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THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL

GROUP WORK IN THE UNITED STATES
BETWEEN 1850 AND 1955

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Kenneth Edward Reid

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ABSTRACT

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL GROUP WORK
IN THE UNITED STATES BETWEEN 1850 AND 1955

By
Kenneth Edward Reid

Social group work, a method of social work in which the
group experience is utilized for the purpose of affecting the social
functioning, growth, or change of group members developed from a
diverse set of roots. These roots include the settlement movement,
the recreation movement, the youth serving agencies, adult education,
progressive education, social casework, and the social and medical
sciences.

Unlike the social casework and community organization,
there has been only limited effort to study the various roots of
social group work. The studies that have been undertaken have been
limited in their scope, tending to focus on some aspect of group work,
such as the use of nonverbal methods in group work or the history of
group work in a certain field, e.g., psychiatric hospitals.

It has been the aim of this research to study the historical
development of social group work in the United States between l850 and
l955. Three questions served as guides in collecting, evaluating, and
synthesizing the significant writings and concepts related to group

work. These are: (1) what has been the influence of the early

 

 

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Kenneth Edward Reid

emphasis on the small group as a means of socializing the individual?
(2) what has been the influence of the concept of the group as a
method of ameliorating maladaptive behavior? (3) what has been the
concept of the group as a means of maintaining a democratic society?

The procedure used to answer these questions was the study
of documents and literature pertaining to group work between 1850
and l955. Primary sources include the Proceedings of the National
Conference of-Social Work, autobiographies of leaders in social
welfare, early group work records, and professional literature from
such fields as recreation, education, and the various youth serving
organizations.

It is the conclusion of the study that social group work
did not occur in a disjointed and fragmentary episode but in a cause
and effect response to the working of an industrial society. Group
work began at a time when there was rapid industrialization and heavy
immigration to the United States. Organizations such as the settle-
ments, the scouts and the Y's developed as a means of protecting the
individual and in assisting him to reach a higher level of functioning.

Increasingly over the years it came to be recognized that
the small group was important both in maintaining a democratic society
and in the socialization of individuals. As a means of maintaining
a democratic society, it was felt that by involving members in group
action, they would become more knowledgeable and skilled as citizens.
As a means of socialization, it was felt that an individual's develop-
ment could be facilitated by training in social skills and by inculcat-

ing social values through guided group experiences.

Kenneth Edward Reid

By the 1940's the group began to be used as a means of
ameliorating maladaptive behavior. This new approach placed the
primary emphasis on the treatment of individuals who were classified
as "deviant" by agents of society. In part this new conception of
the group was motivated by social group works increasing linkages
with social casework, and recognition during World War II that the
group was a potential force in the treatment of medically ill and
emotionally disturbed members of the armed forces.

Finally, it is concluded that an important element in the
development of social group work in the United States between 1850
and l955 are external factors such as the social, economic, and
political climate of the period. Of particular significance for the
growth of group work were: increased immigration, the First World

War, the stock market crash, the 1929 Depression and World War II.

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL GROUP WORK
IN THE UNITED STATES BETWEEN 1850 AND 1955

By

Kenneth Edward Reid

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

College of Social Science

1975

6; Copyright by
Kenneth Edward Reid
l975

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The writer wishes to express sincere appreciation to the
members of the School of Social Work, Michigan State University, who
have contributed to this study: Lucille K. Barber for the original
idea; Gordon J. Aldridge for his help in developing the basic plan
of study; and the members of the committee, Dozier W. Thornton,
Department of Psychology, and Wilbur B. Brookover, Department of
Sociology, for their help and guidance. Special thanks to Minnie M.
Harlow of the Menninger Foundation for the use of her professional
library. Finally, I wish to thank my wife, Eve Reid, for her

patience and moral support.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER Page
I. INTRODUCTION ..................... 1
Definition of Social Group Work ........... 5
Method ....................... 8
2. A PATTERN 0F PIECES, 1850-1899 ............ TO
The American Scene ................. 10
Charity Organization Society ............ 16
The Settlement Movement ............. . . 22
The Youth Serving Agencies ............. 34

Young Men's and Young Women's Christian
Association ................... 37
Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America ....... 41
Boys' Clubs .................... 42
Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association . 44
Summary ....................... 44
3. CONSOLIDATION OF THE PATTERN, 1900-1919 ........ 47
The American Scene ................. 47
Social Work in the Age of Reform .......... 50
Impact of the Social Sciences ............ 53
Psychology .................... 53
Sociology ..................... 55
The Recreation Movement ............... 58
The Adult Education Movement ............ 64
Summary ....................... 7l
4. FORMULATION OF A METHOD, 1920—1936 .......... 73
The American Scene ................. 73
Social Casework .................. 75
Social Action During the Depression ......... 77
Progressive Education ................ 80
Small Group Theory ................. 84
Education for Group Work .............. 88
Movements in Search of a Method ........... 95
The 1935 National Conference of Social Work ..... 100
Group Work for Therapeutic Ends ........... lO6
Summary ....................... 109

iv

CHAPTER Page

5. EXPANSION AND PROFESSIONALISM, 1937—1955 ....... 112
The American Scene ................. 112
Developments in Social Work . . . .......... 114
Beginnings of a Professional Organization ...... 116
Search for a Definition ............... 119
Separation of Group Work and Recreation ....... 121
Group Work as Part of Social Work .......... 122
Industrialization and Human Relations ........ 126
Influence of the War on Group Work ......... 128
Group Dynamics and Social Group Work ........ 131
A Change of Focus .................. 134
Groups in Therapeutic Settings ........... 136

Child guidance .................. 138
Psychiatric and general hospitals ......... 141

Formation of the National Association of Social
Workers ...................... 144
Summary ....................... 146
6. SUMMARY ....... ‘ ................. 149
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY .................... 159
APPENDIX ........................... 166

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The history of social group work, one of the three major
methods of social work is in part the history of social agencies in
a changing society. With roots in such diverse areas as the settle-
ment movement, the recreation movement, education, social reform,
and the social sciences, it has evolved into an effective means of
service for the purpose of effecting the social functioning, growth,
and/or change of individuals in groups. Social group workers have
been employed in a variety of settings such as schools, hospitals,
residential treatment centers, and family service agencies.

Over the last fifty years as those working with groups
have endeavored to establish a conceptual frame of reference for
the practice of social group work, they have been hindered by the
variety of usages of the words "group work.” To some it has been a
label for a catch-all of functions rather than a term to designate
professional service with definite discrete meaning. More recently
it has been used to describe (1) a job classification of workers,
(2) a field of work, (3) a classification of agencies, (4) a philos-
ophy or movement. Others have added the word "social" to indicate
that social group work is a method used by social workers, profes-
sionally educated to use it as a specialized social service in a

variety of settings.

Recently it has come to be recognized that there is no
single model or approach but several. In the literature these various
models have been referred to as the social change model, which has
as its focus the use of groups as a way of maintaining a democratic
society; the reciprocal model which is directed toward the partner-
ship of the worker and clients as an interacting social system whose
aims are mutually determined; the developmental model which views
the group as a microcosism of society in which people help each
other to grow and to develop; and the remedial model which aims at
adjustment and the amelioration of maladaptive behavior.

Increasingly, social workers working with groups have raised
questions as to the differences between the models, the rational for
using one as opposed to the others, the relationship between the
various models of social group work and other methods of social work,
and the effectiveness of social group work in bringing about change
in an individual. This study does not attempt to answer these ques-
tions. Rather, it stems from the recognition that such approaches
as these do not occur suddenly or without cause. Social group work,
like all of social work, has developed its current function, focus,
purposes, and methodology as a result of social, economic and intel-
lectual forces to which it has been subject. Over the years, social
group work has taken different forms as it has been adapted to meet
the needs of those using the method. The present form of social
group work represents an effective tool that has been useful in
meeting the needs of individuals working in and with groups in the

recent past.

To understand why social group work has developed into its
present form, how it has been modified to meet changing needs, and
how and why it developed, one needs to trace the early roots of
social group work. The material needed for such understanding,
however, is scattered throughout the literature of various profes-
sions, often in obscure fragments and is therefore relatively
unavailable for general use.1 This historical examination of the
relevant material in the professional literature has the purpose of
making this knowledge available to those who desire a historical
perspective on social group work.

The guiding question of the study has been: What factors
have influenced the development of social group work from 1850 to
1955? In seeking developmental factors in the history of social
group, three subsidiary questions have acted as further guides:

a) What has been the influence of the early emphasis on the small
group as a means of socializing the individual?

 

1Clara Kaiser, an early leader in social group work identi-
fied the following as being the most significant philosophical and
scientific systems of thought that have given direction and content
to the conceptual frame work of social group work. (1) The ethical,
social and theistic beliefs embodied in the Judaeo Christian reli-
gions. (2) The humanitarian movement of the late 19th century which
found expression in the settlement movement in England and the
United States. (3) The educational philosophy of John Dewey and
his followers who formulated the theories of progressive education.
(4) The Theories of early sociologist interested in the relation
of the individual to society such as Durkheim, Simmel, Cooley and
Mead. (5) The democratic ethic as it permeates all forms of social
relationships as expressed in the writings of Follett and Lindeman.
(6) The psychoanalytic school of psychiatry. (7) Basic research
in small groups by social scientists such as Lewin, Moreno, Mayo
and Merton. Clara Kaiser, "The Social Group Work Process,” in
The Social Group Work Method in Social Work Education, Vol. XI
(New York: Council on Social Work Education, 1959), p. 116.

 

b) What has been the influence of the concept of the group as a
means of maintaining a democratic society?

c) What has been the influence of the concept of the group as a
method of ameliorating maladaptive behavior?

Certain limitations are inherent in the study. The time
span, beginning in 1850 was chosen because it approximated the
beginning of the YMCA, the first group work agency in the United
States. This choice of dates eliminates consideration of groups
prior to 1850. The decision to end the study at the year 1955 was
made as it coincided with the establishment of the National Associa-
tion of Social Workers and formal recognition that social group work
was part of social work. While this leaves a void of nine years
between 1955 and the present, it would require a separate study to
collect, evaluate and synthesize the voluminous and diverse informa-
tion that has been published, or to adequately present the changes
that have taken place in social group work during this period.

Another limitation has to do with fragmentary nature of the
early roots of social group work and how the information is presented
in the chapters. While many of the ideas and themes continue over a
wide span of years, the basic information is presented in one chapter
with subsequent information summarized in later chapters.

Since history is rarely neatly patterned and more often
demonstrates uneven developments, cross currents, and conflicts which
gradually become shaped into a discernable pattern, some framework
or structure was necessary to guide the collection, evaluation, and
synthesizing of the data. For this reason the following general

method was used. A definition of social group work, given below,

was utilized as the present known result of the evolving continuum
of social group work. The major components are those which the
profession has found useful. How, when, and why each of these com-
ponents came into use, and what social, economic, and intellectual
forces influenced them, provided the guiding framework in searching

the literature and determining the relevance of the data.

Definition of Social Group Work

 

Social group work is that method of social work in which
the group experience is utilized by the worker as the primary medium
of practice, for the purpose of affecting the social functioning,
growth or change of the group members. The social group worker's
practice includes a number of different activities depending on
agency setting and job definition. The group worker's functions
may include services to groups and individuals, administration,
supervision, organization, program planning, and coordination, in-
take and group placement, record keeping and community and public
relations. While all of these activities and others are considered
aspects of social work practice, the social group work method may be
distinguished as those specific activities of the worker interaction
with the group or in behalf of the group in which the group experi-
ence is used for the benefit of the members.

The social group work method is used to maintain or improve
the personal and social functioning of group members within a range
of purposes. Groups may be served for corrective purposes when the

problem is in the person of group members or in the social situation

or both, for prevention where group members are beginning to have
difficulties, for normal growth purposes particularly at critical
growth periods, for enhancement of the person and for the purpose
of education and citizen participation.2 Any group may be served
for any one or all of these purposes simultaneously, and the pur-
poses of the service may change through time but are related to

the social functioning needs of the particular group members within
their social context and within agency focus and goals.

Corrective Purposes:--In instances where there is or has

 

been social or personal dysfunctioning or breakdown within indi-
vidual members, or within their social situation, the group experi-
ence may be utilized to provide corrective experiences. In these
instances something may have gone wrong or never developed within
the person or within the social situation.3

Preventive Purposes:--In instances where individual group

 

members or the group as-a-whole may exist in circumstances where
there is danger of deterioration in personal or social functioning,
the group experience may be used to maintain current level of
functioning to prevent personal and social breakdown. Under these
circumstances the group with the social group worker may provide a
constructive program of mental health, provide alternatives from the

surrounding delinquency or other social problems, present alternative

 

2Margaret E. Hartford, Working Papers Toward a Frame of
Reference For Social Group Work (New York: National Association
of Social Workers, 1963), p. 5.

31bid., p. 5.

 

 

values, provide motivation for change from prevailing cultural
trends, or provide an opportunity for early detection of potential
emotional problems and offer alternative resolution to personal
pressures.4

Normal Social Growth:--The group experience guided by the

 

worker may help to facilitate the normal social growth process and
the extension of effective social functioning, particularly for
people in stress periods. The social group worker through his
interventions helps the group to provide preparation for the adapta-
tion to new situations such as occur in migration or immigration,
approach to marriage, or parenthood, growth into new age roles such
5

as adolescence, young adulthood or old age.

Personal Enhancement:——Through collective experience and

 

interpersonal exchange the individual develops skills, expresses
latent talent, fulfills potential growth and finds enrichment of
life which could not be achieved as adequately through individual
experience. Such groups would include some of the creative arts,
interests, intellectual and philosophical discussions, or action
groups in which the individual member grows and finds a fuller life

experience through the group, not available to him through individual

 

activities.6
41bid., p 5
51bid., p 6
5

 

Citizenship Responsibility and Participation:--The social

 

group worker guides the group toward experiences which provide for
the members the incorporation ofi democratic values for themselves

for the group as a whole, and for the wider society. The emphasis in
this purpose is on the value development and change within the
members that incorporates belief in rights and dignity of all human

beings, not just practice in democratic procedures.7

Method

Within this framework, the literature related to social
group was systematically reviewed. The problem of locating informa-
tion on the early years of group work was complicated by several
factors. First, despite early manifestations of the use of groups,
few professional journals carried articles on it until the nineteen

thirties. In 1935 the Proceedings of the National Conference of

 

Social Work published a number of papers on group work which was the

 

first professional publication to do so. Second, because of the

numerous roots of social group work, literature outside social work

needed to be reviewed. This diffusion of material necessitated a

page by page scanning of the literature pertaining to recreation move-

ment, settlement movement, youth serving agencies and adult education.
The chapters have been divided into blocks of time varying

from sixteen years to thirty-nine years and reflect changes in some

aspects of the cultural context of the times. Chapter 22 covers the

 

71bid., p. 6.

period between 1850 and 1899 and America's movement from a rural to
an industrial society. The Charity Organization Society and the
shift in the nation's attitude toward the poor are reviewed as a
background requisite to tracing the development of the settlement
movement, recreation movement and the youth serving agencies.
Chapter 3 deals with the years between 1900 and 1919, when the
United States entered World War I., and the influence of progressive
education and adult education of group work. In Chapter 4 the effect
of social science and the assumption by the federal government of
social welfare services between 1920 and 1936 is examined. The
period between 1937 to 1955 is the subject of Chapter 5. The final
chapter gives a resume of the development of social group work.
Because of the importance of the social, political and
economic factors of the time in the development of group work and
social work, a brief statement regarding the American Scene is pre-
sented at the beginning of each chapter in an attempt to convey a
sense and flavor of the time in which the develOpments of the par-
ticular period took place. These statements cannot, however, reflect
the extent of the sweeping changes that took place during the various
periods. It must be borne in mind that this was a period in which
there were three major depressions, several recessions, the end of a
civil war, two world wars and a "police action," all of which
created heavy social stress. It was also a period in which the
United States moved from being an agrarian society to one of the

most industrialized nations in the world.

CHAPTER 2

A PATTERN OF PIECES
1860-1899

The American Scene

The forces that were responsible for the rapid development
of industry in America during the post-Civil War years had been
maturing for more than fifty years before the outbreak of the war.
By the year 1860 the United States had entered a period of unprece-
dented expansion and had become one of the leading manufacturing
nations in the world. The sewing machine had revolutionized the
clothing industry; Colt revolvers were world famous; reapers were
in use throughout the country; New Englanders were mass producing
guns and watches with standardized parts; and American iron pro-
ducers had begun to utilize the Bessmer Process.

Linked to manufacturing was an abundance of raw materials
and a favorable market necessary for industrial expansion. Timber
stands were still abundant and coal and iron ore seemed to exist in
limitless quantities. The South produced more than enough cotton to
supply the New England textile industry. There were vast deposits
of oil to light the nation's lamps and in later years to propel its
automobiles. Water power sites, which would eventually be used for

generating electricity, dotted the American landscape.

IO

11

When England had entered its period of rapid industriali-
zation some fifty or more years earlier, factory owners had to sell
the bulk of their goods abroad. ,Other European countries moving
toward industrialization found that much of the world market had
been pre-empted by the English. But the American manufacturer,
located in the midst of an expanding home market could avoid inter-
national competition while he concentrated on fulfilling the needs
of the American consumer.

During the last half of the eighteen hundreds, the popula-
tion of the United States increased rapidly due mainly to immigration.
The foreign-born population increased from 4,138,697 in 1860 to
9,249,560 in 1890 and to 13,345,545 in 1910.1 In the years before
1865 most immigrants were from Germany, Ireland, Great Britain, and
the Scandinavian countries. After 1865 they came primarily from
Poland, Russia, Hungary, Turkey, Italy and the Balkans. Between 1880
and 1900 the majority of the immigrants were Jews from Eastern Europe
who had been the victims of widespread discrimination in Czarist
Russia.

Unlike many of their predecessors of the antebellum period,
the immigrants after 1860 settled primarily in cities and became mem-
bers of the industrial working class. Most lacked the attributes
necessary for success in American industrial society except for a

willingness to work. Without the skills and training needed for

 

1U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census,
"Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957"
(Washington 0.0., 1960), pp. 56-59.

12

machine tending of a craft, they were compelled to work at menial

jobs with low pay and poor working conditions. Many had arrived with
only a few cents in their pocket and the clothes on their back, and
had to take whatever type of work that was available. Their inability
to understand English made them easy victims of unscrupulous employers
and the strangeness of a new land with new customs made them too

timid to protest when they were victimized. The combination of
poverty and ignorance often drove the immigrant into the most hazard-
ous work in American industry. A sizeable number of immigrants found
work in such dangerous occupations as coal mining and steel making A
where their inability to read the warning signs prevented them from
even achieving a minimum of physical security.

Though the immigrant was well received by the industrialist
because of his work potential, he was met with suspicion and preju-
dice by American laborers. Native born workers usually viewed the
immigrant as a threat to their security refusing him even a semblance
of economic equality. Jobs that were thought of as being beneath an
American were considered good enough for an immigrant. Some indus-
tries assigned different types of work to separate nationalities with
the most recent arrivals occupying the least desirable positions.

.A major philosophy which permeated big business, religion,
and education was that of laissez faire which emphasized individualism.
Based on the writings of Charles Darwin, it was tailored by Herbert
Spencer to fit the needs of industrial capitalism. Spencer in his
articles, lectures and books argued that Darwin's rules of natural

selection applied not only to the beasts of the jungle but to all

13

individuals within society. Life was characterized by an unremitting
struggle in which the weak fell by the wayside while the strong
inevitably pushed forward. In spite of the fact that this appeared
inhumane and cruel, there was nothing that could be done to alter

it, for it was a law of nature that only the fittest survived. In
short only the rich were fit, and their wealth was proof of their
fitness.

The patness and easy generalizations of Spencer's theories
appealed to businessmen and industrialists who no doubt wondered why
they had been able to accumulate great fortunes in a few short years
while others had no more than the clothes on their back. American
businessmen such as Andrew Carnegie and J. Pierpoint Morgen, used
Social Darwinism as a way of defending their control of American
capitalism. Like Spencer, they argued that economic society and
life in the jungle were both characterized by a fierce, never-ending
struggle for survival and supremacy. Those who were best equipped by
nature for the battle invariably emerged as victors.

Carnegie conceded that nature's law at times seemed harsh,
but he insisted that all progress depended on the elimination of the
unfit because it insured the survival of the fittest. If poverty
were to be abolished, according to Carnegie, progress and development
would cease. Attempts to organize to help others or form labor unions
were futile, for they rested on the false assumption that economic
life was controlled by man instead of by natural laws. Although it

was true that unions did get an advance in wages it would have come

l4

anyway by the natural laws of competition among the capitalists and
without the loss of wages and suffering entailed by a strike or
confrontation.2
Other businessmen maintained that moral consideration as

well as natural and economic laws determined the distribution of
wealth in American economic society. The moral law, similar in many
ways to the teachings of Calvin, placed considerable emphasis on the
Calvinistic doctrines of hard work, obedience and thrift as means
of acquiring wealth. This was supported by many leaders within the
church. The Right Reverend William Lawrence of Massachusetts noted:
"a certain distrust on the part of the people as to the effect of
material prosperity on their morality" and suggested that it would
be well to "revise our inferences from history, experience and the
Bible" and shed that subtle hypocracy that earthly riches are wrong
but at the same time "work with all his might to earn a competence
and a fortune if he can." Once having rid himself of such fake
inferences and hypocracy, man may now recognize great building prin-
ciples of his life. The first is his "devine nature to conquer
nature, open up her resources, and harness them to his service."
The second is that only to the man of morality will wealth come for
"Godliness is in league with riches." This being the case he added,

. . we retain with an easier mind and clear conscience the

problem of our twenty-five billion dollars in a decade, con-

fident that our material possessions in the long run are
favorable to morality.

 

2Harry J. Carman and Harold C. Syrett, A History of the
American People, (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1955), p. 143.

3Sidney E. Mead, "American Protestantism Since the Civil
Her," xxxxv1, January, 1956, pp. 1-15.

 

 

15

While the philosophy of laissez faire generally prevailed
throughout the entire period from the end of the Civil War to the
close of the 19th century, there were strong attacks and eventually
a successful assault upon its major tenets. Farmers and industrial
workers grew increasingly unwilling to accept a concept of govern-
ment's role that provided aid and comfort for business and industry
while refusing any sort of regulation of its activities. Social and
economic critics also argued that a theory of economic development
that encouraged both the growth of monopoly and the consequent
increase of economic power in the hands of the few was dangerous and
destructive to a nation's well being.

In response to such pressure, a number of states enacted
regulatory laws. The railways, one of the biggest offenders, chal-
lenged their constitutionality on the grounds that such legislation
deprived them of their property as guaranteed by the provisions of
the Fourteenth Amendment which stated that no person (a corporation
is a person in the eyes of the law) could be deprived of property
without due process of law. The Supreme Court upheld the constitu-
tionality of the new laws in the case of "Munn vs Illinois" in 1876
and stated that a legislature could in the exercise of its policy
power may regulate any business "affected with a public interest."

It was soon to become apparent that state regulation of
the railroad was ineffective. The local and state government were
too nmch under the influence of the railroads and other business to
Inake enforcement feasible. As a result, Congress felt compelled to

act and passed the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887 which set up the

l6

Interstate Commerce Commission to pass upon the reasonableness of
rates applying to commerce among the states. Concurrently a com—
parable movement arose for control of the trust which led in 1890

to passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. It specifically declared
that any combinations, trust or conspiracy in restraint of trade,

so far as applied to commerce among the states were illegal and pro-

vided penalties for any infraction of the statute's provisions.

