Franklin, D. (1986).

Mary Richmond and Jane Addams: From Moral

Certainty to Rational Inquiry in Social Work Practice. Social Service
Review, 60(4), 504-525. The University of Chicago Press. Retrieved from:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/30012363

Mary Richmond
and Jane Addams:
From Moral Certainty
to Rational Inquiry
in Social Work Practice

Donna L. Franklin
University of Chicago

Mary Richmond and Jane Addams are two of the most influential figures in the
history of the social work profession. This paper explores the influence that these
women had on the paradigm shift in the profession from moral certainty to rational
inquiry. A review of Richmond and Addams's contributions and achievements throws
a different light on the historical development of the profession. The impact of their
work on ideological tensions that exist within the profession today is also discussed.

Introduction

Thomas Kuhn, in interpreting the history of scientific disciplines,

wrote that a crisis derives from the failure of existing rules to solve
the problems with which the group deals. Such a crisis requires a

Social Service Review (December 1986).

© 1986 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
0037-7961186/6004-0011$01.00
 Mary Richmond and Jane Addams 505
discipline to dismantle its existing model of activities and to replace
it with another. Kuhn terms this change in models a "paradigm shift." 1
Social work, emerging as a profession, experienced such a shift. Kuhn's
interpretation describes what happened in part, however. Although
Kuhn's explanation may be sufficient to explain changes in the physical
sciences, it does not take into account three major historical developments
within the profession of social work. First, such an analysis applied to
social work ignores salient differences in substantive ideologies and
values. Second, it oversimplifies the consequences of those ideological
and value differences in shaping the social purposes of the profession.
Third, it fails to consider a set of fortuitous and interrelated causal
events that would mark the profession indelibly.
This article examines the roles ofJane Addams and Mary Richmond
in the paradigm shift that occurred in social work at the turn of the
century. They were the two most influential women in the history of
the profession. With barriers to female participation in nineteenth-
century American public life, the achievements of these two women
were formidable. Addams was one of the chief architects of the
Settlement House Movement, and Richmond became the presiding
matriarch of the Charity Organization Society philosophy. These were
the two movements that interactively shaped the social purposes of
the social work profession. This paper explores the major shift in the
profession's paradigm from one of moral certainty to one of rational
inquiry and delineates the contribution of these women to that paradigm
shift.

The Emergence of Social Welfare

Ira Goldenberg speaks of professions as being shaped by the social

and political realities of their time and by the societies of which they
are a part. He views their orientations and practices as reflections of
the prevailing ideologies and values of the greater society in which
they are embedded. 2 The emergence of the social work profession
lends itself to such an analysis.
Prior to the Civil War in the United States, poverty was not viewed
as a major social problem. The society was primarily rural with an
abundance of unused fertile land, and the prevailing attitude was that
poverty was a personal problem for which society should not take
responsibility. "Go West" was the advice to individuals who were unable
to make it in the East. However, the transition from an agrarian to
an industrial economy brought massive social and economic changes.
Violent business fluctuations, depression, and the crisis of the mid-
506 Social Service Review
1880s brought poverty and insecurity to many. There has been no
other period in American history in which the needs and demands of
industry so dominated the nation's political and social life.
To increase productivity of the factory system and to generate profits,
industry needed a large and mobile supply of skilled and unskilled
laborers. Because the industrial order was in an incipient stage of
development, the labor supply was quite limited. Subsequently, industry
began to recruit labor primarily from a pool of newly arrived European
immigrants. Poor living conditions made these immigrants vulnerable
to disease and poverty, and their vulnerability was increased by the
marketplace practice of low wages and unsafe working conditions. As
a result, the immigrant slum soon became a common feature in large
industrial cities, and as the slums proliferated, their association with
delinquency, disease, and poverty became entrenched. Jane Addams
described those conditions: "The streets are inexpressibly dirty, the
number of schools inadequate, sanitary legislation unenforced, the
street lighting bad, the paving miserable and altogether lacking in
the alleys and smaller streets and the stables beyond description." 3

Calvinism, Liberalism, and Pragmatism

The industrialist Andrew Carnegie expressed a then often-stated belief
about the unequal distribution of wealth during this period of industrial
expansion. "The millionaires who are in active control started as poor
boys and were trained in the sternest but most efficient of all
schools-poverty."4 This Horatio Alger perspective was buttressed by
the prevailing intellectual and religious ideologies of that time.
Max Weber, in a classical analysis, asserted that the Christian tradition
was vital to the development of the expansive capitalist spirit that
dominated industrialization. 5 Calvinist and related Protestant creeds
were the key components of this tradition. Weber maintains that the
overriding issue for devout Christians was whether they could achieve
a degree of certainty regarding their salvation by ceaseless ascetic labor
that promised material wealth a,.nd success. Such success would bring
order and rationality to the individual's life so that each person could
be numbered among God's few chosen saints.
Secular liberalism was also an influential ideology during this period.
Individuals were seen as hedonistic and self-seeking and as avoiding
work unless coerced or bribed. This view appealed to those who also
supported the Protestant ethic with its emphasis on individual rights,
notably, the right to accumulate property. Only possessions could
serve as an incentive to work. Thus liberals viewed society as a group
of individuals that was pursuing self-interest and that was operating
in a free economy.
Darwinian biology and Spencerian philosophy-asserting that life
is a fierce competitive struggle in which only the fittest survive-
 Mary Richmond and Jane Addams 507
combined to increase the prestige of liberal individualistic interpretations.
Industrial strife, poverty, and insecurity were indicators of the immutable
laws of evolution, and evolution was progress not to be restrained.
Hence the economic policies of laissez-faire. 6
Capitalism and liberalism held two beliefs in common: government
should not interfere with market forces, and individuals would be best
served if the attitudes of personal responsibility and self-reliance were
expected. These ideas marked the emergence of a perspective of moral
certainty, a perspective that directed attention to the problems of
particular individuals and to their failures of personal responsibility.
A third ideological perspective of the nineteenth century that in-
fluenced the nascient profession of social work was pragmatism, which
supported a commitment to science and the American empirical spirit.
John Dewey, reacting to the psychological assumptions of liberalism,
argued that people's interests and motives are shaped by their association
rather than by flaws inherent in the individuals. One could not speculate
about human nature from deductive analyses of a system of social
policy as political economists did. According to Dewey, "knowledge is
not the sum of some fixed truths but the product of inquiry which
itself is a c1;mtinuing process." As a result, "the attainment of settled
belief is a progressive matter. There is no belief so settled as not to
be exposed to further inquiry." 7 He further asserted that knowledge
of a particular object or event is never complete; hence, the process
of rational inquiry, which moves from hypotheses to experimentation
to still further hypotheses, becomes all the more important. These
pragmatic ideas were translated into a belief that individuals who lived
in poverty were not necessarily morally reprehensible but were influ-
enced by a macrosystem that affected social functioning.
These prevailing intellectual and religious ideologies provided con-
ceptual frameworks for two emerging social movements that directed
efforts toward alleviating problems associated with poverty. Those
who accepted the ideas of liberalism with its emphasis on individual
responsibility and action tended to give their support to the Charity
Organization Society·. Those who embraced the philosophy of prag-
matism and who were more concerned with the problems that beset
neighborhoods and entire geographical regions worked in the Set!lement
House Movement.

