, 145, in addition to the books and articles in notes 4, 6, and 7.

19. See, for instance, Rossiter; Glazer and Slater; Abir-Am, Pnina G. and Outram, Dorinda, eds., Uneasy Careers and Intimate Lives: Women in Science, 1789–1979 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1987)Google Scholar; Fee, Elizabeth, Disease and Discovery: A History of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, 1916–1939 (Baltimore, 1987), esp. 173–76Google Scholar; Walsh, Mary Roth, “Doctors Wanted: No Women Need Apply”: Sexual Barriers in the Medical Profession, 1835–1975 (New Haven, 1977)Google Scholar; Moldow, Gloria, Women Doctors in Gilded-Age Washington: Race, Gender, and Professionaliiation (Urbana, Ill., 1987).Google Scholar

20. See, for instance, Melosh, Barbara, The Physician's Hand Work: Culture, and Conflict in American Nursing (Philadelphia, 1982)Google Scholar; Reverby, Susan M., Ordered to Care: The Dilemma of American Nursing, 1850–1945 (New York, 1987)Google Scholar; Hine, Darlene Clark, Black Women in Nursing: An Anthology of Historical Sources (New York, 1984)Google Scholar; Garrison, Dee, Apostles of Culture: The Public Librarian and American Society (New York, 1979)Google Scholar; Brumberg, Joan Jacobs and Tomes, Nancy, “Women in the Professions: A Research Agenda for American Historians,” Reviews in American History 10 (June 1982): 273–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barbara Kuhn Campbell, The “Liberated” Woman of 1914: Prominent Women in the Progressive Era (1976; Ann Arbor, 1979), chap. 3.

21. See, for instance, Morantz-Sanchez; Antler's two books; Melosh, chap. 4; Chambers, Clarke A., “Women in the Creation of the Profession of Social Work,” Social Service Review 60 (March 1986): 1–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sicherman, Barbara, Alice Hamilton: A Life in Letters (Cambridge, Mass., 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22. For a much fuller treatment of these issues, see Robyn Muncy, “Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890–1930,” Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1987, esp. chap. 1.

23. James, 1:233–35.

24. Abbott, “Sophonisba,” 417–23, esp. 419–20. Diner, Steven J., A City and Its Universities: Public Policy in Chicago, 1892–1919 (Chapel Hill, 1980), 131.Google Scholar

25. Furner, 56, 59–77, 160, 313–24.

26. Sicherman, Notable American Women, 1–2. Costin, 31–35.

27. Abbott to O. A. Abbott, 6 June 1907, folder 1, box 2, Addendum, Abbott Papers.

28. Breckinridge to Abbott, 23 October 1907, folder 10, box 1, Abbott Papers. Sicherman, Notable American Women, 1.

29. Abbott, , “Julia Lathrop and the Public Social Services,” Social Service Review 6 (June 1932): 301–6, esp. 305.Google Scholar

30. Chanties 13 (8 October 1904): 48–49; Charities 13 (11 March 1905): 564; Charities 21 (10 October 1908), 84; Conrad, Irene Farnham, “Education for Social Work,” Social Work Year Boole, ed. Hall, Fred S. (New York, 1930), 150Google Scholar; Leiby, James, A History of Social Welfare and Social Work in the United States (New York, 1978), 187–89Google Scholar, Trattner, Walter I., From Poor Law to Welfare State: A Historv of Social Welfare in America, 2d ed. (New York, 1979), 196–97.Google Scholar

31. City Welfare Aids and Opportunities, Bulletin of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, Octobet 1911, p. 2, box 2, CSCP section of the Gtaham Taylor Papers, Special Collections, Newberry Library, Chicago.

32. City Welfare Aids and Opportunities, 2.

33. The most sustained discussion of this division is Ehrenreich. Also see Kirschner, Don S., The Paradox of Professionalism: Reform and Public Service in Urban America, 1900–1940 (Westport, Conn., 1986), 53–59Google Scholar; Trattner, 193–201, 208–20; Lubove, The Professional Altruist, 171–72.