Charity Organization Society

During the eighteen seventies, the inadequacy and dis-
organization of public and private relief increasingly became
apparent. Charitable bodies throughout the country incorporated
the individualism of the industrial entreprenear who had grown
wealthy in an expanding economy. Not infrequently a prosperous
donor sought to express his particular philanthropy for any relief
society that would accept his donation. As a result, there was
much overlapping and waste in contrast to many unmet needs. Coupled
with this was the strong conviction that pauperism indicated char-
acter deficiency and required the maximum of personal influence of
the donor upon the recipient.

As a means of dealing with the problem, a number of cities
decided to develOp organizations similar to the Charity Organization
Society which had been operating in England since 1869. The COS, as
it was referred to, aimed at bringing about the coordination of the
existing welfare services and agencies. While the granting of relief

vunrld continue to be the function of the existing agencies as it had

17

before, COS was to develop machinery and a technique whereby relief
could be expeditiously and economically administered without duplica-
tion and competition.

The first American Charity Organization Society was founded
in Buffalo in 1877 with the specific goal of avoiding the waste of
funds and to become a center of intercommunication between the vari-
ous charities. The Society stressed that there was to be no proselyt-
ism on the part of their agents, no interference with any existing
societies, no relief given by the organization itself except in
emergencies, that "there must be no sentiment in the matter," and
above all, no exclusion of any person or body of persons on account
of religious creed, politics or nationality. Within 10 years, twenty-
five similar organizations were formed, all based on the following
principles: (1) The Cooperation of all local charity agencies under
a board of their representatives. (2) A central "confidential regis-
ter" and investigation of the social conditions of every applicant by
a "friendly visitor" in order to determine the need and the individual
measures necessary in each case.

The founders of these societies were typically wealthy
citizens who felt morally obligated to alleviate the suffering of the
poor and to minimize the political unrest and political strife. The
religious and political philosophy of the founders influenced the
visitors. Poverty was felt to be caused by personal fault, idle-
ness, mismanagement, drinking, negligence and vice. It was hoped

that by giving friendly advice, by helping in procuring employment,

18

or by giving a loan, they could strengthen the "moral fiber" of the
indigent and encourage them to become self supporting.
America's attitude towards poverty is illustrated by a
report of the Massachusetts' Board of State Charities in 1866.
In providing for the poor, the dependent and the vicious
. we must bear in mind that they do not as yet form
with us a well marked and persistant class, but a conven-
tional, and perhaps only a temporary one. They do not
differ from other men, except that taken as a whole, they
inherited less favorable moral tendencies and less original
vigor. Care should be taken that we do not, by our treat-

ment, transform the conventional class into a real one and
a persistent one.4

This attitude in part, was based on the traditional reli-
gious belief that poverty was a fortunate necessity which led the
poor into paths of industry and the rich into acts of charity. On
the other hand there was an equally powerful belief that America
was the land of plenty and poverty was an unnecessary misfortune.
There was work for all and any man who wanted work could find it.
Therefore, poverty was the punishment meted out to the poor for
their indolence, inefficiency or improvidence; or else it was to be
interpreted in terms of heredity or degeneration.

However, this school of thought which placed such heavy
emphasis upon individuality and all it implied was not accepted by
everyone. By the last part of the nineteen hundreds there appeared

a new trend of thought which highlighted what one of its adherents,

Edward T. Devine, called:

 

4Second Annual Report of Massachusetts Board of State
Charities, January 1866, in Sophonisba P. Breckinridge, Public
Welfare Administration in the United States. Select Documents
*(Chicago, 1938), p. 305.

19

. conscious social action, and which focused on the
environment rather than the individual. It makes of charity
a type of anticipatory justice which deals not only with
individuals who suffer but with social conditions that tend
to perpetuate crime, pauperism and degeneracy.5
This philosophy challenged the prevailing doctrine that poverty was
due to character defects.

As the visitors became intimately acquainted with the condi-
tions of "their families" they too began to question whether unhealthy
neighborhoods and housing conditions prevented the maintenance of
health and morals. Careful housekeeping and thrift, when wages were
low, did not allow for adequate food or housing. In time of sick-
ness or unemployment, families found themselves at the mercy of loan
sharks who forced them further into debt by charging high interest
rates.

In 1895 a member of the National Conference of Charities
and Corrections told his fellow social workers that although helping
individuals one by one was important, Charity Organization societies
must do all they can "to abolish all conditions which depress, to
promote measures which raise men and neighborhoods and communities,"6
while the President of the Boston Associated Charities questioned

whether the new Charity Organization movement had not been too inter-

ested in relieving single cases of distress without asking whether

 

5Edward T. Devine, When Social Work Was Young (New York:
Macmillian Co., 1939), p. 4.

6Jeffrey R. Brackett, "The Charity Organization Movement:
Its Tendency and its Duty,“ Proceedings, 22nd National Conference of
Charities and Correction (Boston, 1895), p. 84.

 

 

20

there were "prolific causes permanently at work" to create want,
vice, crime, disease and death which should be removed.
If such causes of pauperism exist, how vain to waste our
energies on single cases of relief when society should
aim at removing the prolific sources of all the woe.7

Various COS groups began to stress the need for social
reform which would fundamentally change living and environmental
conditions. Societies began promoting social legislation for the
improvement of housing and of penal institutions, clearing of slums
and treatment of tuberculosis which was wide spread among poverty
stricken families. The Buffalo Society, for example, very early
added to its work the maintenance of employment bureaus, wood yards,
laundries, work rooms, special schools, wayfarers' lodges, loan
societies, penny banks, fuel societies, creches, district nursing,
sick diet kitchens and an emergency accident hospital.

By the turn of the century, in both England and America,
men and women employed by charitable institutions began to consider
their work as a profession in much the same way as other men regarded
law, theology and medicine. Others argued that social work was
synonymous with "friendly uplifting" requiring little more than true
friendship, sympathy, pity, encouragement and a warm heart. The fact
that many workers accepted payment often incurred the criticism of
the rich. The willingness to work for nothing was considered the

hall-mark of a sincere charity worker. As late as 1898 the Central

 

7Robert Treat Paine, "Pauperism in Great Cities: Its Four
Chief Causes," The Public Treatment of Pauperism, being a Report of
the First Section of the International Congress of Charities, Correc-
tions and Philanthr0py, June 1893 (Baltimore, 1894), p. 35.

21

Council of the New York City COS announcing a six weeks' "Training
School in Practical Charity,".warned intending applicants not to be
too interested in money.8

In spite of the negativism toward the paid worker, it was
becoming obvious that there were not enough well-to-do and leisured
individuals who were able to give their time to friendly visiting.

In addition it was found that usually the paid agent did a better job
then the volunteer. Mary Richmond, one of the early leaders in
social work, discovered that in any unusually delicate or puzzling
situation, the paid agent was much more adept and reliable. Near

the end of the century, both volunteer and paid visitors began to
express the need for deeper understanding of the behavior of indi-
viduals and of economic problems and asked for special training for
social work. This served as a stimulus for the establishment of the
Training School for Applied Philanthropy which organized the first
social work courses in 1898 in New York City.

As the COS became better established, two conflicting tasks
became apparent. They had been organized to achieve better coordina-
tion and organization of existing services and to improve the health
and the social resources of the community. At the same time, vested
interests among member agencies often resented recommendations for
change of method of work, so that some societies were forced to

establish divisions for service to families in need. These divisions

 

8S. E. Tenney, "The Class for Study of the Friendly Visitors'
Work," The-Charities Review, II (November 1892 - June 1893), pp. 58-64.

 

22

conflicted with the activities of other relief societies which
objected as COS had not been founded to set up rival organizations.
As a result, functions of COS were separated. The first
place for this to occur was Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where the
organization split into a family welfare agency and an agency for
the planned coordination of activities. Other cities followed this
pattern with the development of Councils of Social Agencies as the
coordinating and planning body and Associated Charities as a family

welfare society.

The Settlement Movement

 

The prototype for settlement houses in America was Toynbee
Hall which was established in 1885 in the east side of London by
Samuel Barnett an Anglican minister. In 1883 the London Congrega-

tional Union published The Bitter Cry of Outcast London, an emotional

 

account of the condition of the poor in East London and an appeal for
funds to establish mission halls in the district. The report began
on this challenging note:

Whilst we have been building our churches and solacing our-
selves with our religion, and dreaming that the millennium
was coming, the poor have been growing poorer, the wretched
more miserable, and the immoral more corrupt; the gulf has
been daily widening which separates the lowest classes of
the community from our churches and chapels, and from all
decency.9

 

9Bitter Cry of Outcast London: An Inquiry into Conditions
of the Abject Poor (London: Congregational Union, 1883).

23

Barnett, along with his wife and others was stimulated to
action because of the Bitter Cry. They converted the church rectory
into a social center for the people of the community, and named the
center after Arnold Toynbee who was, at that time, a tutor at Oxford.
University men were invited to come to live with them in the belief
that the men, hopefully imbued with the Christian ideal of social
justice and humanitarianism, might live face to face with the actual
conditions of crowded city life, study on the spot the evils and
remedies, and ennoble the lives and improve the material conditions
of the people.

The philosophy which lay behind the settlement movement
was expressed by W. Moore Ede in 1896 in a discussion on the attitude
the church should take toward problems of the city.

The dwellers in the East End of our towns will not be con-
verted by missionaries and tracts sent by dwellers in the
West End. The dwellers in the West End must go to the
dwellers in the East themselves, share with the East those
pleasures which give interest and delight to the dwellers
in the West, and make up the fullness of their life. When
the dwellers in the West go thus to the dwellers in the
East they will be themselves converted for they will have
turned to Christ and accepted His yoke of personal service,
and the dwellers in the East, recognizing the true helpful-
ness of the Christian life will be converted too.

Important offerings of Toynbee Hall were clubs and groups
which centered on such topics as life saving, carving, citizenship

and literature. Canon Barnett was convinced that an individual,

through the use of such groups could strengthen his capacity to

 

10w. Moore Ede, "The Attitude of the Church to Some of the
Social Problems of Town Life," From Charity_to Social Work in England
and 1fl1e United States, Kathleen Woodroofe, (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press,Tl962), p. 65.

 

24

make decisions and keep to them. The relationship between resident
and member was dialectical with both giving and receiving.

I should say that we learn much, we unlearn more. We have

too . . . the opportunity not of merely enlarging our

sympathies . . . but of building up a new system of rela-

tionship side by side with our old . . . forming around

the hall a new world of student-friend and guest-friend,

acting and reacting on one another by whose means refine-

ment and knowledge may pass electrically as from friend

to friend and not professionally from tutor to pupil.11

The first American settlement house was begun in 1886 with
the establishment of the Neighborhood Guild under the leadership of
Stanton Coit on the east side of New York City. After spending time
with Canon Barnett in London, Coit returned home with the goal of
developing a similar program in the United States. Because of a
lack of funds and public support, he began meeting with a group of
eighteen year old boys in the tenement apartment of an elderly blind
apple woman. As new members were added, a basement of that tenement
was rented for a club room. Possession of this additional space led
to the establishment of a kindergarden and, within the year, a girls'
club composed of young women between sixteen and twenty-two years
of age. A year later five different clubs were holding meetings in
the basement, and a federation of young people's club was organized
taking on the name "Neighborhood Guild."
The settlement idea caught on quickly and a number of other

settlement houses opened their doors. In their turn the Neighbor-

hood Guild, (later known as the University Settlement), the College

 

nHenrietta Barnett, Canon Barnett: His Life, Work and
Friends, Vol I, (1919) p. 311.

25

Settlement in New York City, and Hull House in Chicago became the
models for numerous other settlements in the United States during

the nineties. The idea was so enthusiastically received that, within
fifteen years after Stanton Coit had organized the Neighborhood Guild
in New York, approximately one hundred settlement houses were
operating in American cities.

The early settlements were located in crowded neighborhoods
inhabited by immigrants. Most of the immigrants were forced to live
in cluttered, fifth ridden tenements called by one observer a breed-
ing place for vice, crime, and disease. Life in the dark, damp,
buildings was made worse by overcrowding. Within the two or three
rooms of the apartment there often lived a household composed of a
husband, wife, children, plus other relatives and lodgers.

Sanitary facilities were limited and several families used
a common sink and toilet. Bathtubs were a luxury which few tenement
dwellers had an opportunity to enjoy. Even drinking water was scarce
for the pressure was too low to lift the water above the first floor.
While most immigrants found life in the New World, even under these
conditions, sweeter than what they had known in the Old, sometimes
they concluded as did one Rumanian immigrant

This was the boasted American freedom and opportunity--the
freedom for respectable citizens to sell cabbage from hideous

carts, the opportunity to live in those monstrous dirty caves
[tenements] that shut out the sunshine.12

 

12Walter Trattner, From Poor Law to Welfare State: A
History of Social Welfare in America (New York: The Free Press),
1974, p. 139.

 

 

26

In many ways, the early settlements were extensions of the
personalities of persons who started them. The group of "settlers"
was usually composed of the head resident, friends and acquaintances
who shared similar interests and zeal for humanitarian experimenta-
tion.13 Bremmer points out that the pioneers in the field were all
young people born too late for Brook Farm and too early for Green-
wich Village. Success in conventional business or professional
careers and the achievement of assured social position offered less
of a challenge to them than to the offspring of less fortunately
endowed families. Instead, they found the call to altruistic service
irresistible, and they gravitated toward poverty, a condition foreign
to their personal experience.14
Had they lived in a different age or in a different country,
religion, politics, or even revolutionary intrigue might
have been their me'tier. A significant number, in fact, had
once planned to become missionaries in remote corners of the

world and were only deflected from that aim by becoming aware
of the opportunities for service in neglected areas of their

own communities.‘5

 

13Perhaps part of the motivation of the early settlement
leaders was, as Kenneth E. Boulding has proposed, due to class guilt
and class anxiety. They were moved to seek out those who were alien-
ated from the main centers of American life by their poverty or immi-
grant origins because they themselves, members of the comfortable
iniddle and professional classes, suffered a profound sense of alien-
iation from a society which increasingly deferred to new centers of
'financial power and from a culture which denied to women the right to
participate fully in the life of the community. Kenneth E. Boulding,
"Alienation and Economic Development," (New York: National Federa-
‘tion of Settlements, 1958), pp. 61-71.

14Robert H. Bremmer, From the Depths: The Discovery of
Poverty in the United States (New York: New York University Press,

1964), p. 61.

15Alice Hamilton, Exploring the Dangerous Trades: The
Autobiography of Alice Hamilton, MD. (Boston. Little Brown and
Company, 1943), p. 27.

27

Of the many pioneers, Jane Addams, founder of Hull House
best exemplified the total commitment of settlement leaders to the
welfare of others. In 1889 she, along with a friend Ellen Gates
Starr, made a pilgrimage to see Toynbee Hall and to meet Canon
Barnett. Upon returning home to Chicago, they began searching for
a suitable house with a nearby field. They decided upon an old
mansion on Halsted Street which had reached a low estate as a
lodging house, in a neighborhood populated by Bohemians, Italians,
Germans, Greeks, Poles, Russian Jews and Irish newcomers.

From the beginning they set out to share with their
neighbors both their choicest possessions and the knowledge they
had gained through experience and intellectual training. Reproduc-
tions of paintings were framed and lent to neighbors. Groups were
formed to study art, literature and science. The first specially
erected building included an art gallery, a studio, and a library.

A series of parties and festivals commemorative of immigrant customs
and traditions was arranged requiring tremendous sensitivity by the
settlers because of the deep sense of national loyalty felt by the
various groups.

Many of her friends and family questioned why she chose to
live on Halsted Street when she could afford to live somewhere else.
To Jane Addams it was natural that she and the Settlement should be

there.

If it is natural to feed the hungry and care for the sick, it
is certainly natural to give pleasure to the young, comfort
to the aged, and to minister to the deep-seated craving for
social intercourse that all men feel. Whoever does it is
rewarded by something which, if not gratitude, is at least

28

spontaneous and vital and lacks that irksome sense of

obligation with which a substantial benefit is too often

acknowledged.15

Initially, the settlement leaders felt their major work

was to be with young men and women in the community. However, they
usually found that those most interested in using the facilities
were young boys.

Boys approaching adolescence welcomed so eagerly any overture

that might be interpreted as friendly, followed up acquaint-

ance with such unvarying persistence and teased with such

winning good nature to be included in whatever good times

were arranged, that they gained the freedom of the settle-

ment almost against the underlying desires of residents.17

As soon as the boys were admitted to the house they were

assigned to groups on an arbitrary basis by the residents. From the
beginning these groups were kept small based on the conviction that
it was better to know a few children well, than many superficially.
The advantages of the small group under the guidance of leaders of
character and ability had already been demonstrated by Protestant
Sunday schools. Another reason, apart from any theory was that
space was limited and meetings had to be held in the dining room,
parlor or bedrooms of the house. This also resulted in the use of

limited movement activities such as debating, table games, story

telling, singing, conversation and the study of parliamentary law.

 

16Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House (New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1910), p.111.

17Robert A. Woods and Albert J. Kennedy, The Settlement
Horizon: A National Estimate (New York: Russell Sage Foundation,
1922): P. 73.

 

 

29

A question that plagued most of the early settlements was
the desirability of boys bringing their friends to the club meetings.
It was generally felt that allowing the members to choose other
members would lead to the formation of gangs. As residents became
more secure with their own position, they came to recognize that most
boys in the larger cities belonged to gangs, not all gangs were bad,
and a group already developed could be worked with and yield positive
results.

Resourceful settlement workers began to recruit clubs and
gangs by commissioning boys who appeared to have some leadership
potential to begin their own groups or by offering directly the
facilities of the settlement to gangs gathered from neighborhoods
and street corners. The movement from a "gang to a club" it was
felt, occurred when the members were able to agree upon rules of
conduct. Woods and Kennedy note that efforts to live up to a standard
written in a constitution and subscribed to, set in motion new and
compelling influences.

A little experience makes it evident that distinction within
the group depends on effectiveness with one's fellows; that
he who serves leads. The cost of untruthfulness, irrespon-
sibility, and lack of application especially in others is
seen in deeper blackness when silhouetted against group
interest. The fact that the club is financially responsible
for the actions of individual members creates a new attitude
on the part of the majority toward wanton destruction. The
weak are bolstered, the strong confirmed, and the rebellious
coerced by the most telling force members know, the publicly
expressed judgement of a group of their peers. In the club,
the fact that the moral law represents the sole practicable

scheme of human intercourse finds demonstration in the under-
stood terms of life itself.18

 

18Ibid., p. 75.

 

30

Finding qualified leaders for clubs was often a difficult
task for those responsible for club activities. It was generally
felt that volunteers were more desirable for club leaders than paid
workers as they best represented the settlement ideal of sharing
and friendship. Many preferred club leaders that were "busy" rather
than someone with "time on their hands" in that they would have a
better sense of responsibility and better equipped to win the
respect of the club members. It was also considered important that
the leader be fond of people for their own sake, able to generate
interest in activities, and capable of dealing resourcefully with
new situations.19

Club directors prior to the turn of the century were usually
men who by virtue of their physical strength, personal magnetism,
and knowledge of activities were able to keep boys within bounds and
to direct their desires. As clubs began to multiply and resources
became more adequate, individuals in the field of social work came
to be sought after. The club director needed to be acquainted with
the findings of modern psychologic research and pedagogic experiment,
able to apply the lessons of these sciences to group work for all
ages and also to train staff assistants and volunteer associates who
would carry out the programs. As part of the job he had to undertake
a neighborhood census of group activities and resources and know where

the various gangs were likely to be found "at almost any hour of the

 

19Arthur Holden, The Settlement Idea: A Vision of Social
Justice (New York: Macmillan Company, 1922), p. 67.

 

31

20 He had to follow up younger boys who manifested

day or night."
signs of power to direct others, and discover the exceptional man

who could play games, sing, perform on instruments, tell stories,

make speeches, assume responsibility, organize group meetings and
create public opinion; and, induce them to give regular or occasional
service in the organized life of the neighborhood.

Girls and womens' clubs at the settlement house differed
markedly from those for boys and men. Though called clubs, they
were essentially classes with little or no emphasis on self govern-
ment, rules of order and committee work. Attention, instead, was
directed toward training for fundamental domestic activities such as
child care, sewing, dress making and cooking.

This difference in the program occurred for several reasons.
First, it was much more convenient to find teachers than group
workers. To many adults, the lack of structure of the club was
threatening. Second, girls were much more receptive to a class like
structure. Boys, on the other hand, viewed the class structure as
being too much like school and rebelled against any thing that
‘resembled the classroom. Third, the settlement in its early stages
iuas primarily a home and only secondarily a house. Residents found
it difficult to tolerate the excessive wear and tear on household
iflJrnishings which was inevitable in boys club work. Finally, many

(rf the early leaders in the settlement movement and the youth serving

 

20The term "director" was used to designate the resident
responsible for organized club work, while "leader" indicated the
volunteer, resident or paid associate who met regularly with the club.

32

agencies believed that the "instinct" of club loyalty was much
weaker in girls than in boys and their "natural sense of membership
is not easily enlarged beyond the family."21
Some felt that the girls' and womens' groups should be a

laboratory for assisting women to learn about business. Bernheimer
and Cohen, in their early book on boys clubs argued that the fact
that girls often lacked business sense was a reason for cultivating
it in a club.

The girls who acquire this business sense in their contacts

with the business world show ability in their clubs to run

the clubs. The school girl and the girl in other walks of

life were somewhat at a disadvantage as compared with the

business girl; much more when compared with the brother who

imbibes ideas of organization from the associationships from

early boyhood to which he naturally gravitates.22

Most of the direct services provided by settlement houses

were through groups of various kinds. Addams, Coit, and other leaders
became concerned with the commercial dance halls, "five cent
theaters," houses of prostitution, and neighborhood saloons which
were seen as vicious and corrupting influences on youth. The settle-
ment answer to this situation was to offer decent and safe recreation
programs. Playgrounds, gymnasiums and game rooms were opened while

at the same time social action was undertaken to clean up commercial

recreation and to provide public facilities.

 

21Joseph Lee, Constructive and Preventive Philanthropy
(New York: Macmillan Company, 1906), p. 25.

22Charles S. Bernheimer and Jacob M. Cohen, Boys' Clubs
(Baltimore: Lord Baltimore Press, 1914), p. 83.

 

33

The social club often provided the impetus to vocational
and educational ambition and helped many of the members to learn the
new ways of an American community, often alien to their immigrant
parents. At the same time, women's clubs helped the foreign born
parents find the social life they missed after coming to America.

Not all members of social clubs shared the same enthusiasm of the
settlement house leaders for educational programs. Jane Addams

cites one situation in which an earnest volunteer insisted on reading
Antigone to her group and overhead one girl say, "Let her finish it
so we can get on to the dancing."23

In addition to the social clubs, a number of other interest
groups flourished. These were of several kinds, including classes in
drama, music and the arts which were carried on at a very high level
of performance. Lecture and discussion groups were also formed and
dealt with such topics as John Dewey's lectures on social psychology,
Plato, and the poems of Browning. One means of stimulating the
interests of members was the reading of plays. Once the play was
finished the worker would direct a discussion of the themes with
which the play dealt.

Though groups were not used as a means of treatment in
settlement houses until the middle nineteen forties, there is evidence
to suggest that some leaders recognized the pressure of group dynamics

on deviant behavior much earlier. Jane Addams wrote about a group

 

23Addams, p. 34.

34

of young boys who were drug addicts and how the settlement house
worker worked with them.