The Settlements and the Friendly Visitors

Both the Charity Organization Society and the Settlement House

Movement emerged from English models and endeavored to address
508 Social Service Review
problems of pauperism, crime, and mental and physical disabilities
that contributed to dependency. Both organizations also expressed
growing enthusiasm for scientific philanthropy, but there the similarities
end.
The Charity Organization Society (COS) emerged from a concern
for making almsgiving scientific, efficient, and preventative. For the
COS, poverty was to be cured not by the distribution of relief but by
the personal rehabilitation of the poor. The guiding philosophy was
that pauperism could be eliminated through investigating and studying
the character of those seeking help and by educating and developing
the poor. Case conferences and "friendly visiting" made vivid the
problems, the needs for, and the responsibilities of rehabilitation. 8
Friendly visitors ran into hostility and indifference, however. They
came from different neighborhoods in cities that were segregated by
social class and ethnicity. The original idea of districting had presupposed
local acquaintance and made more sense in communities where the
rich and the poor grew up together. 9
The founders of the Settlement House Movement, in contrast, chose
to live and work among the poor as neighbors, seeking to bring their
education and goodwill to bear on the problems. They defined problems
environmentally and engaged in social melioration. In an attempt to
diffuse the tensions that might develop along class lines, Addams
refused to call her neighbors clients or cases and could not fully respect
younger social workers, for whom service meant an eight-hour day
and a home far from the slums. 10 This attitude was consistent with
her commitment to learn from her neighbors and to correct workers'
mistakes that were caused by their cultural insensitivity and newness
to the neighborhood. David Greenstone, analyzing Addams's philosophic
perspective, asserts that her method was experimental in Dewey's sense:
perform an action, observe its effects, and modify one's response ac-
cordingly.11 The distinctive aspect of the settlement philosophy was
its concentration on the totality of problems in a single geographic
area. It did not lose sight of economic and social needs of the individual,
but the central focus was on the experiences, thinking, and actions of
local populations that could effect broad social and economic reforms. 12

The National Conference of Charities and Corrections

The settlers and visitors differed in ideologies and partisans, but they
were closely allied in commitment to scientific philanthropy. This
brought them together with other institutions and agencies under the
umbrella organization of the National Conference of Charities and
Corrections (NCCC), which became the National Conference of Social
Welfare. Richmond first attended the NCCC in 1890, when she heard
a presentation made by Josephine Shaw Lowell. Lowell discussed her
views on pauperism. A social Darwinist organizer of the COS movement,
 Mary Richmond and Jane Addams 509
Lowell believed that poverty had its roots in the character of the poor.
Pauperism would be eliminated by educating and rehabilitating the
poor. She was convinced that tax-supported relief was not the cure
but the cause of pauperism because it undermined self-reliance and
the will to work. 13 In Lowell's writings we find the emergence of moral
certainty in social work practice. (Lowell later shifted her perspective
when she developed an interest in workers as a class and founded the
Consumer's League to investigate working conditions, to identify em-
ployers with unfair and unsafe labor practices, and to lead consumer
boycotts against them.) Some years later, Richmond acknowledged the
influence of Lowell's moral approach to poverty in the development
of her own ideas. 14
The depression of 1893 provided the impetus for some changes in
American attitudes toward poverty. That event provided clear evidence
that all individuals were vulnerable to reversals in the economic arena;
thus, causal explanations of the relation between poverty and an in-
dividual's moral reprehensibility were weakened. These attitudinal
changes served as catalysts for the NCCC to shift its priorities-which
had been shaped primarily by the COS's philosophy-from uplifting
the poor morally to finding work for the unemployed and food for
the starving. Albert 0. Wright reflected these changes in his 1896
NCCC presidential address entitled "The New Philanthropy." In this
speech he described the new philanthropy as one that "studies causes
as well as symptoms and considers classes as well as individuals ... it
tries to improve conditions thus changing the environment of the
defective ... it tries to build up character." 15
The moral certainty approach was eclipsed further in 1885 when
Charles Booth, a conservative Englishman with a liberal individualist
perspective, found that illness, accidents, and unemployment were
factors related to and possibly caused by poverty. He then introduced
the concept of a poverty line and endeavored to establish empirically
some reasonable parameters to determine where the line should be
drawn. 16 Edward Devine-an economist who was general secretary
of the COS of New York and a leader in social work education-later
built on Booth's work and recommended in his book, Principles ofRelief,
"the formulation and general acceptance of the idea of a normal standard
of living and the rigid adoption of either disciplinary or charitable
measures." 17
Addams made her first appearance before the NCCC in 1897, her
ideas shaped by the philosophic perspective of Dewey and buoyed by
the effect that the Settlement House Movement was having on the
NCCC philosophy. Addams began her presentation by describing the
differences between the two philosophies and asserted, "[the visitors]
are bound to tell a man he must be thrifty in order to keep his family ....
You must tell him that he is righteous and a good citizen when he is
510 Social Service Review
self supporting, that he is unrighteous and not a good citizen when
he receives aid ... settlements see that a man may perhaps be a bit
lazy and be a good man and an interesting person ... it does not lay
so much stress on one set of virtues, but views the man in his social
aspects." 18 When Addams finished, Richmond countered her by de-
scribing the settlements as being "like old-fashioned missions, doing
harm by their cheap, sprinkling sort of charity." 19
The debate then escalated when Richmond asserted that "[the set-
tlement] can pretend to be scientific when it is nothing of the kind. "20
In this statement she was probably challenging the claims made by
Julia Lathrop, a Hull House resident, who later directed research at
the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy. In the 1896 NCCC
proceedings, Lathrop had stated that "the scientific information gathered
by their (settlement) residents can nowhere be duplicated." 21 This
statement was consistent with Addams's philosophy that social workers
not only help people but also study the conditions under which they
lived. Social work, according to Addams, was a form of sociology. 22