34. Trattner, 197–98.

35. Lubove, 157–159. Trattner, 193. On bureaucratization as a central value of eatly twentieth-century reformers, see Wiebe, Robert H., The Search for Order, 1877–1920 (New York, 1967), 133–63.Google Scholar

36. Graham Taylor, “President's Statement,” 8 May 1918, folder 1917–18, box 2, CSCP section, Taylor Papers.

37. See, for example, Kloppenberg, James T., Uncertain Victory: Social Democracy and Progressivism in European and American Thought, 1870–1920 (New York, 1986), 28–46Google Scholar, 91–99, 373–94. See also Addams, Jane, Democracy and Social Ethics (1902; New York, 1916), esp. 272Google Scholar; Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910; New York, 1981), esp. 98, 253–54.Google Scholar

38. Taylor, Graham, Religion in Social Action (New York, 1913), vii.Google Scholar

39. Taylor, Religion, 165.

40. Taylor's position mirrored that of many other male founders of social work, and most men in the profession were in the higher-paid, executive positions. See, for example, Breckinridge, Draft of Public Announcement [August 1920], folder 10, box 20, Abbott Papers. See also Conrad, 151; Tufts, James H., Education and Training for Social Work (New York, 1923), 220–21.Google Scholar Interestingly, at the New York School of Social Work, men also taught the casework courses, while female instructors taught social research. Chambers, “Women in the Creation of the Profession of Social Work,” esp. 7–8.

41. Quotation in Abbott to Mr. Laing, 22 May 1924, bound volume, box 19, Abbott Papers. On expectations of their students, Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy Bulletin (July 1909; 1910; 1913–14; 1914–15), no folder; The Department of Social Investigation, Special Bulletin of the Chicago School, January 1912, folder 12; CSCP Records, Special Collections, University of Chicago Library, University of Chicago.

42. Abbott, “Are Women Business Failures?”

43. Breckinridge, Sophonisba P., Family Welfare Work in a Metropolitan Community: SelectedCase Records (Chicago, 1924), 31.Google Scholar

44. Edith Abbott to Editor, Chicago Daily Tribune, 26 April 1937, folder 1, box 4, Abbott Papers.

45. Abbott to Julia Lathrop, 7 August 1920, folder 11, box 3, Abbott Papers.

46. Breckinridge to Mrs. A. D. Kohn, 15 August 1920, folder 3, box 4, Abbott Papers.

47. Stenographic Report, Meeting of the Trustees of Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, 13 February 1920, folder 1920–22, box 2, CSCP section, Taylor Papers.

48. Abbott, , Woman in Industry: A Study of American Economic History (New York, 1910)Google Scholar; The Real Jail Problem (Chicago, 1915).Google ScholarAbbott, and Breckinridge, , The Delinquent Child and the Home (New York, 1912)Google Scholar; Truancy and Non-Attendance in the Chicago Schools: A Study of the Social Aspects of the Compulsory Education and Child Labor Legislation in Illinois (Chicago, 1917).

49. Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy Bulletin (July 1909; 1910; 1911), no folder, CSCPR. The Department of Social Investigation, Special Bulletin of the Chicago School, January 1912; folder 12, CSCPR.

50. Memo re History of the Graduate School of Social Service Administration, bound volume, box 19; Memo Concerning the Future of the Chicago School, 1919–20, folder 10, box 20; Abbott Papers.

51. Taylor to Ken, 29 July 1920, folder 1920, box 2, Outgoing Correspondence section, Taylor Papers. Breckinridge to Julia Lathrop, 15 July 1920, folder 10, box 20, Abbott Papers. Minutes of Meeting of the Board, 9 July 1920, folder 1920–22, box 2, CSCP section, Taylor Papers. Breckinridge to President Judson, 6 August 1920; Breckinridge to Morton D. Hull, 12 August 1920; folder 10, box 20, Abbott Papers.

52. Wade, Louise, Graham Taylor Pioneer for Social Justice, 1851–1938 (Chicago, 1964), 178.Google Scholar James, 1:235. Annual Report to the President of the University, 1923–24, bound volume, box 19, Abbott Papers.

53. Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy Bulletin (1915–16), folder 16; Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy Bulletin (July 1909; 1910; 1911), no folder, CSCPR. Alumni Register, 1903–13, folder 13, CSCPR. Compare Wade, 172 with Registrar's Report re Number of Students Earning Certificates [1920], folder 1920–22, box 2, CSCP section, Taylor Papers.

54. Breckinridge to President Judson re Cost, 5 July 1920; Memo Concerning the Future of the Chicago School, 1919–20; folder 10, box 20, Abbott Papers.

55. Morantz-Sanchez, 254–62.

56. Breckinridge, Suggested Form of Public Announcement of Merger, August 1920, folder 10, box 20, Abbott Papers.

57. Abbott to Julia Lathrop, 7 August 1920, folder 11, box 3, Abbott Papers. On the early marriage and later divorce between sociology and social work, see Trattner, 194–95. On the increasing distance between the two in the 1920s, see Rosenberg, 241. See also Furner, 313.

58. Costin, 193. The Social Service Review of course was not the only journal of social work. Paul Kellogg had long edited the Survey, and other groups published Social Casework beginning in 1920 and Child Welfare in 1922. Trattner, 202. On the ritualized formation of new professions, see Furner, 312.