It is doubtful whether these boys could ever have pulled
through unless they had been allowed to keep together
through the hospital and convalescing period, unless we
had been able to utilize the gang spirit and to turn its
collective forces towards overcoming the desire for the
drugs.24

The Youth ServinggAgencies

 

During the years between 1850 and 1900 "character building“
organizations for boys and girls increased rapidly. This was due
to the growing mechanization of industry which made necessary new
interests to fill leisure time, and as a means of protection against
the problems created by city life in a rising industrial society.
Some focused on the multiple problems of immigrant families adjusting
to a new world while others concentrated on the working and living
conditions of youth.

These organizations included the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts,
Catholic Boys Brigade, Young Women's Christian Association, Young
Mens Christian Association, Young Women's Hebrew Association, Young
Men's Hebrew Association, Boys Clubs, and 4-H Clubs. Among the
activities usually provided by character-building agencies were:
active sports i.e., football, volleyball, golf; outdoor life, i.e.,
camping, hiking, nature study; social contacts and group experiences,

i.e., dances, parties, social club activities; training in new skills,

 

24Jane Addams, The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets
(New York: Macmillian Company, 1909), p. 66.

 

35

i.e., hand crafts, cooking, homemaking; community service projects,
i.e., first aid, cultural improvement; and vocational classes and
individual help, i.e., vocational classes, lectures, personal
counseling.
Generally these organizations began as a local endeavor

by a small number of middle class, educated citizens to deal with
a particular group of children; and subsequently evolved into a
national or international organization. In summarizing the tend-
encies in boy's work, Stone says that:

The changes from local efforts at boys' work by a few

interested men to nationalization and standization of

boy organizations, from social saving to boy guidance in

method, from the church to the school as an organizing

center; the growing use of equipment whenever available

for boys groups and the growing reliance on neighborhood

and interest groups using the life situation of boys as

the basis for program building; the efforts to eliminate

friction, the growing interest of civic clubs in boys'

work as a method of reducing the cost of crime in American

life, and the growing interest in informal leisure time

education for boys and girls and experimentation in the

private practice of boys work, summarizes the major trends

in boys' work.25

Once an interest in an activity was stimulated, the various

organization used it to develop a variety of specific behavior
patterns. Some stressed the development of loyalty, honor, physical
fitness, social and racial consciousness, of love of country, class,
party or sect; others had as a primary goal intellectual development

or increasing appreciation of art, esthetics and nature. These aims

 

25Walter L. Stone, The Development of Boys' Work in the
United States (1835), p. 75. Quotation by Informal Educafion Service,
cited by Martin H. Neumeyer and Esther S. Neumeyer, Leisure and
Recreation (New York: A.S. Barnes and Company, 1936), p. 331.

 

 

36

were often expressed in such generalizations as "character building,"
"development of personality," "good citizenship," and "control over
nature."

Generally, boys' and girls' clubs evolved into two general
types, the mass club and the small group. The mass club was a
larger grouping of integral units in which a variety of activities
could be undertaken simultaneously by different leaders. The club
as a whole met frequently on the basis of some common interest which
may have been nothing more than age grouping, time of meeting, or a
purpose set by the sponsoring organization. The second type, the
small group club carried on activities in which all of the members
could participate in comparatively close association with one another.

Some organizations, such as the YMCA, started as a mass
club but expanded into the extensive use of small groups. This was
due to dissatisfaction with the failure of the departmentalized
styled programs to give recognition to the life of the individual
member as a part of a school, church, and community. In short, all
members were seen as being alike with no differentiation for different
life styles. McCaskill, reflecting on this issue felt that there was
little carry over of what.was learned in the building to other parts
of the boys life and that the departmentalized organization made
democracy and self government for boys a very difficult procedure.
Often a small group of members, usually about fifty, "capture the
leadership" of the organization and conduct it as a benevolent

(iligarchy in which the members have little or no voice.26

 

26Joseph C. McCaskill, Theory and Practice of Group Work
(New York: Association Press, 1930), p. 4.

37

Of the many youth serving agencies the Young Men's and
Young Women's Christian Associations, Boy and Girl Scouts, the Boys
Clubs and the Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association had

the most influence on the development of social group work.

YoungiMen's and Young Women's
ChristianiAssociations

The first of the group work agencies in the United States
was the Boston's Young Men's Christian Association established in
1851 by a converted Baptist sea captain, T. V. Sullivan who while
visiting London had been impressed by the London YMCA. Organized by
George Williams in 1844 it had as its purpose the improvement of
the mental, moral, and physical conditions of all young men of good
character. Sullivan, with the help of the Protestant community,
established a similar organization for young men who had come to
Boston to work. Eventually it added the aim of helping boys meet
the problems and conditions of present day life through groups which
were organized within their own environment and neighborhood. These
included Bible study classes, hobby and interest clubs, teams,
school clubs (notably Hi-Y and Junior Hi-Y), church clubs, employed
boys clubs and gang and neighborhood clubs.

The YMCA clubs were guided in their efforts to seek and to
achieve desirable and social redirection from a Christian viewpoint
among boys with whom they associated as well as self-development in
desirable skills and habits of living in a Christian democracy. To
a large extent the work was carried on by employed, trained boy's

work secretaries, along with help from volunteer group leaders.

38

The evangelical emphasis of some of the local Associations
frequently involved them in a variety of general religious and wel-
fare work. Hopkins in his history of the YMCA movement has noted
that in its first decades the organization functioned as a "sort of
cooperating agency for the advancement of any good work that any
good man thought ought to be prosecuted." As late as 1874 many
local Associations had committees in charge of relief which had the
task of distributing money and clothing to poor families.

While relief work ranked second only to the conversion of
young men, it frequently came under fire by its board for its
priorities. After such an attack the Chicago "Y" reported that it
was fast becoming "a society for the improvement of the condition
of the poor, physical[ly] and morally," and wished to impress on all
concerned that "our mission is not only to relieve the suffering but

27 Gradually,

to improve the morals of those who are aided by us."
the YMCA began to limit its activities to work with young men and
left the field of general philanthropy to other organizations.

The history of the YWCA in America parallels closely that
of the YMCA in that it was based on an organization already estab-
lished in England, concerned with the mental, spiritual, and physical
well being of female youth. In 1858 the Ladies Christian Association

was established in New York City with the goal of holding religious

meetings among self supporting young women employed in mills and

 

I

27thar1es H. Hopkins, The History of the Y.M.C.A. in North
America (New York: Association Press, 1951), pp. 189-190.

39

factories. The name, Young Women's Christian Association, was first
used by the Boston Association, established in 1866.
Like its predecessors in England and New York City, it
was concerned with the plight of the young women moving to the city
in search of work. There were no agencies offering protection or
advice of a Christian nature, so the Boston YWCA assumed the duty
of seeking out young women taking up their residence in Boston,
endeavored to bring them under moral and religious influences, by
aiding them in selection of suitable boarding places and employment
and by encouraging their attendance at some place of worship.28
Early Associations emphasized Christian motivation, both

in the organization and in the type of work done. The following
statement occurs in a summary report made in 1876.

But above all, the great aim of the Associations is to win

souls for Christ, and it is this object which occupies the

best thoughts and noblest efforts of those engaged in the

work. Yet of this part of the work, the results cannot

be counted up. They will be known only on that day when

the Searcher of all hearts shall say to those who have

been faithful in the discharge of this duty, "Inasmuch

as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my

brethern, ye have done it unto me.29
It was only a short time before those women who had had their attention

drawn in the first place to the needs of young working girls, realized

 

28Elizabeth Wilson, Fifty Years of Association Work Among
Young Women, 1866-1916 (New York: NationaT‘Board of the Y.W.C.A.,
1916), p. 31.

29J. P. Cattell, "Women's Christian Associations in America -
Their Work and Its Results," Faith and Works, I (August, 1876), p. 4.
Cited by Mary S. Sims, The Natural History of a Social Institution -
the YoungWomen's Christian Association (New York: The Womans Press,
1936 , p. 8.

 

 

 

 

40

the values and satisfactions in group organization as a way of
service. By the end of the 1880's the Young Women's Christian
Association had enlarged its function so that it not only provided
a wide range of programs for girls living under their roof, but
began to organize Christian women for service within the community.
Local YWCA's organized homes for the aged, distributed flowers,
fruit, and clothing in soldiers' homes, city prisons, workhouses,
jails, orphan asylums, and hospitals. Religious services were con-
ducted in hospitals, jails, and other institutions. Day nurseries,
orphan asylums, and "retreats for sinful, sorrowing women," all
made their appearance in various YWCA's.

The over-all program, especially in the last half of the
1800's, was adapted to meet the ever-widening professional and emo—
tional interests of young women. Classes in penmanship, bookeeping,
astronomy and physiology began in the 1860's, and the YWCA was the
first organization in the country to offer sewing machine lessons
in 1872. Stenography, china-painting, domestic science and cooking
were added to the list of instructions offered by the mid-1880. To
meet the increasing demand for general education, many Associations
offered classes in a wide variety of subjects, with emphasis on their
practical application to everyday living. The education process of
the YWCA was to provide for individual development with emphasis on

thinking, working and acting together.

41

Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts
of America

 

The scouting idea originated in England in 1907. As an
aftermath of the Boer War, General Baden-Powell having experimented
with camping with boys for sometime, organized the Boy Scouts. The
Girl Scouts of Great Britain developed shortly thereafter. The
American organization of the Boy Scouts was founded in 1910 and the
Girl Scouts in 1912, with the goal of supplementing existing insti-
tutions such as the home, the school, and the church by engaging
boys and girls in outdoor games and activities of cultural value.

The purpose of the Boy Scouts from its inception has been
to develop character and to train for citizenship by helping boys
to do things for themselves, by training them in scoutcraft, by
teaching them patriotism, courage, self-reliance, and developing in
them strong bodies and physical fitness. This is epitomized in the
"Scout Oath" in which the Scout promises on his honor to do his duty
to God and his country, to obey the Scout law, to help others at all
times, and to keep himself physically strong, mentally awake, and
morally straight.

Over the years, the Scout program has received consider-
able criticism for being too militaristic and nationalistic. In
that the founder and some of the early leaders were army officers,
military regimentation was stressed. Others have maintained that
belonging to the Scouts was too expensive. Though uniforms were
not required, if the boy anticipated participation in all of the

activities it was desirable that he have full equipment. Another

42

criticism has to do with the lack of flexibility in the program.
Members pass from one rank to another by passing a series of tests.
The program is prearranged and there is little opportunity for
individualism in the initial ranks. This is in sharp contrast to
the boys' work of the YMCA whose program is based upon the interests
of the boys which are discovered through discussion and counseling.
The Girl Scouts, founded by Juliet Lowe was a replica of
the Girl Guide Program in England. Organized in 1912, it provided
constructive group experience which would grow with the needs and
desires of its members and which would foster self-reliance, con-
sideration for others, and a sense of social responsibility.
Programs included homemaking, out of door activities, international
friendship, arts and crafts, community life, dramatics, music and
dancing. Similar to the Boy Scouts the members were placed in small
groups called patrols and progress was made through the stages of
tenderfoot, second-class, and first-class rank. Girls were encour-
aged to embark upon a new voyage of discovery so that they would
broaden their interests. A number of proficiency projects were part

of the program allowing for the development of special talents.

Boys' Clubs

The earliest of the Boys' Clubs were established as inde-
pendent units by individuals or groups often unaware of similar
undertaking in other communities. The first Club for boys that left
a record to its work was established in Hartford in 1860 by three

young women who, for a number of years supervised a self-governing

43

group of boys known as the "Dashaway Club." The members participated
in such activities as games, music, dramatics and dancing. Atkinson
and Vincent hitheir history of the Boys' Club note that financially
the club was secure. When it disbanded during the Civil War it had
a library fund of a thousand dollars which was donated to the Free
Public Library.30
Of the organizations that have maintained uninterrupted
service and the one known as the oldest is in Salem, Massachusetts,
known since its beginning in 1869 as the "Salem Fraternity." In a
report on its operation dated 1882, the following characteristics
were listed: (1) The Club was centrally located. (2) Its equip-
ment was practical and relatively inexpensive. The emphasis was
upon light, warmth, and an atmosphere of cheerfulness and genial
friendship. (3) The organization was non-sectarian. Its founders
recognized the church and the religious life, but set themselves the
task of doing the things "commonly left outside of church work."
(5) They recognized that their task was distinctly a personality job,
dependent for its success upon the attitudes and the character of
its workers. (6) The organization was devoted entirely to boys.
Though the early leaders of the Boys' Club had the same
humanitarian motives as leaders in other areas of social work, the
founders of the Boys' Club were in one respect ahead of the thinking

of their day. As zealous as any to care for the victims of bad social

 

30R. K. Atkinson and George E. Vincent, The Boys' Club (New
York: Association Press, 1939), p. 23.

 

44

conditions, they were more eager to learn and to put into operation
the sort of preventive and constructive measures that have come to
be a part of social planning and community organization. The idea
of keeping boys off the streets, of protecting youth, of preventing
mischief by giving boys something to do, and many other similar
expressions of purpose indicate their constructive approach to the

problem.

Young Men's and Young Women's
Hebrew Association

 

 

The general purpose of these organizations was to promote
the religious, intellectual, physical and social well being and
development of Jews, especially young men and women. The activities
offered to boys and girls included clubs, groups and mass activities
such as music, drama, art, forums, lectures, and concerts; physical
and health education, including gymnastics, athletics, swimming and
dancing. A significant part of the program centered around religious

services and holiday Observances.

Summary

During the period from 1860 to 1899 group work was con-
sidered a means by which numbers of people could meet to find outlet
for or to improve conditions in their lives. In contrast to the
methodological and goal-oriented nature of early casework, group
work was an opportunistic program with no acknowledged set of methods.
Based in local neighborhoods with activities to meet local need,
group works' major focus was on action with little thought given to

theory.

45

The use of groups was highly visible in both settlement
houses and in the youth serving agencies. The settlements, dif-
ferent than the Charity Organization Society, did not distinguish
between giver and receiver. It was the belief of the early settle-
ment leaders that the problems resided within the neighborhood or
community, and not within the individual; rather the individual was
seen as the victim of destructive social conditions and forces.

It was assumed that the individual "victim" could be helped to
bring about constructive change in his environment if he banded
himself together with other "victims." This banding together was
encouraged and supported by the settlers who became a part of the
neighborhood.

Public recreation centers were non-existent and the settle-
ment, in many neighborhoods, was the focal point for recreation.
Besides gymnasiums, play grounds and game rooms, social clubs were
introduced as a way of helping individuals make constructive use of
their leisure time. Although these clubs were mainly social, they
often provided impetus to vocational and educational ambition and
helped many of the members to learn the new ways of the American com-
munity.

The youth serving agencies such as the Scouts and the Y's
were stimulated by the growing mechanization of industry and thought
of as a way to mold youth into productive citizens. Most of these
organizations were geared to either boys or girls in pre-adolescence

and early adolescence, and rewarded such personal virtues as honesty,

46

loyalty and integrity. Most of the youth serving agencies relied
heavily on competitions and ritual to motivate the program.

The assumptions underlying the early work with groups was
that there was a decrease in opportunity for satisfying social needs
and a decrease in social control. These decreases, resulting in
part from the change in family, neighborhood and village life, could
be compensated by the conscious organization of groups about some
selected interest. In the varied activities of group life there
existed potentialities for the development of emotionally sound
personalities and of satisfactory social relationships and the means
for the passing on of social patterns.

While both the settlement and youth serving agencies
employed some paid staff, from the onset they were almost exclusively
dependent on volunteers. Generally these volunteer leaders were
college educated, middle class adults, recognized as being of good
character. It was hoped that these individuals, by the nature of
their personalities and life style, would set examples that the mem-
bers would emulate.

******************************

This period ended with group work firmly entrenched in
settlement houses and in youth serving agencies. In the following
period, 1900 to 1919 group work would become linked to recreation
and adult education and be affected by the social sciences and the

progressive movement.

CHAPTER 3

CONSOLIDATION OF THE PATTERN
1900-1919

The American Scene

 

In the nineteen year period between the turn of the century
and the end of World War 1, Americans continued to experience, at an
even more rapid rate, the social and economic changes begun the
latter part of the previous century. Population concentration in
the urban areas was fed by the persistence of the movement from farm
to the city, augmented by fourteen million immigrants from Europe,
most of whom arrived between 1900 and 1914. The social problems of
the previous period were present in consistently growing magnitude:
problems of poverty, disease, unemployment, child labor, slum housing,
and dangerous working conditions. Economic problems were multiply-
ing and the need for regulation of financing and banking, control
of railroad rates and interstate trade was becoming apparent.

The number of people employed in manufacturing, mining, and
construction doubled in the years between 1900 and 1914, a rate higher
than for the population as a whole. But the growing demand for
workers did not bring a corresponding improvement in the lives of
the workers. Employers continued to economize on payrolls viewing

labor as the most manageable cost of production. The work week

47

48

remained between fifty and sixty hours and the ten hour day was
normal. Furthermore, long layoffs were usual so only the very fortu-
nate worked every week of the year with annual earnings for factory
workers averaging four hundred dollars.

More and more Americans began to discover the extent of
poverty in their midst. With this came the recognition that wages
of labor were inadequate to sustain a decent level of existence.

Some families compensated by drawing on the labor of other members.
Children took jobs as soon as they could and women willing to accept
lower wages could sometimes get places when men could not. Some
girls found a growing number of openings as typist in offices and
behind the counters of shops but the largest demand was in factories.
More often than not, the conditions under which the children worked
was destructive to their health and well being. James Carey, com-
menting on child labor in 1904 related:

Hundreds of small boys work for Mr. Borden, and many of
them toil ten hours a day without a thread of clothing on
their bodies. No one except employees is allowed to enter
the works, and therefore when it was stated before a women's
club in New York last week that naked babies were at work
in the Fall River mills, much interest was aroused. . . .
They worked in the big tanks called "lime keer," in the
bleach house, packing the cloth into the vats. This lime
keer holds 750 pieces of cloth, and it requires one hour
and twenty minutes to fill it. During that time the lad
must work inside, while his body is being soaked with
whatever there is of chemicals which enter the process of
bleaching, of which lime is a prominent factor. The naked
bodies of the children are never dry, and the same chemi-
cals which effect the bleaching process of the gray cloth
naturally bleach the skin of the operator, and after coming
out of the vats the boys show the effects in the whiteness
of their skins which rivals the cotton cloth.

 

1James F. Carey, "The Child Labor Evil," Poverty (ed.)
Robert Hunter, (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1907), p. 357.

49

While the problems of this period showed marked similarity
to those of the previous period, there was strong desire for social,
economic and political reform. Beginning in the closing decade of
the nineteenth century, the reform movement burst into full flower
after the turn of the century and continued until the entry of the
United States into World War I. Known as the Progressive movement,
it was a many sided attack upon the various abuses that had become
glaring in the decades following the Civil War. While there was
never a national organization to direct and co-ordinate the numerous
campaigns, they nevertheless were bound together by a contagious
enthusiasm for reform and an all out pervading optimism. The
Progressives believed in political democracy, individual initiative,
competitive capitalism and property rights, and felt that a moderate
increase in the power of government provided the only means for
preserving individual freedom. The growth of governmental authority
was thought of as a means to an end and not an end in itself.

Man, according to the Progressives, was a rational creature
who knew his own best interests. If given all the pertinent infor-
mation regarding a problem, he was capable of weighing the facts
and reaching a correct decision that would be in his own and society's
best interest. Man, in short, was inherently progressive and barriers
to progress were man-made obstacles and capable of being removed by
man.

This faith in the judgment of the individual led the Progres-
sives to a reaffirmation of the tenets of Jeffersonian democracy.

Man was capable of governing himself and any alleged defects of

50

democratic government were thought of as corruptions rather than a
weakness of the democratic process. The Progressives urged that

all be allowed to participate directly in government and the differ-
ences between leaders and followers be eliminated so that the group
would be essentially the same. They pressed for such reforms as
direct election of senators, referendum, and recall, with the expecta-
tion that a government would evolve which was not influenced by

wealth and that political machines would be reduced to a minimum.

Social Work in the Age of Reform

 

To the protest against the social evils of the period,
social work added its voice in an effective manner. The day-by-day
contact with the damaged society had placed social workers in a
uniquely strategic position for they knew and had recorded the facts.
Their first converts had been themselves as their repeated experi-
ence slowly had forced them to change earlier ideas that poverty was
due to character defect and to see that man's socioeconomic environ-
ment could offer or deny opportunity for secure health, social
living. The Charity Organization Society movement was also shifting
from its earlier concentration on individual economic dependency and
pauperism to a concern with the total family and its relationships.

Along with this new focus, social work had begun to develop
its method with investigation at the core. The technique was not
new, but it was being utilized with a new set of objectives and
values. The goal was no longer the determination of the worthiness

or the unworthiness of the individual but rather the gathering of

51

information about all facets of the condition of the family in order
to help more effectively. With the needs more scientifically deter—
mined, it was then possible to utilize the necessary resources,
including those of other agencies.

The shift in attitude toward aid to the poor resulted in
the development of services for children and other dependents. Out
of the first White House Conference in 1909 came a reaffirmation of
the importance of home life to the child and the need for strengthen-
ing family life.

Home life is the highest and finest product of civilization.

It is the great molding force of mind and character.

Children should not be deprived of it except for urgent and

compelling reasons.
With this principle as a guide, the states responded quickly to the
recommendation of the Conference and beginning in 1911 enacted
legislation providing the administration of "mother's aid" under
local auspices. In addition, the federal government created the
Children's Bureau in 1912 to study and report on conditions of
children.2

An important development of the period was the increase in
the number of training schools for social workers and the parallel
development of professional self-consciousness. The term "agent,"
replaced around the turn of the century by ”charity worker," had

given way to the generic term "social worker." Subsequently, this

title fell into disuse as special fields of social endeavor strove

 

2Nathan Cohen, Social Work in the American Tradition
(New York: Dryden Press, 1958), p. 117.

52

for identity, adopting such titles as "case worker," "family worker,"
children's worker," "settlement worker," and others.

Prior to 1900 social workers worked primarily in settlement
houses, charity organization societies, and youth serving agencies.
After 1900 there was a move into other settings such as hospitals,
schools. In 1905 Massachusetts General Hospital introduced medical
social work and a year later a social worker was hired for the
psychopathic wards at Bellevue. A more formalized service was
initiated at the Psychopathic Hospital in Boston in 1913, under the
leadership of Mary C. Jarrett. Through this program the role of
social worker in a psychiatric setting became clearly defined.
Between 1906 and 1907 programs of school social work were introduced
in Boston, Hartford, and New York under private agencies. In 1909
the first child guidance clinic was organized in Chicago. Known as
the Juvenile Psychopathic Institute (renamed the Institute for
Juvenile Research in 1917) members of the staff studied wards of the
court and suggested methods for their mental and social adjustment.

In 1917 Mary Richmond published Social Diagnosis which was
to serve as a framework for the diagnostic activities of the case-
worker.3 Richmond set forth a set of principles which defined the
[marameters of casework practice and the specific responsibilities of
'the social worker within them. She elevated the importance of inter-

\riewing, formerly carried out by social workers in a mechanized way.

 

3Mary Richmond, Social Diagnosis (New York: Russell Sage
Foundation, 1917).

53

She described the influences which she felt affected the nature of
the interview, including the origin of the request, the setting of
the kind of task at hand, and what was known about the client.
Transcending the methodological importance of Richmond's work was
her emphasis on a more humanistic "doing with" in contrast with the

former style of "doing for."