Sources of Ideological Differences

One can conclude from Richmond's remarks that she either misun-
derstood or possibly devalued science that fell beyond the boundaries
of biological science. She had been heavily influenced by the medical
profession while working at the Baltimore COS. Her writings carried
many quotations from William Osler, the famous Johns Hopkins sur-
geon, and two of her closest advisers in Baltimore were prominent
physicians at Johns Hopkins. In addition, medical students were friendly
visitors throughout Richmond's tenure at the Baltimore COS. 23 Thus
Richmond was clearly more favorably disposed to the biological rather
than the social sciences, which may explain her rather narrow view of
snence.
While Addams was one of the first generation of college women,
Richmond was not. The dialogue between the two women is probably
an indication of their divergent social origins and backgrounds. Rich-
mond, an orphan, was reared by her grandmother and an aunt with
meager financial resources. Addams, on the other hand, was from a
family with some wealth and influence (her father was an Illinois state
senator). Addams attended college and traveled internationally, meeting
Tolstoy when she visited Russia and visiting Toynbee Hall in London,
where she developed her plans for Hull House in Chicago. 24 Richmond
was a high school graduate who had joined the ranks of the COS as
a clerk and had then been promoted to general secretary, the highest
position in that agency. 25 Richmond was sensitive about her lack of
formal education and often noted to friends that their minds had been
trained while hers had not. 26 Addams has been described as having
unusual intellectual and literary talents. 27 These differences may explain
the personal rivalry between these two women.
 Mary Richmond and Jane Addams 511

What may provide even more insight into the mutual antagonism
that developed between these two women is the social context of their
struggle. During this era, single, independent women were viewed as
misfits in a society that perceived women's primary roles as those of
mother and wife. These women did not reject the Victorian notion
that women should exude self-sacrifice, purity, and spiritual superiority;
rather, they moved these qualities out of the home and into the public
world of professional work. 28 The social pressures on these women
must have been tremendous as they endeavored to carve out roles for
themselves that were both socially acceptable and personally meaningful.
Both of these women emerged as commanding and inspiring
figures-a formidable accomplishment during this time period.
The divergence of these two women's perspectives is further illu-
minated in a paper written by Richmond in 1899 entitled "The Set-
tlement and Friendly Visiting." At that time she wrote, "If I could
choose a friend for a family fallen into misfortune and asking for relief
... I would rather choose for them one who had this practical re-
sourcefulness than one who had a perfect equipment of advanced
social theories .... The former would find the most natural and effective
way out ... the other would say that the whole social order was wrong
and must pay a ransom for its wrongness by generous material help
to its victims." 29 Richmond's perspective is also reflected in her view
of environmental reform as an unwelcome distraction from the task
of perfecting the techniques of casework. 30 Muriel Pumphrey has noted
that, during that period, Richmond remained antagonistic to such
ideas as a minimum wage, a limited work day, and improved working
conditions. 31
Richmond's bias against a liberal arts education was apparent in her
proposals for social work education. When she joined the editorial
staff of Charities arul, the Commons in 1905 (which was the first professional
journal in social work and which would later become a part of the
Russell Sage Foundation), she used the journal as a base to argue for
an emphasis on the practical preparation of social workers, using case
records as teaching materials. She argued against making social work
programs academic units of universities with too much emphasis on
"theory and academic requirements." 32 On the basis of these recom-
mendations, the Russell Sage Foundation withdrew a promised grant
to the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy that would have
supported a plan to make the school a part of the University of Chicago. 33
The Chicago School, founded by leaders of the settlement movement,
did not adhere to Richmond's curricular recommendations and instead
developed an academic curriculum based on social theory with an
analytic and reform orientation and a focus on social policy and social
philosophy. 34 Richmond's emphasis on practical experience over ac-
ademic training is further reflected in her decision not to hire Jessie
Taft in the early 1920s for a job at the Russell Sage Foundation. She
512 Social Service Review
admonished Taft, who had just received a Ph.D. from the University
of Chicago, to get some experience first. 35
Two fortuituous events occurred in 1909 that gave Richmond a
major victory for her educational views, perhaps unwittingly. First,
the old Social Science Association (later to become the American
Sociological Association) would finally dissolve, and the dissolution
pointed to the difficulty of fitting social science theoretical formulations
to the practicalities of welfare policy and administration. 36 Second,
Richmond's influence was further enhanced when she was persuaded
to leave the editorial staff of Charities and the Commons to head the
Russell Sage Foundation's new Charity Organization Department. The
Russell Sage Foundation gave out nearly $5.8 million in grants to
social work organizations, publications, and professional social work
associations from 1907 to 1931. 37
While Richmond's leadership buoyed the profession's commitment
to dealing with the practical tasks and issues of poverty and dependency,
a consequence of the emphasis has been the social work profession's
legacy of vulnerability to criticisms from other social scientists for
either lacking or having too fragmentary conceptual frameworks to
be taken seriously as an academic discipline. 38 It should be noted,
however, that in spite of the ascendency of Richmond's influence, by
1909 Addams would become the first woman president of the NCCC.
But due to a set of fortuitous occurrences, her influence would be
short-lived.

