… Continuation 1: SOME NOTABLE FEMALE SOCIAL WORK WORKERS

Mary Ellen Richmond (1861-1928)

Mary Ellen Richmond was one of the first social workers to push for the professionalization and standardization of social work. She is credited with creating the first statement of principles for direct social work practice and is most famous for her speech at the 1897 National Conference of Charities and Correction, where she implored schools to train social workers, calling for standardization in the social work field. Her book Social Diagnosis was one of the first social work books to incorporate scientific principles from law, medicine, psychology, psychiatry and history.

 

Harriett Rinaldo (1906-1981)

Another pioneer of standardizing the social work profession is Harriett Rinaldo, who created rating and recruitment procedures and higher personnel standards for the Veterans Administration Social Work Service. These standards were then adopted by the federal government. An avid traveler, Rinaldo visited every U.S. state and traveled to more than 50 countries.  

Edith Abbott (1876-1957)

A Nebraska native with a master’s degree in social work and a doctorate degree in economics, who studied at both the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics, Edith Abbott spent much of her academic career as dean of the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. During her tenure, she helped to write the Social Security Act of 1935 and founded the Social Service Review, a University of Chicago journal dedicated to publishing “original research on pressing social issues and social welfare policies.” She also served as a consultant to Harry Hopkins, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s advisers, and later became president of the American Association of Schools of Social Work and the National Conference of Social Work.

 

 To be continued…