Impact of the Social Science

 

Psychology

 

The influence of psychology was foreshadowed by early
articles on the importance of the social worker studying the per-
sonality of the client. Bryce in 1888 pleaded for a more humane
treatment of what he called "moral imbiciles," stressed the need for
study of the mind along with the body and came to the conclusion that
all the actions of man, physical, intellectual, and moral are the
inevitable consequences of preceding circumstances and conditions
which absolutely control and dominate him.4

After 1910, new influences from psychology began to make
themselves felt. These were to result in a swing away from the socio-
economic determinism of the previous era to the psychological
determinism of the 1920's. The child guidance movement in the United

States had taught social workers to recognize the importance of the

family in molding the infant years, and even though there were times

 

4P. Bryce, "Moral and Criminal Responsibility," Proceedings,

 

15th National Conference on Charities and Corrections (Buffalo, New
York, 1888), p. 88.

 

54

when this knowledge was not adequate for complete understanding, it
did form a base from which later psychologists were to work.

Psychology which was to supplant sociology and anthrOpology
in feeding social work began to be differentiated into special areas
such as educational, experimental, social, and abnormal psychology.
The work of the French psychologist Alfred Binet and his collabora-
tor T. Simon on mental tests in the first decade of the twentieth
century found warm reception among American psychologist. Binet's
conception of the growth of intelligence and mental age was later
to be tested during World War I with the testing of approximately
2 million men.

At the turn of the century William James, a physician
turned psychologist, was beginning to make his influence felt in
American psychological circles. Interested in the learning process,
it was his thinking that knowledge was not the end result of deduc-
tions from abstract or ideal systems. Rather, it came from experi-
ence and from the test of encounters with facts and events. The
path to knowledge was always experimentation with the truth of a
concept being gleaned from its consequences rather than from the
extent to which it matched any abstract proposition. James's ideals,
generally referred to as pragmatism exerted influence in many circles.
Since the eighteenth century, practicality had been a popular test
of knowledge among people who regarded religion as ethics, and edu-
cation as a means of getting ahead. The pragmatic method was

progressive in that it allowed for change and explained how it could

55

be used. Men need not be trapped by fatalistic determinism as they
had the right to direct their development and future consciously.5
At the turn of the century John Dewey was beginning to make
his influence felt in American psychological circles with the organi-
zation of the functional school of psychology at Chicago. Deeply
interested in the application of psychology to human relations and
learning, Dewey argued that individuals only learned through the
process of experience. At approximately the same time G. Stanley
Hall at Clark University began to work on genetic psychology and
human development. This interest was to lead him to the recognition
of individual differences and the influence of early childhood on
later life. This new psychology, with its reformulation in dynamic

terms, began to provide a methodology for studying and dealing with

problems of the individual.

Sociology

By 1900 sociologists were busying themselves with the
problems of human behavior and social causation. E. A. Ross became
interested in the "social pressures" which operate within society
to make the individual conform to the group norm.6 Charles Horton
Cooley, making the most significant contribution to the early

development of small group theory, created the concept of the

 

5William James, Pragmatism: The Will to Believe (New York:
Longmans, Green & Co., 19311, p. 23.

6Edward Ross, Social Control: A Survey of the Foundations
of Order (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1920). T

 

 

56

"primary group" which he felt was responsible for the initial
development of values and standards of behavior.7 Cooley saw the
small informal face-to-face groups, such as families, play groups
as primary in that they provided for the members a sense of solidar-
ity and mutual identification. He hypothesized that socialization
in childhood which continues into adulthood takes place in primary
group associations and that small groups influence the behavior,
reinforce and stabilize it in wider relationships in adulthood.
George Herbert Mead, a contemporary of John Dewey was
interested in the genesis of the self through gradually developing
ability in childhood to take the role of the other and to visualize
his own performance from the point of view of others.8 According to
Mead, the self arises through a series of communications, through the
conversation of gestures between animals involving some sort of co-
operative activity, through gestures and language of individuals and
through children's activities of play and the game. Child play, at
the level of simple role playing is the first step in the transforma-
tion from simple conversation of gestures, to the mature ability
utilizing significant symbolism in interaction with others. Through
his participation in organized games, in play and other organized
activity the child learns to take the role of the participant and
grasps the fact that the roles of others are interrelated. At the

same time, he becomes aware what his own activity within the situation

 

7Charles Horton Cooley, Social Organization (New York:
Schooken, 1943).

8Anselm Strauss (ed.) George Herbert Mead on Social
Psychology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), p. 36.

 

 

 

57

looks like from the standpoint of others. This taking the related
roles of all other participants rather than the role of just one other
person he referred to as "generalized other," and was thought of as
societies representative.9
In Europe, at approximately the same time several social
scientists began to question whether or not a group was more than a
sum of its parts. Heretofore, it was felt that only individual were
real and groups and institutions were abstractions from individual
organisms. Emil Durkheim and Georg Simmel were the most influential
of this new group. Durkheim, a French sociologist, was concerned with
characteristics of groups and those social and historical forces that
brought them together and allowed them to operate. It was his belief
that to understand a group, one needed to go beyond the personal
attributes of the individual actors and look at the characteristics
and structure of the group as a whole. Durkheim focused on such
problems as the cohesion or lack of cohesion of specific religious
groups and not the traits of individual believers. He showed that
such group properties were independent of individual traits and
must therefore be studied in their own right.10

Simmel, a German scientist, developed theoretical formula-

tions regarding group size and the significance of numbers for group

 

9Mead was active in the progressive education movement and
was closely associated with Hull House in the early 1900's.

10Kurt H. Wolff, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, (ed. and
trans.) (New York: The Free Press, 1950).

58

life. His conceptualization, including the nature of power alliances
and the effect on interaction of various sizes of groups increased
knowledge of the nature of the interacting process within the small
group and the different nature of interaction resulting from change
in group size. Simmel was able to highlight the sterility of psy-
chological reductionism by demonstrating the influence of adding

various new members to a group.]]

The Recreation Movement

 

While the event generally accepted as distinctly marking
the beginning of the recreation movement in the United States was
the opening of the Sand Garden in Boston in 1885 there were a number
of important antecedents. These include the initiation of organized
sports, the formation of kindergartens, and the provision of parks
by local governments. The movement for organized athletics, gymnas-
tics and sports began with the establishment of an outdoor gymnasium
in the Salem, Massachusetts, Latin School in 1821. A year later a
gymnastic school was organized in the city of Boston and Harvard
College established a gymnasium. Much of the early impetus came
from German gymnastics and physical education leadership first by

German visitors and later by immigrants.12

 

11Lewis A. Coser, Masters of Sociological Thought, "Max
Weber," (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1971), pp. 218-260).

12George Butler, Introduction to Community Recreation
(New York: McGraw Hill, 1940), p. 60.

 

 

59

During the 1840's boating clubs were organized in Yale and
Harvard and college baseball began to make its appearance a decade
later. Traces of football are found during the sixties while at
approximately the same time athletic associations began to be
organized in various parts of the country. Decline in interest
occurred between the intermittent efforts to establish gymnasiums
and to promote organized sports.

Fredrick Froebel is credited with establishing the first
kindergarten in 1840. Prior to that time there were few schools for
children too young to enter regular schools. It was he who worked
out the principles and methods of the kindergarten and gave the
movement a start; placing emphasis on such activities as music, games,
storytelling and play in general. Unfortunately, the kindergarten
movement did not get fully under way in America until nearly thirty
years later.

The purchase of a large tract of land by the City of
New York, later known as Central Park, was also an important event in

'3 Many cities followed

the development of the recreation movement.
New York's example in acquiring large parks, but for many years these
properties were to be for rest and contemplation and not for recrea-
tion activity although horseback riding, boating, and picnicing were
usually allowed. Parks were usually open space with little provision

for services such as athletic fields and water sports. The "meadow"

 

Ibid., p. 63.

60

in Washington Park, Chicago, was opened for team games as early as
1876 but park officials did not provide systematic recreation. No
instruction was provided, only policy supervision.

In 1885 a large sand pile was placed in the yard of the
Children's Mission of Parmenter Street in Boston through the efforts
of the Massachusetts Emergency and Hygiene Association. This was
the direct result of a visit by Dr. Marie Zakrewska to Berlin where
she observed a sand garden which had been established for the children
of that city. The sand garden at the Children's Mission averaged
15 children a day for six weeks during the months of July and

14 In addition to playing in the sand, the children sang,

August.
listened to stories and marched about under the guidance of women
who lived in the neighborhood with additional voluntary supervision
by interested mothers.

This experiment was to continue through succeeding years
and its success is indicated by the fact that in 1887 ten centers
were operating with paid supervision. To many citizens living in
Boston, playgrounds served as a way to deal with the rising tide of
juvenile delinquency and gangs, and the problems associated with
bad housing and the growth of tenement slum areas. In 1899 the city
assumed some of the financial burden of the playgrounds and 3 out
of 21 centers were designated for boys between twelve and fifteen

years of age.15

 

14

15Funds for operating the playgrounds were provided by the
Massachusetts Emergency and Hygiene Association until 1899 when the
city council of Boston appropriated 3,000 dollars toward meeting their
cost.

Ibid., p. 61.

61

The Boston achievement was not to be measured by local
consequences in the New England area alone. New York, Philadelphia
and Chicago reacted by building facilities similar to the Children's
Mission sand garden. Generally the initiative and funds were pro-
vided by philanthropic individuals or social agencies, built on
private property, then eventually taken over by the city and trans-
ferred to public areas. The early sand gardens were very simple,
consisting of sand heaps together with swings, see-saws, and other
simple playthings, which were located in densely populated sections
of the city, equipped for outdoor activities, and open a few hours
a day during the summer months for small children. The main idea
behind them were to provide an environment that allowed for free and
spontaneous play which would keep children off the streets.

In 1892 Jane Addams established a playground in connection
with Hull House. Because it was more comprehensive in its equipment
and program of activities than the earlier sand gardens, it was
referred to as a "model" playground. It covered a wider area; had
provision for handball, baseball and various other sports; and was
supervised by a trained kindergarten leader and a policeman. Older
children as well as those of preadolescent age were admitted and
adults were allowed to come as observers.16

Other cities also took steps to acquire playgrounds, largely
because of the insistence of social workers and influential citizens

they were concerned with the influx of immigrants, the increase in

 

16Ibid., p. 62.

62

factories, accompanied by the perils of child labor, unsanitary,
unsafe working conditions, and the spread of commercialized amuse-
ment which was often associated with vice. In New York City a

tract of two and five-eights acres, covered with five and six story
tenements, was purchased in 1897 at a cost of eight thousand dollars
after a most determined effort led by Jacob A. Riis. This land was
later equipped with apparatus, wading pool, a place for games, a
gymnasium and baths.17

The development of recreation and leisure time activities
often came into direct conflict with Calvinistic ideals that glorified
hard work and condemned leisure. Some questioned whether the new
interest in playgrounds and play facilities was not the work of the
devil. Increasingly, however, both individuals and the church began
to recognize that a spiritual and moral growth of people could be
strengthened through a wholesome and satisfying use of leisure. But,
to be acceptable, it had to strengthen family life and enhance moral
qualities. At the same time it should not be designed solely for
pleasure or diversion or for the social and economic advancement of
the individual.

By the early 1900's parks were beginning to be designed to
serve persons of all ages with varied interests. In 1903, Chicago
passed a bond issue for the acquisition and development of small
recreation parks in the crowded neighborhoods of South Chicago and

established a new standard in park and playground building. They

 

17Ibid., p. 63.

63

provided an assembly hall with stage and dressing rooms, gymnasiums
for men and women, shower and locker rooms, clubrooms, and a branch
of the public library. Other facilities included outdoor swimming
pools, wading pools, and band stands. The employment of trained
leaders under a general director helped to make these playgrounds
and neighborhood centers successful.

No concerted action was taken for the guidance of the wave
of interest and the co-ordination of the various developments into
a national movement until the organization in 1906 of the Playground
Association of America later changed to the Playground and Recrea—
tion Association in America in 1911 (now called the National
recreation Association). This organization was one of the most
important factors in promoting the establishment of adequate play-
ground systems for cities, towns and rural communities. The first
officers of the Association included such leaders as Theodore
Roosevelt, Jacob Riis, Luther H. Gulick and Jane Addams.

Paralleling the development of the parks was the social
center movement which stressed the opening of school building for
social, civic, and recreational use by the citizens. According to
the traditional opinion, the school hours were to be used only for
formal instruction of children. After the final bell rang, the
building was to be locked up and the grounds deserted. The economy
of opening these facilities to the public rather than spend money to
duplicate them in special recreation buildings was apparent and many
states prior to 1900 had passed laws permitting school buildings to

be used as civic or social centers.

64

It was argued that if the definition of education was
broad enough, it could include recreation. Perry, in listing the
various types of activities carried on by community centers, found
that a large proportion could be considered recreational in character.
These included civic occasions, educational events, entertainments,
handicraft, mental contests, neighborhood service, physical exercises,

social occasions, club and society meetings and voluntary classes.18

The Adult Education Movement

Adult education in the United States had an important
influence on group work. Based on the New England town meeting indi-
viduals gathered together regularly for discussion of common problems.
From this evolved the first 1yceum in Milbury, Massachusetts made up
of farmers and merchants, "for the purpose of self culture, community
instruction, and mutual discussion of common public interest." One
of the early leaders Josiah Holbrook of Derby Connecticut a tireless
and successful public lecturer on various branches of science wanted,
according to his own statement "to improve conversation by introducing
worthwhile topics into the daily intercourse of families, neighbors,
and friends." He developed a full scale plan for the organization

of an educational society which would reach every part of the nation.19

 

18Aaron Perry, Recreation in the United States (New York:
Harper and Row, 1937), p. 39.

19Handbook of Adult Education in the United States 1960,
(Chicago: Adult Education of the U.S.A.), p. 10.

65

In 1831 a national organization, the National American
Lyceum, was formed which adopted as its purpose the advancement of
education, and the general diffusion of knowledge. The annual
meetings were poorly attended and by 1839 the organization ceased
to exist. However, the town and country 1yceums continued to operate
until about the time of the Civil War. Around 1869 the function of
providing popular lectures for literary societies, women's clubs,
and other groups began to be taken over by commercial speaker
bureaus often called 1yceum bureaus.20 '
The 1yceum movement left several permanent deposits in
the main stream of American culture and particularly of adult educa-

21 It demonstrated the feasibility of an integrated national

tion.
system of local groups organized primarily for adult educational
purposes. It developed an educational technique, the lecture forum
which was later to be adopted by university extension services.

A spin off of the 1yceum movement was the Chautauqua
Institution founded on the shore of Chautauqua Lake in New York in
1874 as a pan-denominational normal school for Sunday school

22 The idea became so popular it attracted other partici—

teachers.
pants and began to broaden its program to include every aspect of
culture. In 1878 the first integrated core program of adult educa-

tion, the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle (CLSC) was

 

 

66

organized. The program was made up of a four year core of home
reading in history and literature carried on in connection with
local reading circles. Concurrently, Chautauqua also developed a
series of summer schools in language, liberal arts, speech, music
and other disciplines.

A controversial issue in the eighteen hundreds was that of
who should be educated. While there was little opposition to the
idea of universal education, there was strong opposition to the
idea of universal public education supported by taxation. The
process by which the battle was won was essentially an adult educa—
tion process, strongly flavored with social action. Public interest
ran high and individuals were stimulated to study and discuss the
issues throughout the activities of hundreds of schools, societies,
1yceums, and educational associations.

As the battles began to be won and elementary and secondary
schools were established, evening schools began to be formed. Some
were set up for children who could not go to school during the day
while others were a distinct school with a separate administrative
unit. For the most part, they were established for working youth and
the curriculum was a repetition of the regular academic courses given
in the day time.

Educators, by the turn of the century, began to question
the focus of adult education. Should the focus be on helping people
to enjoy their leisure through literature, art, drama, music and
interest groups, or should it be vocational education and self advance—

ment with the goal of helping a person toward a more promising career.

67

By 1915 the majority of the students participating in adult education
were seeking some form of self advancement. These included the
person who had dropped out of school at an early age and found it
desirable or necessary to make up school deficiencies, the foreign
born responding to the pressure of Americanization campaigns, and
those preparing for entrance or advancement into an occupation.

In review, adult education had five major functions. These
include the remedial function, the occupational function, the rela-
tional function, and the liberal function and political function.23
The remedial function was study undertaken to give a person of adult
years whatever was needed to bring his educational experiences up
to the minimum that was necessary for his life style. It included
the ability to read and write, and for immigrants it included also
a knowledge of spoken English and American citizenship. Training
in homemaking and child care on an elementary basis and the simple
rules of health were also considered remedial since grown citizens
were presumed to have this knowledge. It was hoped that one of the
outcomes would be the complete eradication of illiteracy from America.

The occupational function, perceived by many as being in
the range of public education activity was seen as preparing indi-
viduals for advancement to another job of a different nature; for
advancement on the job; for the industrial rehabilitation of the

victim of machine unemployment; and for guidance in choosing or

 

23Lyman Bryson, Adult Education (New York: American Book
Co., 1936), pp. 29-47.

 

68

adjusting to an occupation. The typical student in the occupational
school for older students were those who wished, by added labor in
their free time, to equip themselves for advancement or for some

more difficult job, and those who were unemployed because of mechani-
zation.

The relational function included "parent education" and
also self study designed to help persons better understand themselves
and those around them. An example of the former was the parent-
education movement which attempted through the use of specialist
and lay leaders to bring the new scientific knowledge regarding the
care and protection of children into use in the home. In the latter
it was presumed that through discussion and lectures one could better
one's adjustment in all contacts of life. Some communities instituted
self improvement and family study groups.

The liberal function describes those activities undertaken
chiefly for their own sake, for the pleasure that is in them. The
"liberating" influence was expected to produce results beyond the
satisfaction of achievement. In the pursuit of art or philosophy or
science the student would find the enjoyment of effort. Much of this
philosophy was tied to the recognition that there was going to be
increased leisure time and citizens needed to be prepared.

The political function was predicated on the theory that
direct political education was necessary and covered all those
studies, practices, and experiences which men deliberately pursued
1x1 be better members of a community. This included not only the study

(rf politics as a subject but all forms of training for political

69

action. Because of the complication and formidable quantity of
public business, the average individual was seen as being both
unequipped and ineffective in influencing government. However, it
was felt that through active discussion of public business in public
forums, using trustworthy information about public questions the
individual citizen could have some influence.

Of these, the political function came closest to the
philosophy of progressives seeking reform. It was not enough for
individuals to vote in elections. Instead, it was felt, they should
be involved in the decision making process at the grass roots level.
Mary Parker Follett, one of the most influential thinkers of the
period, wrote that the only way democracy would work was for indi-
viduals to organize themselves into neighborhood groups and to bring
to the surface the needs, desires and aspirations of the people.24
As a recognized political unit the neighborhood group had many
advantages. First, it made possible the association of neighbors
which meant fuller acquaintance and greater understanding among indi-
viduals. Second, it gave opportunity for constant and regular inter-
course which would provide the individuals with knowledge of the
techniques of association. Third, it would result in a fuller more
varied life in that the participants would be involved with people
different from those close to them. Too much congeniality, according

to Fbllett, would result in a narrowness of thinking.

 

24Mary Parker Follett, The New State (New York: Longmans,
Green, 1920), p. 40.

 

70

A major goal of the neighborhood organization was the
dismantling of the political party organization as a middle man
between the individual and government. This would occur by "sub-
stituting real unity for the pseudo unity of the party." Also it
would occur by evolving genuine leaders instead of bosses and by
putting a responsible government in the place of the irresponsible
party.

An important ingredient of adult education was the use of
group process and the direct participation of the student in the
learning experience. The teacher, according to Lindeman, was the
group chairman who kept the discussion going, maintained its direc-
tion, enlisted active participation of all members, and pointed out
discrepancies and relations. Different from the traditional teacher,

. he no longer sets problems and then casts about with

various kinds of bait until he gets back his preconceived
answer; nor is he the oracle who supplied answers which
students carry off in their notebooks; his function is not
to profess but to evoke--to draw out, not pour in; he per-
forms in various degrees the office of interlocutor (one
who questions and interprets), prolocutor (one who brings
all expressions before the group), coach (one who trains
individuals for team—play), and strategist (one who organ-
ized parts into wholes and keeps the total action aligned
with the group's purpose).
Whatever he brought to the group in the form of opinions, facts and
experiences must be open to question and criticism on the same terms

as the contributions of other participants.25

 

25Edward Lindeman, The Meaning of Adult Education (New York:
New Republic, Inc., 1926), pp. 50-55.

71

Summar

During this period that began with the turn of the century
and ended with the conclusion of World War I, group work was to
become closely associated with the recreation movement and adult edu-
cation. Similar to the growth of the youth serving agencies, the
growth of the recreation movement and adult education was directly
related to the effects of industrialization. Bad housing conditions,
the rising tide of juvenile delinquency, the increase in factories
accompanied by the evils of child labor and unsanitary and unsafe
working conditions, all pointed up the need for wholesome leisure
time activities for children.

Recreation, with the establishment of the first playground
in 1866 was gradually accepted as essential not only for children
and youth but for all ages. Eventually, it was expanded to include,
in addition to sports, such areas as music, drama, dancing and
crafts. Recreation was also to move away from being a requirement
for for so called underprivileged to an essential for all economic
and social levels.

The field of adult education with roots in the 1yceum move-
ment and the Chautauqua Institution grew out of an interest in the
enlargement of the personality and self improvement. By the beginning
of World War I it came to be recognized that adult education had
several functions which were remedial, occupational, relational,
liberal, and political. An essential element of adult education was

the decrease in authoritative teaching and the emphasis on expert

72

group leadership with active involvement by the participants.
Leadership was not to be dictatorial but sensitive to the needs of
those in the group.

Increasingly during this period the small group came to
be recognized as having potential value for the members. First,
the group was a way of training individuals in adaptive social
skills in preparation for adulthood. By coming together with a
trained leader, members could learn how to relate to each other,
develop decision making skills, and learn certain values. Second,
it was seen as a supplement to other relationships. The group, it
was felt could provide certain kinds of group experience which gave
support and enrichment to people whose other primary relations were
not proving to be entirely satisfying. Finally, the group experience
was seen as preparation for active citizenship in a democracy. By
providing opportunities for self government, individuals were able
to learn leadership skills, and gain experience in the democratic
process.

**~k**************~k************

By 1919, the influence of the social sciences, recreation
and adult education was being felt on group work. In the next period,
1920-1936, group work was to expand as a means of helping individuals
become better citizens, develop as individuals, and resolve and pre-

vent emotional problems.

CHAPTER 4

FORMULATION OF A METHOD
1920-1936

The American Scene

 

Perhaps no period in the history of the United States is
filled with as marked contrasts as those years from 1920 to 1936.
A substantial number of Americans came to believe that isolation
was the only safe policy for their country. They rejected any new
ties with the outside world and sought to dissolve existing con-
nections. Yet the United States had inherited from the past
continuing responsibilities abroad, and actual ties with the outer
world did not simply dissolve. The change in the way in which
Americans appraised their relations with other countries was linked
to the spreading discontent within their own society. In earlier
times, they had been confident about the excellence and durability
of their own institutions, and nationalism had been compatible with
involvement. Citizens of the United States had no doubt that their
own democratic form of life was best not only for themselves but
also for other people. The isolationism of the 1920's was, among
other things, a sign of the loss of certainty about the basic fea-

tures of American society.