Addams, the Progressive Party, and Pacifism

Addams, more than any other woman in her times, symbolized the
new woman who took her place in the world of work. In this role she
applied her intelligence and education to advocating improved working
and living conditions in industrial cities. She also asserted the values
of social cooperation against the satisfactions of the individual, spoke
out against laissez-faire policies that justified industrial capitalism, en-
dorsed woman suffrage, and supported welfare-state programs-pro-
grams that Samuel Gompers's American Federation of Labor (AFL)
found unacceptable. 39 At Hull House she helped to organize various
worker organizations, regularly siding with the workers in the great
Chicago labor strikes. 40
In 1912, a presidential election year, the Occupational Standards
Committee of the NCCC decided that it should draft a minimum
platform to "direct public thought and secure official action." The
committee had been appointed in 1909, the year that Addams was
 Mary Richmond and Jane Addams 513
elected president of the organization. The Social Standards for Industry,
as the committee called its platform, included demands for an eight-
hour day in continuous twenty-four-hour industries, a six-day week
for all, abolition of tenement manufacture, the improvement of housing
conditions, prohibition of child labor for those under age sixteen, and
careful regulation of employment for women. The platform also called
for a federal system of accident, old-age, and unemployment insurance.
The committee insisted that these minimum standards were require-
ments for any community "interested in self-preservation."41
A group of social workers presented their platform of industrial
minimums to the platform committee of the Republican National
Convention but found no interest. Addams also appeared briefly before
the platform committee to plea for reform proposals but was virtually
ignored. 42 A few days later, however, Theodore Roosevelt walked out
of the convention to form a new party. The NCCC committee then
presented its program to the new Progressive party, and most of the
specific proposals were included in the Progressive party platform. 43
The importance of this event was that it represented a merger of
philanthropy and social policy, two interests that formerly had been
addressed only separately.
The year 1912 was an exciting time for social reformers. After years
of struggling to prohibit child labor and to promote better housing,
they now had a national leader who took their social justice programs
seriously. The Progressive party campaign attracted enthusiastic support
from many social workers. Addams seconded Roosevelt's nomination
and compared the convention with sessions of the NCCC, characterizing
the exuberance and enthusiasm as religious-like. 44 When Addams rose
to speak, having been introduced by Senator Albert Beveridge, "the
cheers, applause, and feet-stamping rivaled that which greeted Roosevelt
himself." There were other nominating speeches for Roosevelt, but
the newspapers gave hers the most attention. 45
This single appearance catapulted Addams into high national visibility.
She was a member of the Cook County Progressive Committee, the
Illinois State Progressive Committee, and the National Progressive
Committee. She prepared articles for magazines and syndicated news-
papers across the country to attract attention to the platform of the
new party. What Addams did not anticipate, however, was that her
entry into partisan politics would make her vulnerable to criticism
from those who felt that someone of her stature should not permit
her name to be used in support of a political party.
Mabel Boardman-who had taken over the leadership of the Red
Cross in 1905 after initiating a congressional investigation into Clara
Barton's misuse of funds and who herself had played an important
role in the Republican party as president of the Women's Advisory
Committee-was the first to criticize Addams for supporting the Pro-
514 Social Service Review
gressives. 46 She argued that Addams "should not be handicapped by
the limitations of party affiliations nor trammeled by becoming involved
in the bitterness of controversies over candidates and utterly irrelevant
policies." 47
It was criticism by Edward T. Devine of the New York COS, however,
that Addams interpreted as a personal attack. As published in Survey
magazine (whose editor, Paul Kellogg, had served on the NCCC platform
committee with Addams), Devine's comments asserted that "it was the
first political duty of social workers to be persistently and aggressively
non-partisan, to maintain such relation with men of social goodwill in
all parties as well as insure their cooperation in specific measures for
the promotion of the common good." 48 These remarks were an early
omen of the impending decline of Addams's influence in the emerging
social work profession. Devine, a founder of the New York School of
Philanthropy, would emerge as a leader in professional education.
Addams reached the peak of her popularity between the years 1909
and 1915. She not only was the first woman to be elected president
of NCCC but, in that same year, was also the first woman awarded
an honorary degree by Yale University. She published six books and
more than 150 essays from 1907 to 1916. In the period just before
the war, there was no other American woman who was so venerated. 49
When the war broke out in Europe in l 914, Addams was again
swept into a position of leadership, this time in the peace movement.
However, her opposition to the war and her later support for the
Deb's Socialist ticket made her a major target of the Red scare. She
received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1930 for her efforts, but it would
be some time before her prewar reputation would be restored.

