Pioneer Efforts in Rural Social Welfare

Based on the premise that students and practitioners of rural social work and social welfare can profit from historical perspective, this book presents 80 classic or representative statements of problems and proposed solutions. These statements cover 1908-1940, while the burgeoning literature since 1941 is covered in an epilogue by Joanne Mermelstein and Paul Sundet. Through extended introductions to the eleven chapters in which she has arranged the selections, the editor not only provides the evolutionary context but also establishes a methodology for drawing historical lessons.

Since the birth of rural social work can be traced to President Theodore Roosevelt's Country Life Commission of 1908 and the National Conference of Charities and Corrections of the same year, the book starts with the President's message transmitting his Commission's report to Congress and with Liberty Hyde Bailey's message on "Rural Development in Relation to Social Welfare" at the 1908 conference. The pioneering work of church groups, the YMCA, the Red Cross, and the Family Welfare (now Service) Association gets attention—as does the impact of World War I, the Depression, and the New Deal.

The great influence of certain periodicals is stressed—some defunct like Survey, Rural America, and Family; some extant like Social Forces, Social Research, and Rural Sociology. Above all, the book reveals the vision of pioneers in the field; both the famous such as Gifford Pinchot, L. H. Bailey, and Henry Wallace, and the less famous such as Josephine Strode, F. L. Kirkpatrick, and Josephine Brown.