73

74

An older order was passing. Industrialism, urbanization,
and the mere increase in the magnitude of the numbers involved
complicated all human relationships and led to the breakdown of the
inherited systems of social control. Progressive reform measures
solved some problems but also created new ones. The family, the
church, and other community organizations adjusted painfully and
not always adequately to the shifting needs of their members. The
first decade was the era of the ticker-tapes and the speak-easy,
of "flaming youth" and the automobile, when the ideal of the nation
was a "chicken in every pot." In this brittle, somewhat manic,
period there was little concern with values other than those symbol-
ized by dollar signs or the resistance to old standards. During
the 1920's, many of the population enjoyed an improved standard of
living, improved health, and longer education. To all but the
"intellectuals," and those working in settlement houses and with
charity organization societies, the emotional hallmark of the time
was optimism that the future held nothing but increased health,
wealth, happiness, and continued growth.

This optimism came to an abrupt halt as the collapse of
the stock market of October, 1929, ushered in the depression of the
1930's. The depression revealed the internal contradictions of the
existing economic and social order and created a complex and inter-
locking set of problems which would occupy the United States in the
decade that followed. Unemployment rose steadily until over fourteen
million persons were out of work; the industrial plant stood idle

much of the time; the farm situation deteriorated to the point of

75

chaos; and the banking system of the country neared collapse.
Suffering was acute, as provision for financial assistance of the
unemployed was totally inadequate in dealing with the size, intensity,
and duration of the crisis.

Reform again came into major focus, and the last three
years of the period saw the federal government assume major respon-
sibility for public welfare with a multitude of programs designed
to protect individuals and the national economy from the impact of
this and future depressions. The program devised under the leader—
ship of Franklin D. Roosevelt started the process of reconsideration
of the relationship of government to the economy and imbued the
people with a sense of hope so that they could pass through the
trial of the years after 1933 without succumbing to despair. This
was an important achievement in a decade when other countries were

surrendering their faith in democracy.

Social Casework

 

A major influence on social casework in the 1920's was the
emergence and acceptance of Freudian theory. The experience of
working with shell shocked patients in the war period strengthened an
enthusiasm for psychiatry which provided what was needed to under-
stand the inner person. Freudian psychology, to the average worker
was a welcomed substitute for the sterile laboratory psychology that
emphasized diagnosis, classification and intelligence tests. Within
a short period of time, the profession made a radical shift from

concern with environmental factors to preoccupation with the

76

intrapsychic. With this change came the addition of such words as
"lidido," "ego," and "ambivalence" to the social caseworkers vocab-
ulary. The concept of "relationship," as developed in psychoanalytic
literature became part of the caseworker's stock-in-trade while
"dynamic passivity" came to be the basic style.

While the new knowledge supported the prior acceptance and
acclamation of Mary Richmond's book Social Diagnosis,1 it drew
attention away from the "social" and redirected it to the inner self.
Focus became the individual and his personal conflicts rather than
the various systems impinging upon his life.

The result of the Freudian influence was the reshaping of
the role of the caseworker. In accordance with Freudian technique,
the social worker departed from the stance of a doer, a provider of
concrete services, to that of passive observer. With this change
came the concept of a detached professional attitude with stress
on the worker keeping his feelings and activities in abeyance. It
also meant a different type of client. Using Freudian technique
meant limiting services to those clients who could respond to the
use of a less active approach and to those problems that did not
require immediate action.

Freudian theory overshadowed all other approaches to social
problems and orientations about behavior. By 1930, casework teaching

staffs in schools of social work taught psychoanalytic principles as

 

1Mary E. Richmond, Social Diagnosis (New York: Russell Sage
Foundation, 1917).

 

77

a basis for casework practice and it was not unusual for both
faculty and students to undergo psychoanalytic therapy as a part of
their training. The outlets for this form of practice were expanded
by the emergence of child guidance clinics and veterans' programs

and by the development of psychiatric social work specialization.

Social Action During the Depression

0f the various group serving agencies, the settlements
were the most active in providing direct service to families and in
promoting social action. Settlement workers gathered special emer-
gency funds to be given to families who did not qualify for regular
relief or who could not wait for assistance from slow moving charity
organizations. They gave lunch money and carfare so that children
could go to school, paid back rent to forestall or postpone eviction,
and provided free nursery care and milk for infants.

Similar to the others, Chicago Commons settlement was
deeply involved in encouraging social action to improve the living
conditions of the unemployed workers. Where once, brief months or
years earlier various ethnic groups used the halls of the Chicago
Commons settlement for education or recreational activities such as
citizenship classes, dances and folk celebrations; Italians, Poles,
Greeks and Mexicans began to assemble in 1930 to study the depression.
Discussion and debate covered many topics including the need for work
relief through public works, the need for state and federal assistance
to cash relief funds, and the need to develop security through old

age pensions and unemployment insurance. Out of the discussions

78

grew, in 1932, a city wide workers' Committee on Unemployment
composed of fifty local units, twenty-two of which were settlement
based and led, with a membership of over twenty thousand. Lea
Taylor, daughter of the director Graham Taylor, reported to the
National Federation of Settlements at the end of the year:
The men are developing initiative and responsibility through
serving on committees and delegate bodies. They have organ-
ized self-help projects and have sought direct contact with
legislators interested in relief measures.2

One of the major accomplishments of this organization was
to organize a protest march on the Chicago City Hall to make known
their problems.

Just as the settlements in Chicago were at the vanguard
of social protest, settlements elsewhere were moving toward direct
political action. They argued to whoever would listen that families
were being disrupted by the economic problems and that the social
services generally available to help them were breaking down under
the impact of overwhelming need. They demanded that an immediate
program of public relief be set up for meeting the basic needs of
food, clothing and shelter for the millions of unemployed. They
urged that work relief programs be established so that individuals
would again be able to be self-supporting. Finally, they pushed for
institutionalized assistance programs, sponsored by the federal
government, to guard against loss of income because of death or

retirement.

 

2Lea Taylor to Board of Directors, National Federation of
Settlements (December 10, 1932) National Federation of Settlements
Archieves, New York City.

79

The influence of the early settlements was to be even more
fully felt in the period of the New Deal. As Schlesinger reports:

Hull House, Henry Street, the Consumers' League and the other
organizations educated a whole generation in social respon-
sibility. Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Herbert Lehman, and Adolf A.
Berle, Jr., all worked at Henry Street; Frances Perkins,
Gerald Swope, and Charles A Beard at Hull House (where John
Dewey was an early member of the board of trustees); Sidney
Hillman at both Hull House and Henry Street House; Joseph
Eastman at Robert A. Wood's South End House in Boston; an
Iowa boy coming East from Grinnell College in 1912 went to
work at Christadora House on the lower East Side of New York;
his name Harry Hopkins. Through Belle Moskowitz the social
work ethos infected Alfred E. Smith; through Frances Perkins
and others, Robert F. Wagner; through Eleanor Roosevelt,
active in the Women's Trade Union League and a friend of
Florence Kelley's and Lillian Wald's, Franklin Roosevelt.

And for all the appearances of innocence and defenselessness,
the social workers apparatus wielded power. "One could not
overestimate," observed Wagner, "the central part played by
social workers in bringing before their representatives in
Congress and state legislatures the present and insistent
problems of modern-day life." The subtle and persistent
saintliness of the social workers was in the end more deadly
than all the bluster of business. Theirs was the implacability
of gentleness.

Some case workers, along with settlement leaders began
working with progressive leaders such as Robert Lafollette, Jacob
Riis, and Theodore Roosevelt in bringing about changes in government.
They advocated for strict regulation or prohibition of child labor.
They lobbied for the regulation of sanitation and housing. They
joined the crusade for women's suffrage. They pushed for the govern-
ment to assume responsibility for the care of dependent citizens.

They also took up the plea for the establishment of industrial

 

3Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Roosevelt: The
Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957),
p. 25.

 

80

standards for decent wages, and of the right of labor to organize

and bargain effectively.

Progressive Education

A significant development in the field of education during
the 1920's was the expansion of the average school's curriculum.

The first eight grades of public schools, which had at one time
taught little beyond the three "R's," enlarged their curricula to

such an extent that by 1930 the typical elementary school offering
included as many as thirty different subjects. There was a corre-
sponding increase of courses in the high schools. Since large numbers
of the children were drawn from every background and represented
different degrees of intelligence, considerable emphasis was placed
on practical subjects. Boys were taught machine shop practices and
woodworking; girls attended classes in sewing and cooking; all could
study typing, stenography, and bookkeeping.

Curriculum changes were sometimes accompanied by new
teaching methods reflecting the philosophy of progressive education.
Learning by rote and complete reliance on textbooks gave way to an
emphasis upon individual differences among students and an attempt to
make learning an exciting experience rather than a series of dreary,
unconnected tasks. Severe classroom discipline was abandoned for a
more informal attitude based on the assumption that interested pupils
seldom present behavior problems. Efforts were also made to inte-
grate subjects, and frequent use was made of available library

resources .

81

The philosophy of progressive education, based on the
writings of Dewey and Kilpatrick, was received with great interest
by those working in leisure time agencies and settlement houses.
They were well aware of the shortcomings of traditional educational
methods which they considered outdated. Writing in 1902, Jane Addams
attacked educators for their failure to prepare students for social
relations.

The educators should certainly conserve the learning and
training necessary for the successful individual and family
life, but should add to that a preparation for the enlarged
social efforts which our increasing democracy requires.

The democratic ideal demands of the school that it shall
give the child's own activities a social value; that it
shall teach him to direct his own activities and adjust
them to those of other people. We are not willing that
thousands of industrial workers shall put all of their
activity and toil into services from which the community

as a whole reaps the benefits, while their mental concep-
tions and code of morals are narrow and untouched by any
uplifX which the consciousness of social value might give
them.

However, in spite of this concern, the early group work
movement inherited a traditional educational philosophy and teaching
techniques. Most group work practice was based on the assumption
that the elements constituting "character" could be taught in the
same way English, arithmetic, and social studies were taught. As
schools began to consider critically their methods of educating
children, group workers began also to question their methods. Some
of the practices which came under question were: the use of formulas,

the emphasis on specific learning, the regimentation of boys' and

 

4Jane Addams, Democracy and Social Ethics (New York:
MacMillan Co., 1902).

 

82

girls' organizations, many of the traditional club forms in
institutions as well as the extensive devotion to competitive
athletics, and the faith that play on playgrounds, more than any
other significant part of a child's life, prevented delinquency
and "built character."
A major factor in group work's new interest in progressive
education were the writings of Grace Coyle, which had been strongly
influenced by John Dewey. In discussing the evolution of struc-
ture, Coyle utilized Dewey's definition of structure.
The structure of organized groups consist of the agreed
upon instruments through which the group puts its purpose
into action. They take the form of written constitutions
and established precedents. Their apparent stability is,
in fact, an illusion produced by the more swiftly moving
processes that go on, by, and through them. They, too,
change and shift as the group creates, uses and modifies
them for its purposes.5

This concept came, as Coyle declared, "directly from John Dewey's

Experience and Nature."6

 

Leadership was also viewed in light of Dewey's philosophy.
In any organization there exists the "necessity for the investiture
of certain individuals with a public character, a responsibility for
these common consequences of weal and woe for all participants."

Then quoting Dewey she wrote: "The ultimate source of authority will

 

5Grace L. Coyle, Social Process in Organized Groups (New
York: Richard R. Smith, 1930), p. 5.

 

6John Dewey, Experience and Nature (Chicago: Open Court
Pub. Co., 1925)

 

83

determine the direction of its flow. Most of our organizations

"7

reflect the common democratic mores . . . . She concludes this

discussion by stating that

. psychological reactions of a most complex sort are con-
stantly remaking both leaders and group together by their
reciprocal stimulus and response. Out of that reaction
group morale and decisions are born and group functions
performed.8

By the mid-thirties, it was recognized that a reformulation
of group work was necessary and the methods and philosophy of pro-
gressive education were not only most compatible, but had the most
to offer. Bowman prophetically saw the change occurring in four
areas.

First, integration. Emphasis in group work will be placed,
I believe, more on the relation the work bears to the problems
of the individual, his place in society, his combination of
interests. There will be fewer clubs organized each for a
special purpose, such as sewing, dramatics, athletics, or
debating but more clubs or groups which engage in various
activities, perhaps now under the guidance of one expert
and later under another in another subject, but always with
the help of a continuing group leader. . . . Second, . . .
A group will get together for as long a period as there is
interest and profit in the members remaining together.
Members of new members will be by vote based on whether the
candidate is interested and can contribute to the activity.

. There will be less competition and fewer inter-
institutional athletic contests . . . .

Third, leaders. It seems to one watching developments in
progressive education that success has attended the sort
of leadership implied in the forgoing paragraphs. To the
extent that such is the case, it may be inferred that group
leaders of the future will be required to understand psy-
chology. The practice of putting a person in charge of a
group only or mainly because he knows some special subject
will grow less. . . . It will be out of place for a leader

 

7Coy1e, Ibid., p. 105.

8Coyle, Ibid., p. 126.

84

to take pride in "being good" to his group in any paternal-
istic way. Affection for one's charges will be a part of
group leadership, but the aim will be to adjust them emo-
tionally to their associates in successive undertakings.
The emphasis will be more upon the interaction of the
members than upon direct leadership.

Fourth, in the large social implications, the teacher or
leader in progressive education lays emphasis on no pattern
as such. . . . (It is more important that the individual
learns to cooperate with others in various active spon-
taneous original and adaptable ways for various ends.)
Group experience and not a Breimposed or preconceived
notion of order is the aim.

In 1938 a book entitled New Trends in Group Work was pub-

 

lished based on the writing of group workers using progressive
education methods and of leaders of the progressive education move-

ment.10

At least half of the chapters dealt specifically with group
work as education and a significant number with group work as pro-
gressive education. Common to the various authors was the belief
that group work had accepted a task that was educational in nature

and related to development of personality through group experience.

Small Group Theory

 

Until the mid-1930's, social group work's theoretical
orientation came almost exclusively from progressive education and
the social psychology of Cooley. After that, however, practitioners

and faculty teaching group work and recreation skills began to look

 

9LeRoy L. Bowman, "Application of Progressive Education to
Group Work," in Joshua Lieberman, ed. New Trends in Group Work
(New York: Association Press, 1939), p. 118.

10Joshua Lieberman, ed., New Trends in Group Work (New York:
Association Press, 1939).

 

 

85

to other sources for knowledge regarding groups. One such source
was the University of Iowa and the work of Kurt Lewin and Ronald
Lippitt. They and others had set up a series of experimental
studies on the effects of certain types of leadership on group
structure and on the member's behavior. The researchers compared
three types of leadership: democratic, autocratic, and laissez
faire by having adult leaders behave in a prescribed fashion. It
was their general conclusion that there was greater originality,
group-mindedness and more friendliness in democratic groups, and
more hostility, aggression, scapegoating, and discontent in
laissez faire and autocratic groups.11 Although the results of
their studies influenced the leadership styles of club leaders
and youth group leaders, the research was to come under attack by
social work leaders for experimenting with human emotions. Had
there been more receptivity at the time to experimental methods of
research, the results of these studies might have had more influence
on the use of groups in social work.12
Another source of knowledge came out of the research of
J. L. Moreno, an Austrian psychiatrist and his associate Helen
Jennings. During World War I, Moreno had administrative respon-
sibilities for a camp of displaced persons in Austria. It came

to his attention that the adjustment of individuals in the camp

 

1lKurt Lewin, Ronald Lippitt, R. White, "Patterns of
Aggressive Behavior hiExperimentally Created 'Social Climates,'"
Journal of Social Psychology, XX, 1939.

12Margaret E. Hartford, Groups in Social Work (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1972), p. 14.

 

 

86

seemed to be better when they were allowed to form their own groups.
Later while associated with a reform school in the United States,
he undertook to check this observation out through more systematic
research. With the use of a simple questionnaire he measured the
interpersonal relations of people by the choice they registered of
desirable partners for work and play in particular activities.13
This data concerning "who chooses who" was converted into a
"sociogram" or picture in which individuals were represented by
circles and choices by lines. It became apparent that through this
subjective technique, valuable information about interpersonal
attraction and repulsion among collections of people. Study of
such sociograms revealed that some groups were more tightly knit
than others, that individuals varied in their social expansiveness
and in the choices they received, and that cliques formed on the
basis of characteristics such as age, sex, and race. Group workers.
used sociometry as a means of determining the interpersonal process
going on within a group at a given time. In addition it was to draw
attention to such features of groups as social position, patterns of
friendship, sub-group formation, and, more generally, informal group
structure.

Those social workers working with delinquents and gang

groups were influenced by social psychologists such as Clifford Shaw,

 

'3J. L. Moreno, who Shall Survive (Washington o.c.:
Nervous and Mental Disease PublishThg Co., 1934).

 

87

F. Thrasher, and William Whyte. Shaw, author of The Jack Rollers,14

 

and Thrasher, who wrote The Gang,15 were employed by the University
of Chicago and associated with the Institute of Juvenile Research
to study the internal workings of autonomous street gangs. One
result of their work was the modification of professional work with
autonomous groups, especially in settlements and youth organizations.
Whyte examined the informal and formal social organization of the
Italian community of Boston. By spending time with the members as
a participant observer, he was able to gather information of the
_effects of group life both on the individual participant and the

social structure of the community. In his book, Street Corner
16

 

Society, Whyte discussed his findings with special attention to
such dynamics as cohesion, interaction, structure, leadership, and
status.

Muzafer Sherif pioneered in research on the "autokinetic
effect," or the phenomenon of a still light giving the appearance of
moving when viewed in a dark room when the viewer had no point of

17

reference in which to measure its location. When estimates were

made as to the amount of movement in the presence of several people,

 

14Clifford Shaw, The Jack Roller (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1930).

15Frederic Thrasher, The Gang (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1927).

16William Foote Whyte, Street Corner Society_(Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1934).

17Muzafer Sherif, The Psychology of Social Norms (New
York: Harper and Row, 1936).

 

 

 

88

the judgments of the observers were influenced by each other and
converged toward a mean. Sherif's influence was seen in group work
in the recognition that the influence of the group was a powerful
force in changing individuals' attitudes and utilized in inter-

cultural relations.

Education for Group Work

 

The first sequence of graduate courses on group work were
offered by The School of Applied Social Sciences at Western Reserve
University in 1923. Prior to this date, those interested in receiving
education and experience in group work were directed to agencies
working with groups such as social settlements, recreation centers,
and play grounds, and to courses offered on play ground management
and recreation. Schools of social work, while desirous of students
having experiences with groups, generally considered group work as
something that could not or should not be taught in a university
setting. This is illustrated in a report on social work education
written in 1915.

Of these three general types of clinical activities (case work,
group work, and community organization) social work with
groups is the most elementary. It demands sufficient skill

to justify the requirement of practice work under supervision,
but it approximates so closely the non-professional activities
in the social work field with which students are usually
familiar, that they find little difficulty in adjusting them—
selves to the groups assigned to them . . . . The experience
of schools of social work . . . indicates that group work
possesses too little educational value to be given much
emphasis . . . . With few exceptions, clinical work with
groups will have a very small place in professional courses
except in so far as it fits into activities in connection

89

with training in community organization (i.e., social
settlements, community centers, play ground associations

).18

In the years before social group work became a course or
a curriculum in a school of social work, it was viewed customarily
in terms of its setting rather than its methodology or its practice,
and those working with groups were identified with the agency in
which they were associated. For example, those individuals working
in settlement houses were "settlement workers," while those working
in YMCA's were "Y" secretaries. With the establishment of the
National Recreation Association in 1906, the titles "playground
director" and "recreation worker" came to have recognition. In the
same year, the New York School of Philanthropy offered a course of
study that prepared students for positions as head workers, and
assistants in social settlements and other social and religious
organizations. By 1913 a full course of study for playground and
recreation workers was instituted.19 Similarly, the St. Louis
School of Social Economy, in 1911, offered a one semester course
titled, "Gymnastics in Athletics, Games and Folk Dances" followed
by the course "Neighborhood and Group Work." In the latter, focus
was on training students to work with groups in settlements and
social centers.

One of the major precursors to social group work education

was the recreation curriculum directed by Neva Boyd at the Chicago

 

18Education For Social Work, Reprinted from the Repgrt of the

 

Commissioner of Education For the Year Ended June 30, 1915 (WashThgton,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1915), pp. 345-348.

19Elizabeth G. Meier, History of the New York School of
Social Work (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954), p. 23.

 

90

School of Civics and Phi1anthropy.20

A kindergarten teacher by
training, Miss Boyd was thoroughly convinced that the spirit of any
group came from the interaction of its members, and it was this
spirit which provided substance from which the group derived lasting
benefits from their experiences together. If a worker was to be
effective, it was essential that he know how to help a group develop
its own program rather than to superimpose a series of activities
unrelated to the cultural milieu of the members of the group.
According to Miss Boyd, it was the role of the worker to help the
group develop its "natural spirit" rather than fitting the members
into a predetermined system.

A statement published in 1922 about the functions, qualifi-
cations and training of social group workers summarizes the need and
opportunities for social group work training which existed just
prior to the formal institution of the first group work course.

The group worker must understand the psychology of the group,
must be able to conduct the kinds of activities which groups
can do and enjoy doing, and must have that identifiable 'group
leadership' quality which can make an often haphazard collec-
tion of individuals a live, coherent group. It is hard to
define these qualities, hard to isolate the technique, yet
there is a skill which grows with practice, which has been
acquired under certain conditions, and without which a suc-
cessfully, constructively active group cannot be conducted.
As has been suggested, much of the group work lies in the
field of leisure-time activities, where it benefits the indi-
viduals through recreation, self-expression, physical devel-

opment, mental improvement and character building. The
group worker must therefore have special equipment, such as

 

20Paul Simon, Play and Game Theory in Group Work: A
Collection of Papers bypNeva Leona Boyd (Chicago: UniVersity of
Illinois, 1971), pp.Tl-l9.

 

 

91

ability to direct activities, teach games, lead group singing,
coach dramatics or teach handicrafts. He may, however, only
organize clubs and stimulate them to activity; they themselves
can conduct . . . .

Training for the group work technique has not yet been well-
developed. Besides entering the work through study in the
training schools for social workers, there is the possibility
of apprenticeship training. There are few opportunities in
settlements for resident positions which offer definite
training and in addition provide board and room. However,
because of the small number of these training opportunities
and because most of the paid positions in group work require
more maturity and life experience than the person just graduated
from college possesses, many positions are filled by people
from other fields of social work who have demonstrated as
volunteers a capacity for group leadership.21

Similar to other universities during the 1920's, the first
course on group work offered by Western Reserve University was
intended to afford training for positions of playground director.

For an academic year, a range of field experiences "under supervision"

was offered with students placed in such agencies as social settle-

ments, the Department of Public Welfare, and the Humane Society.

In addition to field practice, students were required to take such

courses as "Normal Demands of Childhood," and "The Philosophy,

History, Theory and Practice of Play."22
In 1923 the Cleveland Girl's Council, a coordinating agency

of girls' organizations, pressed the School of Applied Social Sciences

at Western Reserve University to develop a course in group service.

 

2lsocial Work: An Outline of Its Professional Aspects
(New York: American Association 6f Social Workers, 1922), pp. 13-15.

22School of Applied Spcial Sciences: A Graduate Profes-
sional School of Western Reserve University in the City of Clevéland,
1916-1917, Western Reserve University Annual, p. 31. Catalogue
p. 31.