Richmond and the Quest for Professionalism

The outbreak of World War I was perceived by most social workers

as a threat to the social initiatives that the NCCC had been able to
bring to the attention of the public; that is, the international crisis
would only be a distraction from domestic issues. While social workers
as a group did not favor the war, once war was declared social workers
took one of two positions: (1) that, once in the war, we had an obligation
to win or (2) that we should end our participation in the war. When
Survey published a neutralist editorial, the mail response was about
equally pro and con. 50
Again Richmond and Addams were on opposing sides. Richmond
represented the position that supported the war and was eager for
social work to rise to the occasion by developing skills to care for the
 Mary Richmond and Jane Addams 515
families of soldiers and sailors. This commitment eventually led to her
involvement with the Home Service Bureau of the Red Cross. Addams,
on the other hand, was strongly opposed to the war and was actively
involved in the peace movement.
Richmond's influence had been gaining momentum in the social
work profession prior to the outbreak of the war. Between 1907 and
1912, Richmond made presentations every year at the NCCC. (The
only exception, 1909, was the year of Addams's election as president.)
In 1912 Richmond's paper, entitled "Medical and Social Cooperation,"
addressed the similarities between the professions of social work and
medicine. This address keenly influenced the new profession of social
work. Richmond did not appear on the program for the next two
years, but when she reappeared in 1915, her influence was clearly felt.
An example of her stature in the profession was evidenced by an
invitation to give the prestigious Kennedy lecture in 1914 at the New
York School of Philanthropy, an endowed course delivered each year
by an eminent scholar. Her lecture was so well received that two
additional sessions were offered. 51
It was evident in the presentations to the 1915 NCCC conference
that social work education was receiving major attention among con-
ference leaders. Two of the major speakers were associates of Richmond,
namely, Edward Devine and Abraham Flexner. The theme of the
conference was the status of social work as a profession.
Edward Devine, a critic of Addams's partisan political participation,
presented a paper focused on the curriculum of the professional school
of social work while reflecting on the developments at the New York
School of Philanthropy. He had hired Richmond as one of the first
instructors, and she taught from time to time, serving on the Committee
on Instruction while he was the school's director. 52 Devine recommended
that the first priority among curriculum subjects should be a course
"which deals with individuals and families and the complicated disabilities
of intervention." 53 This statement reflected the influence of the re-
habilitative philosophy of COS, a philosophy that placed an emphasis
on the individual and that did not directly address environmental or
structural constraints. He did add, however, that the next important
element after the study of the family rehabilitation was "the history
and nature of social movements," an effort to address social change
and reform. 54 Devine's mentor had been Simon Patten, also an econ-
omist, who had delivered a Kennedy lecture at the New York School
of Philanthropy and had argued that social work should focus on
fundamental social policy issues. 55 It seems clear that Devine's thinking
by 1915 had been strongly influenced by Richmond.
The program committee had also invited Abraham Flexner to address
the 1915 meeting on the topic "Is Social Work a Profession?" At that
time, Flexner was one of the more influential individuals in the United
516 Social Service Review
States in the area of medical education. Flexner had studied at Johns
Hopkins as an undergraduate and influenced several of Richmond's
writings. Since many medical students worked as friendly visitors at
the Baltimore COS, he had some familiarity with social work.
The main thrust of Flexner's 1915 remarks was that social workers
were not experts but rather mediators who summoned the experts.
Flexner's pronouncements, documented in social work annals, are
seen by some historians as the most significant event in the development
of the intellectual rationalization for social work as an organized
profession. 56 There was no report on the audience's reaction to Flexner's
authoritative pronouncement that social work was not a profession.
However, it appears that his arguments were not challenged, even
though some conference speakers did not agree with his analysis. 57
With the decline of Addams's influence in the NCCC, Richmond
had more of an opportunity to assert her ideas regarding the social
work profession. In her 1915 presentation to the conference she pointed
to the differences between social casework and social reform. The
proceedings of the NCCC that year quote her argument that "social
casework does different things for and with different people-it
specializes and differentiates; social reform generalizes and simplifies
by discovering ways of doing the same thing for everybody.... The
only kind of social casework in which I believe, therefore, and the only
kind to which I shall refer today may be defined as the art of doing
different things for and with different people by cooperating with
them to achieve at one and the same time their own and society's
betterment. "58
It took two years for Richmond, again speaking to the conference,
to counter Flexner's assertions by arguing that "social work did have
skills and techniques of its own rather than being primarily a mediating
agency." 59 And, with the publication of her canonical book, Social
Diagnosis, she had proof that social work was a certifiable profession.
Produced and marketed under the auspices of the Russell Sage Foun-
dation, reviews of Richmond's book appeared in such prestigious journals
as Political Science Qµarterly, Dial, journal of Political Economy, and American
Sociologfral Review. "60
Richmond's credibility was further confirmed by her influence in
enabling social workers to provide services to families of soldiers serving
their country in the war. After World War I was officially declared in
1917, President Wilson established a war council of bankers and busi-
nessmen to enlist contributors to the Red Cross. They raised over
$400 million that was targeted for four areas, one of which included
"home service." Richmond coined the terminology and was retained
to plan the training institutes for the volunteers. The institutes included
six weeks of full-time training in a family agency and focused on
 Mary Richmond and Jane Addams 517
teaching volunteers how to approach families and aid them in identifying
and solving problems. 61
With the publication of her book Social Diagnosis and her work with
the Red Cross Home Service, Richmond emerged as the leader of the
profession. Her book not only facilitated an easier transition to the
helping processes as a technical service analogous to that of a doctor
or lawyer, but, more importantly, it defined social diagnosis as "the
attempt to make as exact a definition as possible in relation to the
other human beings upon whom he (the person) in any way depends
or who depends upon him, and in relation to the social institutions
in his community."62
In her second book, What Is Social Casework?, she provided even
more clarity on the objective of diagnosis when she stated, "Social
casework consists of those processes which develop personality through
adjustments consciously effected, individual by individual, between
men and their social environment."63 In Richmond's view, the most
critical element in work with individuals was the home and family;
there, the first lessons in "individuality and sociality" were learned. 64
These definitions indicate the importance she placed on the relationship
between the client and his or her social environment. However, although
she acknowledged the person's relation to the social institutions in his
or her community in her first book, by the publication of her second
she had added the word "personality," which set the profession on a
different course.
Richmond is generally credited with getting social workers involved
with the Red Cross, but what is discussed less frequently is the demise
of this alliance. Mabel Boardman, the earlier critic of Addams's in-
volvement in partisan politics, was still hostile to social workers as a
group when she was appointed chairperson of the Bureau of Volunteers
of the Red Cross in 1922. She expressed fear that the continued use
of social workers would change the American Red Cross from a voluntary
aid society into an "amorphous welfare organization."65 Boardman's
position encouraged the Red Cross to use volunteers instead of paid
social workers-a major setback for the fledgling profession. This
policy decision made social workers further aware of the need to focus
their attention on professional identity, recognition, and increased
compensation for their labor.
It is an irony of history that Hull House became a training ground
for the first generation of professional women. Florence Kelley, Julia
Lathrop, Grace Abbott, Sophonisba Breckinridge, and Edith Abbott
all went from there into professional social work careers. Addams,
however, refused to become professionalized and never took a salary. 66
During that era, the sentiments of social workers regarding profes-
sionalization were reflected in the following statement of goals for the
518 Social Service Review
profession: "Skilled service in place of or in addition to good intentions
and sympathy; making knowledge and skill available to persons who
wish to use them rather than setting out to reform people ... and
expectation of reasonable compensation rather than a spirit of self-
sacrifice."67
Addams's popularity among social workers further eroded when
she took a stand against the professionalization of social workers, a
position at variance with her stand on women's issues. (To ask why
she took this position, however, misunderstands her ethical opposition
to self-interested materialism.) 68 While addressing the national con-
ference in 1926, Addams stated that "the danger involved [for social
workers] is to look at social work too steadily from the business point
of view, to transfer it into the psychology of the business world." 69
And, while Addams's views extended far beyond the Settlement House
Movement, her philosophical views were not aligned with those that
prevailed in the profession, hence eroding her popularity among social
workers. It was Richmond's views that would have the most enduring
effect.
In 1921, Addams's diminished authority became apparent when
Smith College overlooked her and granted Richmond an honorary
master's degree for "establishing the scientific basis of a new profes-
sion. "70 This had to be especially disappointing to Addams for two
reasons. First, she was one of the first generation of college-educated
American women, and Smith was one of the first universities that
made college education a reality for women. Second, she had applied
to Smith and had planned to attend until she suffered from an undefined
illness with severe physical symptoms, which forced her to cancel her
plans. And, although the University of Chicago would grant her an
honorary L.L.D. degree and Northwestern University, Swarthmore,
Rollins, Knox, the University of California, and Mt. Holyoke awarded
her honorary degrees, not one school of social work conferred that
honor on her.
Addams's declining influence within the profession was further con-
firmed in 1922 when social workers gathered for the fiftieth anniversary
of the NCCC, which by then was the National Conference of Social
Work. A few of her friends-Edith Abbott, Julia Lathrop, Alice
Hamilton (first woman professor at Harvard), and Graham Taylor-
had organized a campaign for her election as president of the conference.
They did not anticipate the amount of opposition from individuals
who had disagreed with Addams's pacificist stand during the war. The
leaders of the opposition campaign were identified as Richmond as
well as Homer Folks of the New York Charities Aid Association. 71
Addams's candidacy was subsequently withdrawn, and the conference
chose Homer Folks, who was much more conservative.
 Mary Richmond and Jane Addams 519
By the 1920s even the weakening belief in moral certainty could
not mute the profession's escalating interest in mental health and
psychiatry, the hallmarks of the mental hygiene movement. Roy Lubove
observed that social workers could identify with psychiatry and dis-
associate themselves from charit~ and relief-giving functions; hence,
a new form of therapy emerged. 2 He further asserted that, with this
shift, social workers became' preoccupied with the person and all but
forgot the person's situational context. 73