59. See, for instance, Abbott, , Social Welfare and Professional Education (Chicago, 1931), 52.Google Scholar

60. Abbott, Speech Manuscript [1924–25?], folder 12, box 1, Abbott Papers.

61. Merriam, Charles, “A Member of the University Community,” Social Service Review 22 (December 1948): 424–26, esp. 425.CrossRefGoogle ScholarLenroot, Katharine, “Friend of Children and the Children's Bureau,” Social Service Review 22 (December 1948): 427–30, esp. 429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62. Trattner, 213–15, 218–19. On the founding of psychiatric social work, see, for instance, Glazer and Slater, chap. 5.

63. Breckinridge, , Public Welfare Administration in the United States: Select Documents (Chicago, 1927), 3, 708–9.Google Scholar

64. Abbott, Welfare and Professional Education, 52.

65. Graduate School of Social Service Administration, 1924–26, pp. 15, 25, bound volume, box 19, Abbott Papers. Abbott, Welfare and Professional Education, 78–79.

66. Abbott, Welfare and Professional Education, 88.

67. Abbott to President Hutchins, November 1929, bound volume, box 19, Abbott Papers. Abbott, Report on Local Community Research, Autumn 1925, Appendix 1, folder 12, box 1, Abbott Papers. Graduate School of Social Service Administration, 1923–24, bound volume, box 19, Abbott Papers.

68. Abbott to Leonard White, 19 December 1929, folder 12, box 1, Abbott Papers.

69. Edith Abbott to Grace Abbott, 10 November 1930, folder 2, box 3, Abbott Papers.

70. Rockefeller Report, 1926–31, bound volume, box 19, Abbott Papers. Graduate School of Social Service Administration, 1923–24, bound volume, box 19, Abbott Papers.

71. Bureau, Children's, First Annual Report (Washington, D.C., 1914), 2.Google Scholar On the history of the Children's Bureau, see Nancy Weiss, “Save the Children: A History of the United States Children's Bureau, 1912–1918,” Ph.D. diss., University of California–Los Angeles, 1974; Louis J. Covotsos, “Child Welfare and Social Progress: A History of the United States Children's Bureau, 1912–1935,” Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1976; Parker, Jacqueline K., “Why Study the Early Children's Bureau?” Working Paper Number 14, Center for the Study of Women in Society (Eugene, OR, 1983)Google Scholar; Parker also coauthored an article with Carpenter, Edward M., “Julia Lathrop and the Children's Bureau: The Emergence of an Institution,” Social Service Review 55 (March 1981): 60–77Google Scholar; Rosenthal, Margaret G., “The Children's Bureau and the Juvenile Court: Delinquency Policy, 1912— 1940,” Social Service Review 60 (June 1986): 303–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ladd-Taylor, Molly, ed., Raising a Baby the Government Way: Mothers' Letters to the Children's Bureau, 1915–1932 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1986)Google Scholar; idem, “Mother-Work: Ideology, Public Policy and the Mother's Movement, 1890–1930,” Ph.D. Diss., Yale University, 1986.

72. Breckinridge to Taylor, n.d., folder 3, box 4; Breckinridge to Taylor, 13 October 1920, folder 13, box 20; Contract between Children's Bureau and Chicago School, 30 June 1919, folder 11, box 3; Abbott Papers. Memo Concerning the Future of the Chicago School of Civics, 1919–20, folder 10, box 4, Addendum, Abbott Papers.

73. Abbott to Julia Lathrop, 7 August 1920, folder 11, box 3, Abbott papers.

74. Abbott to Julia Lathrop, 7 August 1920, folder 11, box 3; Graduate School of Social Service Administration, 1923–24, bound volume, box 19; Abbott papers. Parker, “Why Study the Early Children's Bureau?” 14–16.

75. Stenographic Report, Meeting of the Trustees, 13 February 1920, folder 1920–22, box 2, CSCP section, Taylor Papers.

76. Graduate School of Social Service Administration, 1923–24; Abbott to James Tufts, 5 January 1925; bound volume, box 19, Abbott Papers.

77. Costin, 218–26, 230. For details of their involvement in shaping the New Deal, see also Witte, Edwin E., The Development of the Social Security Act (Madison, WI, 1962), 42–45, 48–63, 97, 162–63Google Scholar; and correspondence in folders 1, 2,4, 5, and 11, box 54; folder 11, box 11, Addendum; folders 3, 4, and 5, box 61; Abbott Papers.

78. See Ware, Beyond Suffrage, esp. 45–86; Walsh, 264.