 

 

92

The course was to provide training for men and women interested in
working with groups in the Cleveland area. In the fall of that
year a training course in group service work was offered. By design
it set out to
. train workers in the principles and methods of dealing
with groups through club and class leadership, through pro-
motion of activities and administrative work in social
settlements, community centers, young men's and young
women's organizations whose purposes are to give direction
to the gives of their members through their group associa-
tions.2
A growing concern in the 1920's among those practitioners
working with groups was how to provide continuity of service when
there was staff turnover. Linked to this was the desire for teaching
records, similar to the ones already in use by caseworkers, to teach
group work. Under the guidance of Clara Kaiser, a number of Western
Reserve's faculty began to meet periodically with several group
leaders to develop a system of recording. By 1930 a set of records
was published "for the use and criticism of teacher and group

workers."24

The records were samples from recent student social
workers in field placement at the University Neighborhood Center, a
university teaching center, from 1926 to 1930. Through the records,

Kaiser attempted to develop a form of recording which would describe

 

23Sara Maloney, Develppment of Groungork Education in
Social Work Schools in U.S.TlunpubliEhed Ph.D. dissertation, School
of Applied Social Science, Western Reserve University, 1963), p. 114.

24Clara A. Kaiser, The Group Records of Four Clubs at the
University Neighborhood Centers (School of Appliéd Social’Sciences,
Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, copyright 1930).

 

 

 

93

the important facts in the organization and development of a given
group.

Concurrent to the study and use of records conducted at
the Neighborhood Center was the research on group behavior held at
a camp outside Cleveland. Referred to as the Wawokiye Camp Experi-
ment, fifty-one different boys were given a camping experience with
the goal of doing research on group work and gaining new insights
into the problems of boys. The findings of the research published
by Wilber Newsteller, the director of Camp Wawokiye, Marc Feldstein
and Theodore Newcomb in 1938 dealt with the concepts of bond, inter-
action, and status and demonstrated that the needs of individuals
could be fulfilled and people could grow individually through group

25 The research served to focus attention more sharply

associations.
on the individual in the group, his adjustment to the social situa-
tion and the group worker's role in relation to the individual
members. With this delineation, work with small, stable groups,
more than ever, was seen as a way of realizing the larger goal of

a more democratic, humanitarian society for all people. The major
contribution of Newsteller's work was the demonstration that experi-
mental research could be done in "natural settings" and that
phenomena of groups could be studied and documented.

The introduction of a social group work sequence into the

curricula of an increasing number of schools, after the example of

 

25Wilber I. Newstetter, Marc J. Feldstein and Theodore M.
Newcomb, Group Adjustment: A Study in Experimental Sociology
(Cleveland: School of Applied Social Sciences, Western Reserve
University, 1937).

 

94

Western Reserve University, was thought by many as premature in the
light of the prevalent state of knowledge of social group work as a
method in social work. As late as 1934, Philip Klein said, without
expectation of contradiction, that of the four "technological
divisions of social work, only social casework had received
"reasonably adequate discussion in the professional literature."
Group work, preventive and educational work, and community organiza-
tion, on the other hand,

. . although clearly differentiated in practice, in the
distribution of personnel in the curriculum provisions of
professional schools and in meetings, conferences, special
associations and committees, still lack comprehensive formula-
tion.2

In spite of this concern, there was a steady growth of
group work courses in schools of social work. The Committee on
Current Practices and Problems in Professional Education of the
American Association for the Study of Group Work, which made a study
of available training programs in 1938, found that thirty-three
schools were offering at least one or two graduate courses in social
group work. In twenty-three of these schools, the courses were

taken in conjunction with supervised field work practice.27

 

26Philip Klein, "Social Work," The Encyclopedia of the
Social Sciences, ed. by Edwin R. A. Seligman, (New York: The
Macmillan Co., 1934), Vol. 14, p. 169.

27Ann Elizabeth Neely, "Current Practices and Problems in
Professional Education for Group Work,“ Main Currents in Group Work
Thought: Proceedings of the A.A.S.G.W 1940, ed. by Harry K. Eby,
(New York: AmeriEan Association for the Study of Group Work,
Association Press, 1941), p. 58.

 

 

 

 

95

Movements in Search of a Method

 

By the year 1920, the settlement movement was thirty years
old and recognized as being part of the urban scene. Public recrea-
tion, after the establishment of the first playground in 1885, had
won wide recognition in World War I as an essential service and was
making steady progress. The adult education movement was developing
into a regular part of the public school system, and the public
library. 0f the youth serving agencies, the YMHA's and the YWHA's,
the YMCA's and the YWCA's were all organized national movements with
considerable staff. Although most of the early pioneers had died,
their administrators were well established and their staffs were
growing.

Volunteers were an important part of the organizations;
increasingly however, agencies began to employ professional workers.
Professional and inservice training of some sort was beginning in
many agencies; experience was accumulating; national conferences
were stimulating technical discussions. The consciousness of common
problems and the clarifying of the issues as met in daily practice
had created among professional workers a "felt need."

In reflecting on the changing perspectives on groups and
the need for better trained workers, Coyle wrote:

It is no accident that when our movements--settlements,
pub1ic recreation, YMHA's, YWHA's, YMCA's and YWCA's--
began to concern themselves with methods, that concern
inevitably leads them into questions about human rela-
tions. It turns up at that point for the same reason that
similar concerns in worker's education, management, educa-

tion lead to the same question. The wider reasons for this
lie in our social scene. Urban living, mechanized industry,

96

mass commercialized recreation, impersonal education--all

the more determining aspects of life--act to squeeze out

the essential human response, the intimate relation of one

person to his own immediate group. Social relations,

natural and inevitable in the small town of our fore-

fathers, must be consciously preserved in our society.

The need of human beings for a rich fare of human contacts

and responses in a real element in all of our groups, club-

rooms and classrooms, recreation centers and playgrounds.

The doors of our agencies have stood open now for fifty to

sixty years. As we have worked within those clubrooms we

have been forced to recognize that, when certain people

acted as leaders, the groups were not only more fun for

the participants but that more people got more out of them.

When others led them, the groups were arid, mechanical,

sometimes sentimental, occasionally, actuallydemoralizing.28

Most of the workers were college trained and some of them

had training in schools of social work. As these workers came to
know each other, there was a ferment of discussion around two major
discoveries. First, it was discovered that workers in a variety of
agencies had a great deal in common and that the major component of
that common experience lay in their experience with groups. Out of
this came the widespread use of the term social group work, and the
development in a number of cities of interest groups focused on work
with groups. The second discovery was that what was common to all
the groups was that in addition to the activities in which the group
engaged, they involved a network of relationships between the members
and the worker, between the group as a whole and the agency and
neighborhood in which it lived. This combination of relationships
was called the group process, and the realization produced the search

for deeper insights into these relationships, the attempt to

 

28Grace Coyle, Group Experience and Democratic Values (New
York: The Womens Press, 1947), p. 62.

 

97

describe them and to understand their dynamics. Commenting on this

Coyle wrote,

It was for those involved in this search a period of excite-
ment and ferment, of social discovery and of deepened insight
as we tried to clarify both our philosophy and its aims and
values and our methods of dealing with groups. It is perhaps
sufficient to say . . . that by 1935 enough people in cities
and agencies across the country had become involved that
there inevitably began a period of formulation.29

Thus, it was no surprise that Margaretta Williamson found

30

in her study the Social Worker in Group Work, published in 1929,

that while there was not a clearly defined homogeneous form because
of divergence in method and motive, there was "evidence of a growing
awareness of common professional ground--a recognition of a similar

philosophy, a convergence of training and technique, some interchange

of personnel, and a tendency toward exchange of experience . . . .
She went on to say:

Workers are seeking the development of the individual to his
fullest capacity and encouraging more satisfactory relations
between the individual and his environment . . . . Group work
concerns itself with service toward individuals in a group,
brought together through common interests and guided by means
of suitable and congenial activities toward a well rounded
life for the individual; and for the group, a cooperative
spirit and acceptance of social responsibility.

Grou work undertakes to guide the group life . . . main-
tainEing] that normal and satisfying group activities tend
to develop in the individual a richer personality that is
emotionally sound and effective in its adjustment to other
people . . . [and] that group life is the means of passing
on the social patterns, customs and conventions by which
society is organized. The group director is trained in
activities and processes thought to be developmental to

 

291b1d., p. 65.

30Margaretta Williamson, Social Worker in Group Work
(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1928).

98

those with whom he is dealing. He meets leisure-time needs
by socially minded leadership. He seeks to direct activity
into constructive channels . . . . He desires the individual
to experience situations calling for character—forming
decisions . . . . He lays a foundation for responsible
citizenship by encouraging participation in self-regulatory
groups. He cultivates the friendship of the individual and
seeks to share his problems and achievements . . . .3]

Due, to a large degree, to the development of group work
curricula in schools of social work, questions began to be raised
as to whether the base was in the area of education, recreation,
or social work. Social casework had gone through a similar struggle
and it was strongly felt by many caseworkers that anything lacking
psychological dynamic grounding was not appropriate for the social
work profession. Others, such as Mary Richmond, felt that casework
and group work were closely related. At the National Conference
of Social Work in 1920 she presented the following:

This brings metx>the only point upon which I can attempt to
dwell at all, to a tendency in modern casework which I seem
to have noted with great pleasure. It is one which is full
of promises, I believe, for the future of social treatment.
I refer to the new tendency to view our clients from the
angle of what might be termed small group psychology.
Halfway between the minute analysis of the individual situa-
tion with which we are all familiar in casework and the kind
of sixth sense of neighborhood standards and backgrounds
which is developed in a good social settlement there is a
field as yet almost unexplored.32

In spite of these remarks, there is little evidence to sug-

gest that there was participation by social caseworkers in the process

 

“Ibid., p. 7.

 

32Mary Richmond, "Some Next Steps in Social Treatment,"
reprint in The Long;Yiew (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1930),
pp. 487-488.

 

99

of social change, other than on an individual-by-individual basis.
This emphasis upon the individual and consequent refusal to face
social and economic facts reflected the social worker's new pre-
occupation with psychiatry and psychoanalysis and also the con-
servative and economic climate of the post-war years. The
conviction, deeply rooted in the soil of American individualism,
that moral inadequacy lay at the root of most problems of poverty
and dependency was now reinforced by an over-emphasis upon psy-
chological inadequacy.

Those social workers working with groups often found
greater camaraderie with members of other disciplines than with
members of their own profession. The common denominator for all
who called themselves "group worker" was a conviction of the value
of group work as a medium for individual development and about the
need to study the dynamics of interaction in order to teach what
group work was and the skill necessary to its performance.

Those working with groups felt the need to share ideas,
beliefs, and experiences with others working with groups. In
November of 1933, this urge found expression in the Ligonier Con-
ference on group work held in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. During the
conference, committees were organized for the purpose of examining
research techniques for group work, training processes, formulation
of standards, and the examination of recent factors of social change
which had implications for group work. One important result of this
two day meeting was the Association for the Study of Group Work

which was founded in 1936.

100

The 1935 National Conference of Social Work

 

Prior to 1935, there had been no formal papers dealing with
group work presented at the National Conference of Social Work. A
number of the individuals who had been present at the Ligonier Con-
ference petitioned the Conference for a social group work section
to be instituted at the 1935 meeting to be held in Montreal. This
was granted and papers on group work were called for, both from edu-
cators and practitioners. The topics of those papers accepted for
presentation centered around such issues as defining group work,
working with those who had special needs, the contribution of research
and community studies to group work, and coordination of group work_
agencies, especially as it related to public and private agencies.

Of those papers presented at the Conference, a paper
delivered by Grace L. Coyle provided a significant achievement for
this initial meeting. It was the only presentation to receive the
Pugsley Award. This honor gave reflected recognition to social
group work and to the School of Applied Social Science at Western
Reserve where Miss Coyle had been a faculty member for less than

nine months.33

 

33Mary E. Hurlbutt, Chairman, "The Pugsley Award," Proceed-
ings of the National Conference of Social Work (Chicago, 111.: The
University of Chicago Press, 1935), p. vii. iTThe Editorial Committee
was unanimous in judging Dr. Coyle's paper on 'Group Work and Social
Change' to have made the most important contribution to the subject
of social work at the conference of 1935. Dr. Coyle discusses the
group process as a 'significant mode of social action in the con-
temporary world. Social participation today requires not simply
relation to the state but an assumption of responsibility to various

group relations. Hence, the opportunity of group work as an

 

101

W. I. Newstetter delivered the first paper to the section

with the question, "What is Social Group Work?"34

pointing up the
necessity of distinguishing between group work as a field, group
work as a process, and group work techniques. Newstetter defined
group work as a "process" that focused on the "development and
adjustment of an individual through voluntary group association
and the use of this association as a means of furthering desirable
social ends." These other social ends included cooperation, social
legislation, peace, a planned economy, social attitudes, and love
of country.

Newstetter forcasted that the day would come when curricula
in schools of social work would be changed because the objectives of
casework, group work and community organization would be nearly
identical and it would be discovered that the techniques of the three
models had many similarities. He acknowledged that his definition
of group work set it apart from casework, which focused primarily on
the individual in a one-to-one relationship. He called attention to
the new experimental efforts in casework such as dealing with
families as a group over a period of time. Newstetter declared:

The acceptance of group workers into the fraternity of social
work bears testimony to the broadening base of social work

 

educational force for social change. The theme is handled creatively,
so that it becomes directly applicable to practice, and is at the
same time, serenely rooted in a wider cultural perspective.'"

34W. I. Newstetter, "What Is Social Group Work," in
Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work, 1935 (Chicago:
The UniVersity of Chicago Press,*l935), p. 291.

 

102

and an emphasis on generic concepts. It can be partially
explained by the need felt by caseworkers for more adequate
treatment resources. It is being increasingly recognized
that both caseworkers and group workers have much to give
each other, and that generic social work can only be achieved
to the extent that the contributions of both are focused upon
problems demanding application of both methods.35

Roy Sorenson, noting the relatively few differences between
group work and casework predicted their emergence into an integrated
method.

The group worker is talking about individualizing the
program, recognizing the uniqueness of personality, and
understanding more about the social history and family of
group members with socilization needs. The concept of
'guidance' has developed within group work agencies to
the extent that a literature, personnel and conference
structure has appeared. The Boston Y.W.C.A. has four
trained interviewers, an education guidance person, a
vocational guidance person and a social psychiatric worker
to provide individualized services to those who come for
group activity.36

Caseworkers, according to Sorenson, were recognizing the possibilities
of the group as part of casework process, with the group used as a
means of treating some types of personality adjustment. However,
group work was at the stage of elaboration critically in need of
definitions, terminology, record forms and professional recognition.37
Two of the papers dealt with the use of groups as a vehicle

for the treatment of physical and mental illness. Anne Smith reported

on her work with children in a medical hospital. It was her

 

35Ibid., p. 299.

36Roy Sorenson, "Case Work Integration: Its Implication
for Community Plannin ," in Proceedings of the National Conference
of Social Work, 1935 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1935), p. 311.

37

 

 

Ibid., p. 313.

103

observation that many of the children viewed their illness as
punishment for something they had done. Through the use of groups,
a climate of trust and reassurance was developed. "Like a stranger
in a foreign land who suddenly hears his own language, the child
reaches out to play as an assurance of friendliness in a bewildering
situation."38
The importance of play was also emphasized by Neva Boyd

in a paper on the use of groups in the treatment of the mentally ill,
delinquent girls, and the retarded. Goals in these experiments
centered on helping children and adults experience the opportunity
of planning their own leisure time; encouraging initiative rather
than superimposing ideas; minimizing rivalry and competition between
groups and group members; and introducing

. . activities which hold the greatest possibilities for

growth and directing them in such a way that the potential-

ities of the individual, however limited, are called into

action [so that] a fuller utilization of the individual's

powers may be accomplished, and a more harmonious life

achieved. 9

While the majority of papers presented stressed the need

for group workers to direct their efforts toward the same objective

as caseworkers, there was a small minority which argued that group

 

38Anne Smith, "Group Play in a Hospital Environment," in
Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work, 1935 (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1935), p. 346.

39Neva Boyd, "Group Work Experiments in State Institutions
in Illinois," in Proceedings of the National Conference of Social
Work, 1935 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1935),
p. 340.

 

 

 

104

work should not align itself with social work. Bowman, identifying
himself as a social worker opened his paper with the challenge:

This paper will not be pleasing to those who think that

group work is primarily social work; or that it is a new

field that needs the techniques the people have previously

acquired; or that it opens up areas for social workers in

which they can extend their usefulness without laboriously

learning new ways; or that it neatly supplements case work

and combined with the latter, gives an easy comfortable way

of encompassing mentally the whole field of organized effort

to serve people.40
Bowman went on to say that group work was not a job of rehabilita-
tion nor a service to those who asked for help, nor a social service
like casework. Rather, group work was a social mechanism perfectly
competent people utilize to achieve their own ends. To the extent
that it was used by social workers to serve groups of underpriv-
ileged persons or those who were physically or mentally ill, it
was merely an adaptation.41

Arthur Swift, Director of Field Work at Union Seminary,

questioned the tendency to think that anyone could lead a club,
maintaining that without adequately trained and professionally
competent leaders, group work could not come into its own. While
recognizing the value of the volunteer leader in certain situations,
he believed that professionally competent leaders should carry the
major responsibility for group work. He discussed as essentials

of training in group work:

 

, 40LeRoy E. Bowman, "Dictatorship, Democracy, and Group
Work in America," in Proceedings of the National Conference of Social

 

Work, 1935 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1935), p. 382.
41

 

Ibid., p. 386.

105

Field work is the observation and leadership of groups under
skilled supervision, supplemented by discussions and lectures
dealing with the place of group work in the field of social
work and of social history, the underlaying philosophy of
group work, the contributions to it of sociology and of psy-
chology, educational, social, and individual, the place of
group work in a program of social action, and the acquiring
of skills in the conduct of group programs.

A reoccurring theme that ran through the section was the
use of groups as a way of strengthening democracy, 3 concern to become
more frequently articulated as events in Europe spread to America,
fostering fascist and communist ideologies under the guise of pro-
viding a quick solution to complex social problems. Grace Coyle's
paper "Group Work and Social Change," best exemplified this posi-
tion.43 She urged the participants to examine the quality of the
group effort which they were providing. Did it allow for democratic
participation or, instead, foster a "dependency upon authoritative
leadership." To Coyle, it was the responsibility of group work to
transmit cultural heritage to individuals and for its reevaluation
at those points in which it is not adequate to meet the new circum-
stances of a rapidly changing time. The group worker could contribute
in several ways.

(1) In the first place he can encourage and develop social
interests within his own groups. This takes skill and

insight, but it can be done. This will often culminate in
the group participating in social action as it sees fit.

 

42Arthur Swift, "The Essential for Group Leadership," in
Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work, 1935 (Chicago:

The University of Chicago Press, 1935), p. 365.
43Grace Coyle, "Group Work and Social Change," in Proceed-

ings of the National Conference of Social Work, 1935 (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1936), p. 393.

 

106

The educational process in this line cannot stop short of
experience in social action if it is to be effective.

(2) He can help members of this agency, as they mature,

to find their place in the organized life of the community,
in those social action groups through which their collective
interests are finding expression. (3) He can see that pro-
vision is made in the agency for the free discussion of the
basic economic and social conflicts which are so crucial to
adequate solution of the present crisis.

Group Work for Theraputic Ends

 

The first documented utilization of group work for thera-
putic purposes was begun in 1918 when the Chicago State Hospital
for the mentally ill established an experimental recreation program.45
The work was directed by Viggo Bovbjberg, a man trained in Denmark
in gymnastics, two women trained in recreation, and a second man
trained on the job. The choice of activities was determined by the
recreation staff after consultation with the ward physician. While
wards of patients averaging about nine hundred were selected with
a whole range of psychiatric disturbances represented, it was found
by the workers that gymnastic exercises were valuable in working
with both "excitable" and extremely apathetic patients. The patients
were brought to an improvised gymnasium in groups of approximately
sixty and given a forty-five minute period of marching to piano
music and easily executed exercises. Once it was felt the patients

could handle this type of activity, they were advanced into more

complex patterns of activities such as games and group dances.

 

441b1d., p. 404.

45Boyd, p. 339.

107

Those with special skills were asked to assist the workers.
For example, those patients who were able to play the piano were
invited to play for the marching while more stable patients were
used to set the pattern for those who tended to wander out of line.
It was believed that if the severely ill patients watched the worker
as well as the more stable patients, they would be influenced to

participate. None, it was reported, was ever coerced but all the

patients were encouraged to participate.46

Another early experiment in group work was carried on at
the Geneva Training School for Girls, a reform school for delinquent
girls in Illinois. In 1932 the school employed a group worker to

work with the girls with the goal of giving them an opportunity to

47 According to Boyd, the program:

plan their leisure time.
. as ultimately evolved by the girls and the group worker

created an unprecedented esprit de corps and culminated in a
satisfying climax on the last night when all the girls gathered
around the campus and entertained each other with activities
especially prepared for the occasion, closing the program by
singing in unison songs familiar to them all. Good will and
joy prevailed, at least temporarily, throughout the group.
The whole project was safeguarded against rivalry and competi-
tion; no mention was made of one cottage excelling another, no
prizes were offered, and no special privileges given to the
'good' girls or withheld from the 'bad' ones. This intensive
experience in cooperative planning required considerable
organization of the cottage groups and made a good beginning
in co-ordinating the girls into working units easily made
permanent.

 

 

46Ibid., p. 341.
47

Ibid., p. 343.

48Ibid., p. 341.

108

The units evolved into clubs and the group worker met with the girls

regularly for the purpose of facilitating rather than restricting

their freedom or superimposing her ideas upon them. Although the

worker's principal function was the establishment of recreation,

the very nature of the activity forced the girls to deal with

behavior problems arising among the various members. During one

of the meetings, the group worker was asked not to attend the meeting.

Another staff member, curious about this, inquired into the reason

for this and was told that "one of the girls had dOne something too

bad for her to know about it, and they were taking it up in the

club to see what ought to be done."49
During the summer of 1929 the Illinois Institute of Juvenile

Research introduced a program into the Lincoln Illinois State School

and Colony, an institution for the retarded. The project had the

twofold purpose of creating happier conditions for the children and

carrying on research having to do with the treatment of mental defec-

tives. It was the feeling of those in the project that recreation

for mentally retarded children did more than merely occupy their time.

By selecting those activities which held the greatest possibility

for growth and directing them in such a way that the potentialities

of the individual are called into action, a fuller utilization of the

individual's powers could be accomplished and a more harmonious, con-

structive social life achieved. It was the conclusion of the

researcher that the children quarreled less, played more happily

 

491bid., p. 342.

109

and resourcefully together undirected, worked more willingly,
attempted to escape from the institution less frequently, and were
less destructive of the clothes and equipment furnished by the

institution.50

Summar

During the years between 1920 and 1936, group work made
greater strides than in any other period of its history. In this
sixteen-year span it was to evolve from being a collection of pat-
terns to that of becoming a recognized method of helping linked
to social work. Those working with groups began to write of their
experiences and communication between group workers in various fields
began to occur.

Progressive education and the writings of John Dewey had
significant influence on group work during the 1920's and 1930's.
With its emphasis on learning by participation and the use of the
small group as means of learning, it offered an effective way of
working with children. The emphasis upon interest as the necessary
foundation for learning, upon creative rather than imitative experi-
ence, and the developing of social attitudes illuminated the value
of informal education within leisure time settings.

Small group research also began to have impact on work
with groups. Moreover, this research began to document clearly the

characteristics and phenomena that group workers suspected to be

 

50Ibid., p. 343.

110

present within groups. Social scientists such as Lewin, Lippitt,
Moreno, and Shaw with their interest in face-to-face groups and in
interpersonal relations contributed to a more penetrating analysis
of the group behavior in which group leaders were working.

By the early 1920's, Western Reserve University was offer-
ing a sequence of group work course. Prior to this time, those
classes offered that related to working with groups were focused
on preparing participants for specific jobs in the community such
as YMCA secretary or settlement director. With the development of
the sequence, the sc0pe was broadened to cover work with groups in
various settings.