Richmond's and Addams's Influence on Social

Work Practice Today

Richmond's achievement was the promotion of the professional spirit

among social workers and her emphasis on technical competence in
the provision of social services. She was keenly interested in the com-
ponent parts of the interventive process, and she organized these parts
into a systematic procedure. Her interest in the social environment
developed into an interest in the family as a social unit and contributed
to the profession's pioneer work in the field of family therapy.
While her limitations did not diminish the effect of her contributions,
they should be noted nonetheless. On the issue of client confidentiality,
she was influenced by John Glenn's idea of the ideal agent as a detective.
Hence she never saw the contradiction of proceeding with an inves-
tigation without the client's awareness or "informed consent" of the
steps being taken. 74 This has contributed to the public's perception
of social workers as being agents of social control. More specifically,
social workers have been accused of having "hidden agendas" or of
being outright unethical in their pursuit of the "facts" about the client's
situation. Another limitation was her failure to connect epistemology
to ideology and, subsequently, to link the methods or techniques she
proposed to a theory of practice. This failure on her part has contributed
to the profession's vulnerability to Freud's theory of personality. Lela
Costin argues that this theory moved social workers away from a form
of treatment based on rational assumptions, information, and envi-
ronmental manipulation. Psychoanalysis, in her view, became the "sci-
entific method for understanding the individual." 75
There were theoretical formulations extant during that era that were
more compatible with the principles set forth in Richmond's writings
(e.g., the writings of George Herbert Mead, a pragmatist and social
psychologist). As a result, the psychiatric influence dominated the
520 Social Service Review
profession for four decades and would not be seriously challenged
until the 1960s. 76
Addams never regained her popularity with social workers, but she
generally is credited with enhancing the profession's role as "the con-
science of society" by promoting social democracy and the palliation
of social injustice. What is too often overlooked, however, is her con-
tribution to scientific research in social work practice. Addams's utilization
of Dewey's techniques of rational inquiry and experimentation intro-
duced the concept of research and accountability into social work
practice, a concept that was overlooked by four generations of social
workers. Such an approach depends on defining a problem by moving
from hypothesis through experiment and confirmation to still a further
hypothesis, a process that is critically important to practitioners. This
process ensures that the practitioner will think critically about the
assumptions made concerning the nature of the client's problem(s)
and will actively test the logic of these assumptions. The process provides
some safeguard against the practitioner making reductionistic and
premature classification of the client's behavior, thereby increasing
exponentially the possibilities for intervening into the various systems
that effect the client's social functioning.
Addams's approach had its limitations as well. Lasch has observed
that, while Addams stressed the importance of addressing social and
economic changes, she had no real method for dealing with powerful
structural and institutional barriers, "interests which could not be simply
educated into a more altruistic ... view." 77 And, while she expressed
in her writings a concern with the social problems of the slum, Addams
mainly thought and wrote not about the poor or workers as a class
but about the problems and potential of particular persons. 78
Although these two perspectives coalesced into one of rational inquiry,
the divergence in these two perspectives subsequently created a cause-
function debate within the profession. In his 1929 presidential address
to the NCCC, Porter Lee (who had succeeded Edward Devine as the
director of the New York School of Philanthropy in 1917), was one
of the first to discuss these ideological tensions within the profession.
He expressed concern at that time that social work was becoming
preoccupied with techniques, methods, and efficiency, which had ac-
companied the rational organization of services. He then noted that
the achievement of a cause, such as a new way of meeting human
need, depends on methodical function to implement it and that, while
social work must develop and administer its service as an efficient,
science-based activity, it must also retain its capacity to inspire enthusiasm
for a cause. 79
For over fifty years these ideological tensions have persisted within
the profession, and members of the profession continue to debate
methodological, theoretical, and ideological issues. Charlotte Towle
 Mary Richmond and Jane Addams 521
addressed this issue in a classic paper entitled "Social Work: Cause
and Function," which was published in 1961. In this paper, Towle
quoted from Richmond and Addams and noted that "consideration
of broad social implications in specific case situations could well produce
beneficial effects on casework performance." 80 She also wrote that the
adequate meeting of needs through the close interrelations of social
movements were problems "that had defied solution and must all
become causes in a near tomorrow." 81
In the current social and political climate we again see the resurgence
of the moral certainty perspective, and the social work profession
clearly faces serious challenges to its commitment to social justice and
social responsibility. 82 And, while the profession now has a theoretical
framework that is consistent with the rational inquiry perspective, the
challenge that lies ahead is to ensure congruence between belief systems
and action systems in the principles that we set forth in our interventions
with clients.
The profession can bring the union of cause and function together
that Towle envisaged by bringing its coalition-building potential to-
gether, by collectively addressing social issues that emerge, and by
reflecting these in the range of interventive strategies employed. More
than a decade ago, Carel Germain wrote that "the humanization of
our superurban life becomes the cause and the range of casework
roles and tasks and the flexibility of agency arrangements becomes
the function." 83