In spite of the fact that group work was closely linked to
the recreation movement, adult education, and the youth serving
agencies, by the 1935 National Conference of Social Work it began
to be seriously considered a part of social work. With few excep-
tions, the paper presented at this historic conference affirmed the
similarities between the values and goals of social work and group
work, and supported a closer relationship.

In the early days group work was not geared toward indi-
viduals with specific problems. Group members were helped toward
desirable social adjustment through the use of experiences that
were essentially educative. Those individuals with severe emotional
problems who joined the group were incorporated as much as possible
along with the other members or referred to a casework agency or
psychiatric clinic. By the 1930's the group work method began to

be used with juvenile delinquents, the mentally ill, and the mentally

111

retarded. Initially, emphasis was on the result of the activity

on the life and behavior of the participant. Only in later years

was there to be conscious use of group relations for treatment.
******************************

This period ended with group work being used as a means of
socializing the individual, of maintaining a democratic society, and
for the first time as a way of ameliorating maladaptive behavior.

In the following period, 1937-1955, the three approaches were to
become consolidated and group work was to become entrenched as a

part of the social work profession.

CHAPTER 5

EXPANSION AND PROFESSIONALISM
1937-1955

The American Scene

 

By 1937, the United States was slowly emerging from the
depths of the Depression. Forces leading to another European war
were gathering almost unnoticed by Americans deeply concerned with
their own economic problems, trusting in the protection of their
nation's geographic location, and psychologically committed to
staying out of future European involvements. As the foreign situa-
tion worsened, the domestic economy began to improve, stimulated
in part by the war and the defense demands on the nation's industrial
capacity. By 1941, the isolationist philosophy came to an abrupt
end with the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.

Unemployment, the key problem of the thirties, faded into
the background. Labor scarcity now became the problem. Industrial
and agricultural production demanded all the manpower that could be
spared from the armed services, and war prosperity replaced the
earlier depressed economy. The additional manpower came from the
normal growth of the population, employment of older men, women
previously housewives, and young people of school age not formally

seeking employment. Increased population movement to industrial

112

113

centers resulted in crowded housing conditions and disruption of
previous living patterns. Together, these accumulated tensions

contributed to individual, family, and community changes as well
as broader societal changes.

The importance of mental health was brought into focus
by the number of men rejected or discharged from the armed forces
because of emotional problems. If more than a million and a half
men were rejected because of neuropsychiatric difficulty, many
asked, what similar problems existed in civilian life? It was quite
evident that more services would have to be developed that allowed
for working with larger numbers of people than was possible through
individual psychotherapy.

As the war came to an end in 1945, the nation was faced
with the change of a society based on a war economy to one based on
peace. The country had to deal with the return of millions of troops,
the need for more domestic goods, and America's new position in
foreign affairs in which it now found itself. In addition to these,
it had to handle the guilt and fear over the use of atomic weapons
and had to live with the tensions of a "cold war." Indications that
changes in the social and economic patterns were being effected
could be seen in the high mobility of the population and the increased
number of women in the labor force. Large social problems were
apparent in the lack of adequate housing, the high divorce rate, and
increased rates of juvenile and adult crimes.

Another significant change became apparent in the 1950's,

as primarily middle-class groups began moving from large metropolitan

114

areas to the suburbs. They were often replaced in the metropolitan
areas by lower economic groups compelled to live in blighted slum
areas and left with a need for increased social services. One
result of this was an increase in racial tensions, with a greater

demand for better schools and services by the nonwhite population.

Developments in Social Work

 

With the development of the public assistance provisions
of the Social Security Act, there was a great demand for personnel
to administer the programs. Trained social workers were usually
placed in supervisory or training positions; however, they were
available for only a limited number of the thousands of positions.
Social workers who functioned in clinical settings as psychiatric
social workers found their jobs in jeopardy because of the realloca-
tion of funds to positions in public assistance agencies. The
private agencies with their meager budgets had little to offer in
the way of environmental help and found it necessary to become
skilled in the art of listening.

The demands for social workers for war services followed
quickly, and again trained caseworkers tended to be placed in
leadership positions to guide untrained workers in the administration
of services. These workers and those they had supervised provided
services in several areas: services centering around the soldier
and his family, such as counseling and determining facts about
dependency; services involving the broad field of postwar construc-

tion; and the continuation of day-to-day services which had become

115

an integral part of most communities. In the latter, the disruption
of family life, increase in divorces, and increase in the number of
unwed mothers provided for a more-than-average load for casework
services.

Two major trends in the content of social casework became
visible during this period. The first derived its philosophy and
method from the theory of personality which was developed by
Sigmund Freud and his followers, and applied the principles of
"dynamic psychiatry" to the casework approach. COnscious as well
as unconscious influences were regarded as determining human values
and self-control. Diagnostic casework accepted personality organi-
zation as a composite of differentiated and interacting elements
which reacted on each other but which were also influenced by the
people in one's environment and by the social and economic condi-
tions in which one lived.

The second major trend was toward the functional approach,
based on the writings of Otto Rank, and centered around the assump-
tion of an organizing force, the "will" in human personality.
Functional casework referred to its function as the "helping process“
and did not use the diagnostic term "treatment." In this process
the client directed himself toward a change of attitude while the
functional caseworker helped him to release and redirect his energies
toward self-responsibility and self-acceptance.

In 1947, a committee of the Family Service Association was
formed to clarify the similarities and differences of the two schools

of thought. The committee reported in 1950 that "because of the

116

nature and profundity of the differences in philosophy, purpose and
method, the committee is in agreement that the two orientations
could not be reconciled." The members of the committee expressed
the Opinion that the experience in working together had been pro-
ductive because of the greater knowledge gained about each

approach.1

Beginning of a Professional Organization

 

The National Conference of Social Work in 1935 and 1936
drew together people of diverse backgrounds, whose common interest
in work with small groups provided the base for continuing associa-
tion. By the end of the 1936 meeting held in Atlantic City, a
group of educators and practitioners were welded together into an
organization to foster the education for the practice of group work
through the production of literature on practice, and the estab-
lishing of local study groups in various cities in the United States
and Canada. The American Association for the study of Group Work
(AASGW) was formed, with membership open to anyone interested in
group work as "an emerging profession."2

The AASGW, in keeping with its purpose, published reports

of local study groups and the proceedings of annual meetings. In

1938, a collection of papers written by educators and practitioners

 

1A Comparison of Diagnosis and Functional Casework Concepts

 

(New York: Family Service Association of America, 1950), p. 3.
2
back cover.

Group Work, 1939 (New York: Association Press, 1939),

 

117

for professional meetings was drawn together into a single volume

entitled New Trends in Group Work.3 A year later, a bimonthly

 

pamphlet called The Group in Education-Recreation-Social Work began

 

to be published. These publications reflected the wide divergency
of individuals interested in group work with articles written by
educators, theologians, and recreation workers, as well as social
workers.

With this wide divergency of individuals came continued
confusion as to exactly what profession group work belonged. It
was certainly in its various aspects a theraputic tool, a reform
movement, an educational method, a field of service, a small part
of the recreation movement, and closely akin to the methods and
values of social welfare agencies. To some people it was none of
these, but instead something quite new with an identity of its own.
To these people it was viewed as a unique and highly refined skill
limited to the worker functioning in small groups of people in inti-
mate psychological interaction, with the goal of helping the group
members to work together on solving common problems. Many of the
early theory builders in group work felt that it had an identity all
its own and that a distinct profession could be established. Others
felt that it would be more advantageous to wait before making a pre-
mature or exclusive identification with one or another field of

service. In 1938, Charles Hedley wrote:

 

3Joshua Leiberman (ed.), New Trends in Group Work (New
York: Association Press, 1938).

 

118

It seems quite clear that we are not yet in the position
to decide definitely on this question of the professional
classification of informal ingroup educational recreation
work. Whether we have an independent profession or a
substantial segment of an existing profession remains to
be determined. Just as a scientist would not want to
restrict his participation to a single scientific society,
so group work educators presumably would not want to
identify themselves solely with one professional organiza-
tion or to isolate themselves from any professional
organization which operates within the area of their
social knowledge.4

One year later, Hugh Hartshorne, reporting as chairman of
the Commission on the Objectives of Group Work of the American
Association for the Study of Group Work, said, "It is probably
fortunate that the notion of group work has not settled back into
a new educational stereotype." Later, he went on to say that group
work had no objectives of its own but represented the increasing
sensitivity of agencies to the conditions under which social skills
and attitudes needed in a democracy may be expected to develop.5

In 1940, William Kilpatrick, in his book Group Education

for a Democrac , stressed the generic aspects of group work for edu-

 

cation:

The author takes responsibility here for stating his
personal opinion assisted at points by publications of
the Association, that group work is a highly new interest,
whether this goes on in school classes or in recreation
and other informal education. This group work is, how-
ever, not to be thought of as a separate field of work
but rather as a method to be used in all kinds of edu-
cational endeavor. "Group work" in this sense is just

 

4Charles Hedley, et al., A Professional Outlook on Group
Education (New York: Association Press, 1938), p. 47.

5Hugh Hartshorne, "Objectives of Group Work," in Group
Work, 1939 (New York: Association Press, 1939), p. 39.

 

119

now more or less of a movement, and as such deserves support

and success. But its success will be achieved when and to

the degree that effective working in groups has established

itself as an essential part of any adeguate education of

youth, however and wherever conducted.

It was Kilpatrick's thinking that group work should be

identified with the profession of education. He felt that although
it had many linkages with social work, a formalization of the

relationship would stunt the growth and usage of group work.

Search for a Definition

 

During the war years, the controversy over the nature and
definition of group work continued. While there were some who
agreed with Hedley that it was too early to decide definitely where
group work belonged, there were others who saw group work as a
social movement which would make the world safe for democracy and
still others who ventured the opinion that the AASGW was still "too
immature as an organization and too underdeveloped in its body of
knowledge to have much to offer to society."7

Coyle, elaborating on this last point, wrote:

In recent years there has been an unfortunate tendency to
make pronouncements on the war and postwar world as if
group workers had special expertness which qualified them
to speak. It is essential if the organization is not to

get lost in the bog of diffused and futile good intentions
to make a few distinctions. It is well to get clear that

 

6W. H. Kilpatrick, Group Education for a Democracy (New
York: Association Press, 1940).

 

7Grace Coyle, Group Experience and Democratic Values
(New York: Woman's Press, 1947), p. 95.

 

120
group work is not synonymous with recreation, nor with
general democratic advance.
In 1940, in a pamphlet entitled Group Work: Roots and

Branches, Charles Hendry defined group work as a method and process
in informal education and recreation, using voluntary association
in small groups, with individualization related to identification
with the group, with interaction among members and the leader, for
the expression and stimulation of interests, and leadership sensitive
to personal and social values.9 In the same pamphelt, Clara Kaiser
referred to the immediate need of clarifying the professional content
of the job so that there would be derived a means of transfer of pro-

10 In

fessional experience from one type of organization to another.
another article in the same pamphlet, Coyle stressed the importance
of making social action an integral part of the function of group
work.

In the National Conference of Social Work in 1942, Gertrude
Wilson emphasized the use of group work to change values of indi-
viduals and society as a whole. It was her belief that group work
was a process through which group life was influenced by a worker
who directs the process toward the accomplishment of a social goal

conceived in a democratic philosophy. Group work, according to

Wilson, was threefold: (1) it was developmental, as it provided for

 

Ibid.

 

9Group Work: Roots and Branches (1940), "Social Work

Today."

10Ibid.

121

normal social growth; (2) it was protective or corrective in that
it could be offered to people who do not have groups; and (3) it
was an instrument for achievement of socially desirable ends. By
understanding the personality of each member, the worker influenced
the process within the group and the members were helped by par-
ticipation in the process to use the group for their own growth

and development.11

Separation of Group Work and Recreation

 

As group work in the mid-1940's moved closer to social
work, many began to raise questions as to the relationship of group
work to recreation. In the group-work section meeting of the 1946
National Conference of Social Work, G. Ott Romney delivered a paper,
"The Field of Recreation," which was followed by a companion paper
by Grace Coyle, "Group Work in Recreation." Romney spoke of recrea-
tion as an end in its own right, and

. as a definable, distinguishable, identifiable some-

thing [that] suffers from inaCcurate and fragmentary
interpretation. It is frequently confused with its
dividends (as in health, education therapy, democracy,
character building and physical conditioning) and with
its methods (as in social group work) . . . . Recreation

includes everything the individual chooses to do in his
own time for the gratification of the doing . . . .12

 

HGertrude Wilson, "Human Needs Pertinent to Group Work
Services," Proceedings, National Conference of Social Work, 1942
(New York: Cdlumbia University Press).

12G. Ott Romney, "The Field of Recreation," Proceedings
of the National Conference of Social Work, 1947 (New York: Columbia
University Press), p. 196.

 

 

 

122

Coyle took this distinction a step further with the
following statement on social group work as‘a method:

Social group work arose out of an increasing awareness
that in the recreation-education activities which Went
on in groups there were obviously two dimensions--
activity including games, discussion, hikes or artistic
enterprises on one hand, and on the other, the inter-
play of personalities that creates the group process.

To concentrate on one without recognizing and dealing
with the other is like playing the piano with one hand
only. Program and relationships are inextricably inter-
twined. Social group method developed as we began to
see that the understanding and the use of the human
relations involved were as important as the understanding
and use of various types of program.13

A year later, Coyle wrote that group work has a signifi-
cant contribution to make to recreation's function of providing
enjoyable experiences. First, group work could contribute by
assisting individuals to develop more enjoyable human relations.
Second, group work could help individuals who were unable to help
themselves because of some kind of personal difficulties. Finally,
group work could contribute to the significant by-products of
recreation by assisting individuals to vitalize interest and improve

skills.14

Group Work as Part of Social Work

 

By 1946, the alignment with social work was becoming more

pronounced when the name "American Association for the Study of

 

13Grace Coyle, "Group Work in Recreation," Proceedings
of the National Conference of Social Work, 1947 (New YOrk: C01umbia
University Press).

14Grace Coyle, "Group Work: A Method in Recreation," The
Group, April 1947.

 

 

123

Group Work" was changed to "American Association of Group Workers."
The reconstructed association was described as "an organization of
professional workers” joined with the Group Work Section of the

National Conference of Social Work to develop professional standards

15

in group work. During the 1946 meeting of the American Associa-

tion of Group Work, a significant number of papers were given by
social workers. Three papers in particular stated unequivocally
that group work was a social work method. Nathan Cohen said that,
to discuss the topic "Body of Knowledge and Skills Basic to Group

Work," he had to do it from the premise that group work is "an

integral part of the social work family."16

Grace Coyle, drawing attention to the question of profes-
sional "belonging," said that group workers

. . must . . . it seems, be either educators or social
workers. When a problem persists for so long among
intelligent people, as of course we are, it is usually

a proof that we are trying to solve it by a wrong set of
assumptions. It is not an either-or proposition, and we
shall never solve it by organizing teams and instituting

a tug of war. Like all persistent problems, it has its
accreation of the irrational--old loyalties and prejudices,
an occasional vested interest and a considerable admixture

of misinformation or once good information now obsolescent.17

 

15Helen Rowe, "Report of the Central Committee," in
Toward Professional Standards, compiled by AAGW (New York: Associa-
tion Press, 1947), p. 169

16Nathan E. Cohen, "Body of Knowledge Basic to Group
Work," in Toward Professional Standards, compiled by AAGW (New York:
Association Press, 1947), p. 8.

17Grace Coyle, "0n Becoming Professional," in Toward
Professional Standards, compiled by AAGW (New York: Association
Press, 1947), p. 1.

 

 

124

According to Coyle, although group work as a method developed in
the recreation and informal education agencies, it was increasingly
being used in social-work-oriented agencies with other functions
such as children's institutions, hospitals, and churches.

Declaring that group work did come within the scope of
the social work profession, Coyle expressed the hope that

. the emerging definition of social work may define
it as involving the conscious use of social relations in
performing certain community functions, such as child
welfare, family welfare, or health services, recreation
and informal education. Casework, group, and community
organization have this common factor, that they are all
based on understanding human relations. While the specific
relations used in each are different, the underlying
philosophy and approach are the same; a respect for
personality and a belief in democracy. This we share
with case workers and expert community organization
people. It is for this reason that I believe group work
as a method falls within the larger scopg of social work
a§_a_method [sic] and as defined above.

Gertrude Wilson viewed group work as a basic method of the
profession of social work and not a field, a movement, or an agency.
Calling attention to the difficulty in delineating content for pro-
fessional education when the professional identification was so
uncertain, she felt a great deal had been accomplished in the past
decade. Wilson expressed hope that

. . by the end of another decade group workers will have
settled these basic problems, and that they will be absorbed
in advanced research in knowledge and skill in practice that
will make the group-work method more effective in helping

indinguals and groups to create a better world for all man-
kind.

 

IBIbid” p. 19.

19Gertrude Wilson, "Trends in Professional Education," in
Toward Professional Standards, compiled by AAGW (New York: Associa-
tion Press, 1947), p. 33.

 

125

In 1949, after several years of study, an AAGW committee
under the chairmanship of Grace Coyle produced a report entitled
"Definition of the Function of the Group Worker." This statement
was adopted by the AAGW and became the official description of the
function of the professional group worker:

The group worker enables various types of groups to
function in such a way that both group interaction and
program activities contribute to the growth of the indi-
vidual and the achievement of desirable social goals.

The objectives of the group worker include provision-
for personal growth according to individual capacity and
need, the adjustment of the individual to other persons,
to groups and to society, and the motivation of the indi-
vidual toward the improvement of society; the recognition
by the individual of his own rights, abilities, and dif-
ferences of others.

Through his participation the group worker aims to
effect the group process so that decisions come about as
a result of knowledge and a sharing and integration of
ideas, experiences and knowledge, rather than as a result
of domination from within or without the group.

Through experience he aims to produce those relations
with other groups and the wider community which contribute
to responsible citizenship, mutual understanding between
cultural, religious, economic or special groupings in the
community, and a participation in the constant improvement
of our society toward democratic goals.

The guiding purpose behind such leadership rests upon
the common assumptions of a democratic society; namely, the
opportunity for each individual to fulfill his capacities
in freedom, to respect and appreciate others and to assume
his social responsibility in maintaining and constantly
improving our democratic society.

Underlying the practice of group work is a knowledge
of individual and group behaVior and of social conditions
and community relations which is based on modern social
sciences.

On the basis of this knowledge the group worker con-
tributes to the group in which he works a skill in leader-
ship which enables the members to use their capacities to
the full and to create socially constructive group activi-
ties.

He is aware of both program activities and of the
interplay of personalities within the group and between the
group and its surrounding community.

126

According to the interests and needs of each, he assists
them to get from the group experience the satisfactions pro-
vided by the program activities, the enjoyment and personal
growth available through the social relations, and the
opportunity to participate as a responsible citizen.

The group worker makes conscious use of his relation to
the group, his knowledge of program as a tool and his under-
standing of the individual and of the group process, and
recognizes his responsibility both to individuals and groups
with whom he works and the larger social values he represents.

20
Although the statement is seen as being more specific about
goals and purposes desired than about systematic ways by which they
can be accomplished, it identified three components of method more
clearly than had previous statements: specifically, (1) the inter-
action between group members and between workers and members; (2) the
use of program as a tool; and (3) the interrelatedness of individuals

and the community or larger social body in which humans and the

group operate.

Industrialization and Human Relations

As in previous periods, there were individuals who were
concerned with the problems caused by the workings of an industrial
society. Of these, Elton Mayo, a Harvard professor, had the most
effect on those practicing social work and group work. Influenced
by Robert Parker, Clifford Shaw, and the writings of Emil Durkheim,
he viewed the large industrial community as being the major factor
in an increased rate of suicides, the high number of divorces, and

the growing problem of juvenile delinquency. As countries became

 

20American Association of Group Work, "Definition of the
Function of the Group Worker," mimeo, 1949.

127

industrialized, the people became susceptible to unhappy and
"obsessive personal preoccupation" because of a lack of social func-
tion and the lost desire to cooperate with other groups.

Mayo's writings on small work groups were based on his
research on the Hawthorne Plant of the Western Electric Company.
From this study came the conclusion that work output was a function
of the degree of work satisfaction, which in turn depended upon the
informal social pattern of the work group. By individuals belonging
to small groups and influencing the outcome of the groups' behavior,
they functioned at a higher level.

The task of restoration was to be the work of the indus-
trial managers who up until that time had done little more than to
create a sense of futility. Mayo's confidence in the ability of
this group was based on the Hawthorne studies and the positive
effects of a human relations approach to workers. He assumed that
managers could organize production with a minimum exercise of author-
ity and a maximum attention to the individual's work satisfaction.

The social dislocations of the time were, according to
Mayo, producing a lack of opportunities for many individuals to
acquire the social skills in the ordinary course of the maturing
process or to find satisfactory personal relations. Unless this
lack of "social skills" could be compensated for, the very survival

of industrial civilization was threatened.21

 

2IElton Mayo, The Social Problems of an Industrial Civili-
zation (Andover: Andover Press, 1945).

 

128

Influence of the War on Group Work

 

The war years had a strong impact on the development of
group work in the United States. The advent of the Nazis high-
lighted the importance of citizen participation in a democratic
society. Edward C. Lindeman, in 1939, wrote:

The roots of a democratic culture do not lie in theories
and conceptions, but rather in conduct, in experience
and its satisfactions. If these roots do not strike
deep into the "soil" of human personality, they will be
easily destroyed by their external enemies, or they will
wither away and die for want of nutrients and exercise.
Whenever in history the people have thought and felt and
lived democracy, there has been cast upon human experi-
ence a sharp luminosity. Fears were dispelled and hopes
renewed and whenever, in history, tyranny and despotism
have succeeded to power, human experience has been shadowed
by suspicion, anger, and bitterness.22

The lessons of fascist Germany served to underscore the
need for increased participation in community life, of strength that
grows in the individual and in the group from working together, and
the need for intelligent leadership in all strata of the population
and in all groups. With this came the recognition that group associa—
tion could be extremely powerful and dangerous if not used with
caution. It taught group workers, who at times had thought of group
activities as having a value in themselves, that these activities
too could be used to enslave youth as well as to help them freely

participate in society. It forced them to look deeper into human

 

22Edward C. Lindeman, "The Roots of Democratic Culture,"
The Grou (National Association for the Study of Group Work,
1939).

129

movements to learn about the unique forces within each individual
and not to rely alone on programs and group process.23
Group work was also influenced by refugees from central
European countries, many of whom came with a combined tradition
of psychoanalytic thinking and group experience that had been of
deep significance to them. Having grown up in an authoritarian
family culture, they realized the significance of voluntary group
participation to individual development. Psychoanalysis had neither
the dramatic nor the exclusive impact on them that it frequently had
on the person reared in a highly individualistic and puritan culture
such as America during the 1940's. Differing from their American
counterparts, who viewed analytic therapy as a panacea, most of the
middle Europeans saw it as one type of treatment along with many
others. In addition, these immigrants had their own painful experi—
ences in Nazi Germany and Austria, which increased their interest in
human relations.24

To many, group work offered more than a means of keeping

democracy alive; it was a way to achieve the therapeutic goals of

 

23Gisela Konopka, Social Group Work: A Helping Process
(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1963), p. 8.

24Gisela Konopka, an outstanding leader in the field of
group work, notes: "For myself, if I represent at all--at least
in some ways-~this group of immigrants, I must say that my first
encounter with social group work in 1941 was a revelation. Having
just come from a society that seemed to present an inescapable
gulf between the individual and the group--which insisted that the
individual be sacrificed to the interests of the group-—I found the
concept of individualization in and through the group exhilarating."
Ibid., p. 9.