Notes

The author wishes to thank Laura Epstein, Bernece Simon, Margaret Rosenheim,
and Elizabeth Kutza for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
1. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1961).
2. See Ira Goldenberg, Bui/,d Me a Mountain: Youth, Poverty and Creation of New Settings
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1971).
3. Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.,
1910), pp. 97-100.
4. Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition (New York: Vintage Books,
1954), p. 166.
5. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. T. Parsons (New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958).
6. For an excellent discussion of the relation between laissez-faire economic policies
and social Darwinian theories, see Max Lerner, America as a Civilization: Life and Thought
in the United States Today (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1957); and James Leiby, History
of Social Welfare and Social Work in the United States (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1978).
7. John Dewey, "The Logic of Judgments of Practice," in Pragmatic Philosophy, ed.
Amelie Rorty (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1966), p. 246, and 'The Functions
of Logic," in ibid., p. 254.
522 Social Service Review
8. Ralph E. Pumphrey and Muriel W. Pumphrey, The Heritage of American Social Work
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), pp. 168-91.
9. See Pumphrey and Pumphrey, p. 173; and Joanna Colcord and Ruth Z. S. Mann,
The Long View: Papers and Addresses by Mary E. Richmond (New York: Russell Sage
Foundation, 1930), p. 137.
10. Daniel Levine, Jane Addams and the Liberal Tradition (Madison: State Historical
Society of Wisconsin, 1971), p. 43.
11. David Greenstone, "Dorothea Dix and Jane Addams: From Transcendentalism
to Pragmatism in American Social Reform," Social Service Review 53, no. 4 (December
1979): 527-59.
12. See Robert A. Woods and Albert J. Kennedy, The Settlement Horizon: A National
Estimate (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1922); and Pumphrey and Pumphrey.
13. See the paper by Josephine Shaw Lowell in Proceedings of the National Conference
of Charities and Corrections 17 (1890): 81-91.
14. Muriel W. Pumphrey, "Mary Richmond and the Rise of Professional Social Work
in Baltimore" (D.S.W. diss., Columbia University, School of Social Work, 1956), p. 168
(University Microfilms no. 17,076); and Colcord and Mann, p. 35.
15. Albert 0. Wright, "The New Philanthropy," Proceedings of the National Conference
of Charities and Corrections 23 (1896): 4-5.
16. T. S. Simey and M. B. Simey, Charles Booth, Social Scientist (London: Oxford
University Press, 1960), pp. 184, 275-79; and Charles Booth et al., Life and Labor of the
People of London, 1st ser. (1902-4; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1970).
17. Edward T. Devine, Principles of Relief (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.,
1904), p. 19.
18. Jane Addams, "Social Settlements," Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities
and Corrections 24 (1897): 339.
19. Richmond's comments can be found in ibid., p. 473. Addams herself observed
the marked similarities between Hull House and the "actual activities of a missionary
school"; see Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House (n. 3 above).
20. Addams, "Social Settlements," pp. 472-76.
21. Julia Lathrop, "What the Settlement Work Stands for," Proceedings of the National
Conference of Charities and Corrections 23 (1896): 106.
22. Christopher Lasch, ed., Social Thought ofJane Addams (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill
Co., 1965), p. xiv.
23. Pumphrey, "Mary Richmond and the Rise of Professional Social Work in Baltimore,"
pp. 232, 313-15.
24. When Addams visited Tolstoy, who had renounced his wealth for the life of a
Russian peasant, he questioned her devotion to the people. He pointed out that the
sleeves of her dress were so full "that there was enough stuff on one arm to make a
frock for a little girl." He also asked her if she was an absentee landlord when he found
that she lived on the unearned increment from her land in northern Illinois. Addams
returned to Chicago determined to spend two hours a day in the Hull House bakery
laboring with her own hands. When she realized how time consuming this was, she
remarked that Tolstoy was "more logical than life warrants." See Addams, Twenty Years
at Hull House (n. 3 above), pp. 268-77.
25. In 1891, in spite of Richmond's "comparative youth, her sex, and her lack of
academic training" (the two preceding secretaries had been Johns Hopkins men with
doctoral degrees in economics), she was elected general secretary. Colcord and Mann
(n. 9 above), p. 35.
26. Ibid., p. 427.
27. Lasch, ed., p. xv.
28. Martha Vicinus, Independent Women: Work and Community for Single Women,
1850-1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985); Carroll Smith-Rosenberg,
Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
Inc., 1985).
29. Colcord and Mann (n. 9 above), p. 122.
30. Pumphrey, "Mary Richmond and the Rise of Professional Social Work in Baltimore"
(n. 14 above), p. 285.
31. Ibid., p. 243.
 Mary Richmond and Jane Addams 523
32. Mary Richmond, "The Need of a Training School in Applied Philanthropy,"
Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections 24 ( 1897): 181-88.
33. Lela B. Costin, "Edith Abbott and the Chicago Influence on Social Work Education,"
Social Service Review 57, no. 1 (March 1983): 94-111.
34. Ibid., pp. 105--6.
35. Carel B. Germain and Ann Hartman, "People and Ideas in the History of Social
Work Practice," Social Casework 61 (1980): 323-31.
36. See Luther L. Bernard and Jessie Bernard, The Origins of American Sociology (New
York: Cromwell, 1943), pp. 591-607; and FrankJ. Bruno, Trends in Social Work, 1874-
1956: A History Based on the Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1957), pp. 133-34.
37. John Glenn, Lillian Brandt, and F. E. Andrews, The Russell Sage Foundation: 1907-
1946 (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1947); Horace Coon, Money to Bum: What the
Great American Foundations Do with Their Money (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1938).
38. C. Wright Mills, in a paper entitled 'The Professional Ideology of Social Pathologists,"
was one of many social scientists to levy this criticism against social workers, and the
profession has reacted to such attacks in recent years. See Council on Social Work Education,
"Curriculum Policy for the Master's Degree and Baccaulaurate Degree Programs in Social
Work Education," Social Work Education Reporter 30, no. 3 (1982): 5--12; see also "Special
Issue: Conceptual Frameworks," Social Work 22, no. 5 (September 1977); and "Special
Issue: Conceptual Frameworks," Social Work 26, no. 1 <January 1981).
39. The programs that Addams supported included workmen's compensation; social
insurance benefits for the aged; child labor, wages, and hours; programs to protect women
in industry; and health and safety laws; see Jane Addams, Second Twenty Years at Hull House
(New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1930), chap. 2, The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets
(New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1912), p. 96, and Twenty Years at Hull House (n. 3
above), p. 76. See also Allen F. Davis, Spearheads of Reform (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1967), p. 112; Levine (n. 10 above), pp. 162-63; and Lasch, ed. (n. 22 above), p.
xxx.
40. As Levine points out, Addams actually supported neither workers nor employers.
For Addams the real sin of capitalism was not the economic fact that capitalists made
profits but rather the social consequence that the poor had no genuine opportunity for
cultural expression and self-development. For an excellent discussion, see Levine (n.
10 above), pp. 160-65.
41. Owen R. Lovejoy, "Standards of Living and Labor," Proceedings ofthe National Conference
of Charities and Corrections 39 (1912): 388-94.
42. Levine (n. 10 above), p. 189.
43. Ibid.
44. Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House (n. 3 above), pp. 28-32.
45. Allen F. Davis, American Heroine: The Life and Legend of Jane Addams (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 188-89; Levine (n. 10 above), pp. 188-90.
46. Boardman's initiation of a congressional investigation into Clara Barton is reported
in Phyliss Atwood Watts, "Casework above the Poverty Line," Social Service Review 38
(1964): 303-15.
47. Davis, American Heroine (n. 45 above), p. 193.
48. Ibid.
49. Jill Conway, "Jane Addams: Ail American Heroine," in The Women in America, ed.
Robert Jay Lifton (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967), pp. 24 7-66; Davis, American Heroine (n.
45 above), pp. 204-5.
50. Clarke A. Chambers, Paul U. Kellogg and the Survey (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1971), p. 59.
51. Elizabeth Meier, A History of the New York School of Social Work (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1954).
52. Ibid.
53. Edward T. Devine, "Education for Social Work," Proceedings of the National Conference
of Charities and Corrections 42 (1915): 609.
54. Ibid.
55. For further discussion on Patten and Devine's relationship, see Daniel Fox, Dis-
covery of Abundance: Simon H. Patten and the Transformation of Social Theory (Ithaca, N.Y.:
524 Social Service Review
Cornell University Press, 1976); and Simon Patten, The New Basis of Civilization (New York:
Macmillan Publishing Co., 1921).
56. David M. Austin, ''The Flexner Myth and the History of Social Work," Social Service
Review 57, no. 3 (September 1983): 357-77.
57. For example, the presentations that followed Flexner on the program (i.e., those
of Felix Frankfurther, Porter Lee, and Edward Devine) did not reflect doubts about social
work's status as a profession but recommended university affiliation, provided conceptions
of social work that distinguished it from other professions, and provided cunicular guidelines.
See Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and COTTections 42 (1915): 591-611.
58. Mary Richmond, "The Social Caseworker in a Changing World," Proceedings of the
National Conference of Charities and COTTections 42 (1915): 43.
59. Meier, p. 46.
60. Michael Reisch and Stanley Wenocur, "The Future of Community Organization in
Social Work: Social Activism and the Politics of Profession Building, Social Service Review
60, no. 1 (March 1986): 70-93.
61. Watts (n. 46 above), pp. 306-7.
62. Mary Richmond, Social Diagrwsis (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1917), p.
357; see also ibid., pp. 51, 62.
63. Mary Richmond, What is Social Casewurk? (New York: Russell Sage Foundation,
1922), p. 98.
64. Ibid., p. 188.
65. See Watts (n. 46 above), p. 312.
66. Florence Kelley went on to become the head of the National Consumers' League;
Julia Lathrop was a member of the Illinois Board of Charities before becoming the director
of the Children's Bureau; Grace Abbott was the director of the Immigrants' Protective
League before becoming director of the Child Labor Division of the Children's Bureau
and then replaced Julia Lathrop as the head of the bureau in 1921; Alice Hamilton became
the first woman professor at Harvard Medical School and an expert on industrial medicine;
and Sophonisba Breckinridge and Edith Abbott were professors at the Chicago School of
Civics and Philanthropy. For further discussion, see Davis, American Heroine (n. 45 above),
pp. 80-81.
· 67. Amos Warner, Stuart A. Queen, and Ernest B. Harper, American Charities and Social
Work, 4th ed. (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1930), p. 25.
68. Addams had an ethical opposition to what she termed self-interested materialism.
Her views are expressed in Twenty Years at Hull Hoose (n. 3 above), p. 247, and in The
Spirit of Y<JUth and the City Streets (n. 39 above), pp. 42, 49. For Levine's excellent discussion,
see Levine (n. IO above), pp. 160-65.
69. Jane Addams, "How Much Social Work Can A Community Afford: From the Ethical
Point of View?" Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and COTTections 53 (1926):
108.
70. Colcord and Mann (n. 9 above), p. 427.
71. Davis, American Heroine (n. 45 above), p. 270.
72. Roy Lubove, The Professitmal Altruist (Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press,
1965), p. 89.
73. Ibid.
74. Muriel W. Pumphrey, "Mary E. Richmond-the Practitioner," Social Casewurk 42
(1961): 375-85.
75. Costin (n. 33 above), p. 104.
76. Gordon A. Heam, ed., The General Systems Approach: Contributions toward a Holistic
Conception of Social Work (New York: Council on Social Work Education, 1968); Werner
A. Lutz, Concepts and Principks Underlying Social Work Practice, monograph 3 (New York:
National Association of Social Workers, 1958); Mary PaulJanchill, "Systems Concepts in
Casework Theory and Practice," Social Casewurk 50 (1969): 74-82; Carel B. Germain,
"Social Study: Past and Future," Social Casewurk 49 (1968); Donald E. Lathrope, "Use of
Social Science in Social Work Practice: Social Systems," in Trerub in Social Work Practice
and Know/,edge (New York: National Association of Social Workers, 1966).
77. See Lasch (n. 22 above), pp. 200-201.
78. Levine (n. IO above), p. 127; cf. Addams, The Spirit of Y<JUth and the City Streets (n.
39 above), p. 8; Lasch, pp. 34-35.
 Mary Richmond and Jane Addams 525
79. Porter R Lee, "Social Work: Cause and Function," Proceedings r!f the Nalimud Cunference
of Charities and CorrectWns 56 ( 1929): 3-20.
80. Charlotte Towle, "Social Work: Cause and Function, 1961," Social Casewurk 42
(1961): 385-97.
81. Ibid.
82. Leonard Schneiderman of the Council on Social Work Education in a keynote
address in 1985 summarized this perspective of others when describing the prevailing
societal perspective concerning the poor: "poverty and deprivation are best explained by
the idleness, dissipation and self-indulgence of the poor." The ascendancy of the neocon-
servative argument is best represented in Charles Murray, Losing Ground: American Social
Policy, 1950-80 (New York: Basic Books, 1984). Murray's book asserts that liberal welfare
policies are contributing to the increase in female-headed families, a thesis that serves to
strengthen Schneiderman's argument.
83. Carel B. Germain, "Casework and Science: A Historical Encounter," in Theuries r!f
Social Casewurk, ed. Robert W. Roberts and Robert Nee (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1970), p. 28.