 

130

mental hygiene. Sally Bright, in a paper entitled "Letting the
Public in on Group Work Objectives," wrote:

True, the settlement house group may not be able to affect

the Turkey and Greece situation directly; but a democratic

nation is the sum total of democratic neighborhoods and

communities and what you are doing in group work is to

give people a chance to practice the method of democracy

in their own backyards. And from a mental hygiene point

of view in a frustrated nation, you are receiving the

frustration of the citizen who can't make himself heard

in the neighborhood. It is a thrilling thing to realize,

then, that if the citizen can be heard in all the neighbor-

hoods, his collegtive voice will, in the end, have global

carrying power.2

Special services of a recreational and counseling nature

for men in the armed forces were carried out through the Red Cross,
through its military and naval posts, stations, camps, and hospitals.
Another major project was the work in the hospitals, where recrea-
tion programs had to be adapted to the physical and emotional
conditions of the patients. While this adaptation was not difficult,
it pointed up the fact to Red Cross leaders that their teachers,
recreation and physical education personnel did not have the essential
knowledge to assist the returning injured serviceman in dealing with
social problems which interfered with his rehabilitation. These
injured servicemen were initially considered "normal" people who were
rendered helpless, and sometimes hopeless, because of the environ-
mental factors at war. The adaptation also brought into focus the
use of groups as a means of helping. Many of those working with

servicemen came to realize that it was helpful for the men to be<

 

25Sally Bright, "Letting the Public in on Group Work
Objectives," The Group (October, 1948).

131

able to discuss their difficulties with the social worker on the
ward, where they were receiving treatment and could turn to their
"buddies" for support and mutual interchange in surroundings

familiar to them.26

Group Dynamics and Social Group Work

 

Group workers were significantly influenced by Kurt Lewin
and his research into group dynamics and human relations. Lewin,

a German psychologist known for his work in field theory, visited
America on a lecture tour shortly before World War II. Once out
of Germany, he accepted a visiting professorship at Harvard for

a short time and, while there, met Lawrence Hall, who was teaching
group work at Springfield College and who provided Lewin with his
first introduction to the small-group field.

Lewin's interest in group dynamics grew, in part, from his
observation of Nazi Germany, which stimulated a deep interest in
such problems as the reeducation of the Hitler youth and the changing
of anti-Semetic attitudes. His interest in the effects of the social

27 led him into research on various

climate on individual attitudes
forms of leadership. During the war he studied changing attitudes
toward food and attempted, through group methods, to persuade people

to increase their intake of such available foods as brains and

 

26Based on personal correspondence from Miss Claire
Lustman, March 5, 1974.

27A1ong with Ronald Lippitt and R. K. White.

132

kidney. While the results of these studies influenced the leadership
styles and the group structure and the group structure utilized in
club leadership, criticism was expressed by many social work leaders
that human emotions should not be the subject of experimentation.
The very valuable results of these and later studies by these men
had less effect on the use of groups in social work than they might
had there been more receptivity at the time to experimental methods
of inquiry.28
Along with several associates, Lewin went on to establish
the Research Center for Group Dynamics at M.I.T., which was later
transferred to the University of Michigan. In the summer of 1947,
the year of Lewin's death, the first National Training Laboratory
in Group Development was held at Gould Academy, in Bethel, Maine.
A central feature of the Laboratory was "basic skill training," in
which an observer reported on group processes at set intervals.
The skills to be achieved were intended to help an individual func-
tion in the role of "change agent." A change agent was thought of
as instrumental in facilitating communication and useful feedback
among participants. He was also to be a paragon who had awareness
of the need for change, was able to diagnose the probelms involved,

and could plan for change, implement the plans, and evaluate the

 

28Margaret Hartford, Groups in Social Work (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1972), p. 15.

 

133

results. To become an effective change agent, it was believed
necessary to understand the dynamics of groups.29’30

While Lewin was not directly involved in the National
Training Laboratory, his philosophy and the results of his research
were a part of the organization. This is illustrated by the gen-
eral attitude that behavior and long-term beliefs could be changed
when individuals were able to examine them closely and conclude they
were unsatisfactory. Methods of changing attitudes or retaining
them were effective, therefore, if the individuals were provided
with opportunities for discovering the negative effects these
behaviors had upon themselves and others. Only when the person
could see himself as others perceived him would his attitudes and
subsequent behavior change.

The contribution of Lewin and his associates to the devel-
opment of group theory have been tremendous both as it relates to
the experimental groups and in real-life groups pursuing long-term
tasks. At the same time, there has been resistance to their con-
tributions. This resistance was due in part to the Gestalt base.
There has also been the objection that findings from research on
experimental groups or aggregates may not be applicable to treat-

ment groups.31

 

29Miriam R. Ephraim, "Introduction," he Group, X, 2
(January, 1948), p. 3.

30Leland P. Bradford, "Human Relations Training at the
First National Training Laboratory in Group Development," The Group,
X, 2 (January, 1948), p. 4.

31Hartford, loc. cit.

134

A Change of Focus

 

By World War II, there was evidence to suggest that group
work was beginning to change its emphasis from social action and
preparation of group members for social responsibility to problems
of individual adjustment. In 1940, Ray Johns made the following
observations:

Relating young people to social change is apparently dif-
ficult to accomplish. The close identification of agency
financing with conservative community interests, combined
with the problems of discovering specific enterprises in
which young people can participate and which contribute
toward needed social change, makes participation far less
effective than Grace Coyle's challenging Pugsley Award
paper suggests may some day be possible.

In one Eastern city, 538 persons, many of them active in
group work programs have already been identified as
revealing personality difficulties. Two functions for
agencies doing group work are suggested: (1) early
recognition by staff and volunteer workers of incipient
personality problems and quick referral for proper social
treatment through well-established social work channels;
and (2) treatment as an important part of She social work
program of service for some problem cases. 3

In schools of social work, group work students were being
prepared for professional practice rather than for professional
responsibilities. Like casework students, they were becoming skill-
ful in the diagnosis which the workers meet in day-to-day practice,
but they were not being prepared to speak with knowledge and under-

standing of the wider social issues involved or with authority on

 

32Ray Johns, "An Examination of Group Work's Practices,"
Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work, 1940 (New York:
Columbia University Press), p. 560.

33Ibid., p. 557.

135

possible courses of action and development for society as a
whole.34
By the 1950's, many questioned whether the "social" was
being lost in social group work. At the 1952 Conference of Social
Work, two papers urged workers not to limit the practice of group
work to the narrow confines of individual adjustment and interaction
within the group. Willianl Bruckner said there was not enough work
being done in the social change aspect of social group work.35
Clara Kaiser stated that social purposes needed further emphasis
and urged workers to work within the limits of the 1949 definition.36
This same note was sounded again in 1955, when Nathan Cohen said
that group work practice might become too technical and lose its
historical roots and its ethical commitment. He said, "Group work
as a method or process cannot operate in a vacuum, but must be

37

within the present social scene." Cohen stated that group work

must develop ethics and keep its democratic goals.

 

34Nathan Cohen, Social Work in the American Tradition (New
York: The Dryden Press, 1958), p. 192.

35William Bruckner, "Group Work Commitment to Social
Responsibility," Proceedings of the National Conference of Social
Work, 1952 (New York: Columbia University Press), p. 52.

36Clara Kaiser, "Social Group Work Practice and Social
Responsibility," Proceedings of the National Conference of Social
Work, 1952 (New York: Columbia University Press), p. 58.

37Nathan E. Cohen, I'Implications of the Present Scene
for Social Group Work Practice," Proceedings of the National
Conference of Social Work, 1955 (New York: Columbia University
Press), p. 103.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

136

Groups in Thergpeutic Settings

 

The military provided psychiatrists, psychologists, and
social workers opportunities to communicate with each other and to
work together. It also forced the various professionals to devise
new ways of cutting down traditional detailed case histories, paper
work, and waiting lists. One of the ways of achieving this was
through group psychotherapy, which had been used before the war to
treat children. William Menninger, reflecting on social workers
using group psychotherapy in the armed services, said that it had
good potentialities for the civilian scene and saw a role for the
social worker in using it. He went on to say that social workers
in the Army had the opportunity to participate in a program of
prevention and in active treatment programs--in both, they were
concerned with groups of individuals--and that the practice of group
psychotherapy was far more extensive than individual psychotherapy.
In many instances, the social worker had the major responsibility
for conducting the group.38

Although this was met with interest by many social
workers, group workers in the more traditional fields of informal
education and recreation felt it would only detract from group work's
tasks of citizen action and service to normal youth. It also brought

into focus the question of whether group work with emotionally ill

 

38William C. Menninger, "Psychiatric Social Work in the
Army and Its Implications for Civilian Social Work," Proceedings of
the National Conference of Social Work, 1945 (New York: Columbia
University Press), p. 13.

 

 

137

individuals was group therapy. Fritz Redl, calling attention to
the problem of terminology between groups for educational and
clinical purposes, wrote:
I find many people calling "educational value" what others
would claim as "group therapy," and the other way around.
. . . By "educational," I mean all those cases where an
existing growth trend is helped to develop without anything
being "wrong" to begin with. The term "clinical" refers to
all attempts at doing some sort of a "repair job." Among
these are cases where rather far-gone disturbances are
attacked and elaborate processes are installed to bring
about the repair. These more elaborate and noticeably
complex forms of clinical work, I refer to as "therapy."39
By 1949, a committee of the American Association of Group
Work had begun working on the relationship of group work to treat-
ment. The Committee defined therapeutic group work as "the use
of the group work method in working with groups of patients in a
psychiatric setting." Similar to general group work, therapeutic
group work focused on helping the individual move toward health
and emotional adjustment. The role of the worker and the type of
group, however, were different. The general group worker, according
to the Committee, moved from the central role as soon as possible,
enabling the group to determine its own goals and leadership. The
psychiatric group worker was the central figure in the group, often
assuming the role of mother or father figure. The group worker in
the general setting worked with formed or natural groups, while the

psychiatric group worker worked with specifically formed groups.

In general group work the agency determines groupings in
relation to social goals and the individual preferences.

 

39Fritz Redl, "Diagnostic Group Work," American Journal
of Orthopsychiatry, XIV (January, 1944), pp. 53-67.

 

 

138

In psychiatric group work, grouping is an important factor

in helping the individual. The agency [hospital or child

guidance clinic] determines and controls groupings on the

basis of individual therapy needs only.40
Both types of group work had "knowledge needed" in common. In each,
it was considered important to have understanding and skill in
working with individuals in groups. In addition, both were con-
cerned with recognition of sickness and strength in the individual.

Another contribution to group work's move toward treat-

ment of emotionally ill individuals was contained in the writings
of S. R. Slavson, who was employed as a group therapist with the
Jewish Board of Guardians of New York. Slavson classified his work
as "activity group therapy," which he differentiated from ”interview
group therapy" because of its almost-absence of discussion and the
emphasis on physical and manual activity and interplay of group
members. Activity group therapy also differed from social group
work in its stress on the involvement of the individual as opposed
to concern with the totality of the group process. The therapist's
role was that of a neutral person who stayed in the background,

allowing the acting out of hostilities in a permissive environment.4]

Child guidance

 

Fritz Redl, in 1942, while a faculty member at the School

of Social Work at Wayne University in Detroit, initiated a project

 

40Gisela Konopka, "Similarities and Differences Between
Group Work and Group Therapy," Report of the Group Therapy Committee,
American Association of Group Workers (mimeo, ST-451-8).

4IS. R. Slavson, Introduction to Gruup Therapy_(New York:
The Commonwealth Fund, 1943):

139

in various agencies in the community for small groups of emotionally
disturbed children who needed more specialized service than the more

42 Called the Detroit Project,

traditional agencies could provide.
it had as its aim the provision of diagnostic services through the
use of groups led by trained group workers. The purpose of the
Project was based in part on the limitations that had been revealed
in gathering diagnostic data through the use of interviews.

According to Redl, diagnostic study in the group avoided artifi-
ciality and treatment consciousness usually associated with therapy.
It also provided first-hand knowledge as to symptoms and the child's
behavior under stress.

At the same time, it was felt that using the group for
treatment and diagnostic purposes had certain limitations. According
to Redl, little was actually known as to what groups were best for
what children, and this lack of knowledge often resulted in negative
results for both the child and the group. Some children opened up
and expressed themselves more freely, while others "snapped shut
like clams."43

In 1938, the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh
began to explore with the Pittsburgh Child Guidance Center the possi-

bility of setting up a demonstration project using the group work

method. After two years of discussion, a plan for using the Center

 

42The Detroit Project was a joint enterprise of the Wayne
University School of Social Work, the Consultation Bureau, and the
Jewish Social Service Bureau.

43Ibid., p. 66.

140

for a graduate student was finalized. By the mid-1940's, group
work services were an integral part of the Child Guidance Center's
program. Konopka, using the terms "group therapy“ and "psychiatric
group work" interchangeably, wrote that the use of group work in a
child guidance setting such as at the Center provided an opportunity
for the child to test out reality in a safe environment. Hostility,
for example, usually played out through symbolism in individual
interviews either by talking or with play materials, was acted out
in the group by real fights. Also, children with strong sibling
rivalry, having to share the worker with other members of the group,
were able to work out some of their feelings in the group.44
With increased acceptance of the group work method as a
means of working with disturbed children, other facilities and
settings began to seriously consider the use of groups as a means
of treatment. In 1947, the Toronto Big Brother Movement conducted
a three-week camp, for children considered by the agency's psy-
chiatrist and other staff to be too disturbed to cope with regular
camp programs. As it came to be recognized that the camp experi-
ence could have therapeutic benefits, less emphasis was placed on
activities and greater emphasis was placed on individual needs and
attitudes. It was the thinking of the staff, in their assessment

of the camp program, that a relatively permissive setting such as

 

44Gisela Konopka, “Therapy Through Group Work," in Toward
Professional Standards, compiled by AAGW (New York: Association
Press, 1947), p. 140.

 

141

a camp allowed for certain behaviors to come to the surface that

might be concealed in a more controlled setting.45

Psychiatric and general hospitals

In 1945, the State Hospital for the Mentally 111 in

Cleveland began using a part-time group worker who was employed at
a nearby settlement house. Initially, there were many questions as
to why he was there and what he was to do. Typical of many group
workers in the 1940's, he knew little about mental illness and
hospital settings. Time had to be spent becoming acclimated to the
setting and learning about hospital procedures and methods of work-
ing as a member of a team including other professional disciplines.
Raymond Fisher, reflecting on his experience, notes:

We had to have enough experience with patients so that we

ourselves could be comfortable in our relationships with

them before we could proceed further. We counted on the

fact that our basic concepts in working with people would

be sound and applicable in this setting too, and indeed

before too long, found they were. We, of course, recognized

that there would have to be adaptations in how to apply

these concepts to these specialized settings to meet the

particular needs of the emotionally disturbed individuals,

but we were encouraged by the psychiatrists in our work and

we learned as we went along.46

The Menninger Clinic at Topeka, Kansas, a private psychi-

atric hospital, began operating an outpatient club after a group of

patients requested that a club of this nature be formed. Initially,

 

45Gordon J. Aldridge, "Program in a Camp for Emotionally
Disturbed Boys," he Group, XIV, 2 (December, 1953), p. 13.

46Raymond Fisher, "Contributions of Group Work in Psychi-
atric Hospitals," he Group, X11, 1 (November, 1949), p. 3.

142

a caseworker served as staff person with the group; however, in
1949, a trained social group worker was employed to assume respon-
sibility for the outpatient club. The club was successful and in
a short time became accepted by the clinic staff as an important
vehicle in assisting patients to return to the community. Three
years later, another social group worker was hired to develop
groups inside the hospital so as to enhance the patient's func-
tioning in the treatment program. Eventually, a patient government
was formed along with small interest groups.47
The Aspinwall V.A. Hospital served as a placement for
University of Pittsburgh students during World War II. By 1949,
the program had expanded, and students were working with both
physically and mentally ill patients in the hospital. Groups were
formed around specific problems such as epilepsy, sclerosis, heart
disease, and diabetes. In addition, groups were established for
geriatric patients and those planning on leaving the hospital. The
groups were engaged in a variety of activities ranging from dis-
cussions and outside speakers to games, music, crafts, and recrea-

tional trips. Concerted effort was made to integrate the program

with total hospital treatment. This was evidenced by having

 

47Based on personal correspondence between Miss Minnie M.
Harlow (Chief Group Worker, the Menninger Foundation, Topeka,
Kansas) and the author, January 30, 1974. According to Miss Harlow,
Drs. Karl and William Menninger became interested in the use of
groups in psychiatric settings through their acquaintance with
Gertrude Wilson and Gladys Ryland, who had a group of students at
the Winter V.A. Hospital, in Topeka, during the summers of 1947
and 1948.

143

physicians make all the referrals, by organization of groups along
diagnostic lines to correspond with the administrative line struc-
ture of the hospital, and by the high ration of concurrent casework
services.48
The growing interest in the use of the group and group
workers for treatment is evident in the articles published in pro-
fessional journals and the papers presented at national and regional
conferences in the 1950's. It is also indicated by the statistics
of several studies on group-work graduates during this period.
"The figures serve to confirm the fact," wrote Grace Coyle, "that
there is a trend for group work to spread especially into group
living situations where treatment is recognized as a social work

function."49

The study by W. L. Kindelsperger and others, of the
employment characteristics of the group-work graduates for the
years 1950, 1951, and 1952, shows that 14.9 percent of the graduates
were employed in what are termed "nontraditional settings."50
A study by Charles Levy, of the graduates from group work
programs during the years 1953 and 1954, reveals that out of a
sample of 79 graduates employed in group work settings, 62 were in
the so-called traditional settings and 17 were employed in "spe-

cialized settings"--i.e., psychiatric hospitals and clinics,

 

48Claire R. Lustman, "Group Work within a Medical Setting"
(paper presented at the National Conference of Social Work, Atlantic
City, New Jersey, May, 1950).

49Grace Coyle, "Social Group Work," Social Work Yearbook,
1954, XII (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1954), p. 483.

SOIbid.

 

144

residential treatment institutions and other agencies not primarily
identified with the use of the group work method, or only recently
established to render group work service to special groups such as
street gangs, physically or emotionally handicapped children, and
other similar agencies.5]
Another study, conducted for the Council on Social Work
Education by Gladys Ryland, also dealt with the characteristics
and employment responsibility of graduates for the 1953-54 period.
Miss Ryland's study discloses that 31 out of 90 group work graduates,
or 25.6 percent, accepted positions in special settings. A further
analysis of the titles and responsibilities of these 31 graduates
divided them into two grodps. One group of 21 was deemed as prac-
ticing social group work, and the other 10 had responSibilities or

titles indicating functions other than social group work.52

Formation of the National Association
of Social Workers

 

 

Professional organizations of social workers had been in
existence since 1918, when the American Association of Hospital
Social Workers was founded (later to become the American Association
of Medical Social Workers). It was followed a year later by the

National Association of School Social Workers. In 1921, the American

 

5(Charles S. Levy, "From Education to Practice in Social
Group Work," Journal of Jewish Communal Service (Winter, 1958), p. 175.

52Gladys Ryland, Employment Responsibilities of Social
Group Work Graduates (New York: Council on Social Work Education,
1958), p. 4.

 

 

145

Association of Social Workers, which succeeded the National Social
Workers Exchange, became the largest single organization in the
field of social work. By 1946, when the American Association of
Group Workers was formed, there was a growing effort to shift
attention from the specializations that had divided the social
work field to the identification of a common core that would bring
unification.

To this end, a committee on inter-association structure,
called the Temporary Inter-Association Council of Social Work
(TIAC), was organized in 1949 to develop a plan for promoting closer
cooperative relationships among the social-work professional mem-
bership associations. The Council studied the various objectives,
programs, and procedures of the five associations in addition to
areas of cooperation. Their deliberations caused them to realize
that they had a great deal in common and that there was a base for
a single professional association.

In spite of the apparent advantages of being directly
related to the profession of social work, not all group workers
were in favor of the merger. To some it meant selling out on group
work's original task of working with normal individuals so as to
help them develop to the fullest extent possible their social
capacities and potentialities. To others it meant joining a profes-
sion that had little interest in social reform or in helping com-
munities take responsibility for their own development through
community action. In 1952, however, the American Association of

Group Workers voted overwhelmingly to participate in the program

146

to combine the seven social-work professional organizations into
one social work organization. The move was a final step in social
work identification, which resulted in the formation of the National

Association of Social Workers in 1955.

Summar

During the years between 1937 and 1955, group work prac-
tice moved from many directions toward becoming an integral part of
the social work profession. In addition to its former functions
relative to democratic participation, education, and socialization,
practice with groups expanded to include therapeutic aims. With
this expansion came a proliferation of literature regarding the use
of groups.

The 1935 and 1936 section meetings of the National Con-
ference of Social Work had drawn together individuals involved in
a variety of recreational, educational, and social service activ-
ities with interests and concerns in common. By 1937, small study
groups began springing up throughout the country so that group
workers could share ideas, knowledge, and experiences. Books
began to be written on group work, and a journal relevant to the
various fields and settings was published.

With this growth came the question of where professional
group work belonged. Was it education, recreation, social work, or
perhaps something uniquely different? It was recognized, however,
that there was a need, before answering that question, for an

agreed-upon definition as to what group work was and the function

147

of the group worker as he worked with different types of groups.
Grace Coyle and G. Ott Romney helped to resolve part of the problem
in their analysis of the similarities and differences between group
work and recreation. By 1946, the question as to what profession
group work belonged was no longer an issue, for the American Associa-
tion of Group Workers became a part of the National Conference of
Social Work.

The war was an important influence on group work develop-
ment. First, it brought group workers in contact with other pro-
fessionals such as the psychiatrist and psychologist. Second, the
war drew attention to the positive and negative effects of certain
types of leadership on groups. Third, group workers came to recognize
that the group work method need not be limited to "normal" people,
but could be used with those who were physically and/or mentally ill.

Also during this period, group dynamics came to be a part
of group work, due mainly to the efforts of Kurt Lewin and his
followers. Lewin was able to demonstrate that certain things occurred
in groups which not only could be measured, but could be influenced
by the worker in the group. The group was a dynamic system made up
of various forces and elements.

Of the many changes that occurred, the most significant
was evolution of group work into therapeutic and clinical settings.
Group work, it was recognized, could be a useful tool in the treat-
ment of these individuals suffering from illness whether physical

or mental. By 1950, group workers were employed in child guidance

148

clinics, mental hospitals, medical hospitals, and residential
centers for emotionally disturbed children.

In 1955, the National Association of Social Workers came
into existence; it was to represent all of the fields of social
work. Group work at that time, along with six other autonomous
organizations, officially became part of the profession of social

work.

CHAPTER 6

SUMMARY

The objective of this study has been to study the relevant
literature of social work, the youth-serving agencies, the settle-
ment houses, leisure-time agencies, and the social and medical
sciences in order to obtain the requisite information regarding the
question: What factors influenced the development of social group
work from 1850 to 1955?

In seeking developmental factors on the history of group
work, three subsidiary questions have acted as further guides:

1. What has been the influence of the early emphasis

on the small group as a means of socializing the
individual?

2. What has been the influence of the concept of the
group as a means of maintaining a democratic
society?

3. What has been the influence of the concept of the
group as a method of ameliorating maladaptive
behavior?

Similar to casework, social group work was practiced long

before it was defined. In the United States, it developed out of a
recognition that the group was a viable means for socializing the
individual, maintaining a democratic society, and ameliorating

maladaptive behavior. This did not occur in a vacuum, but as a

response to gaps created by the uneven paces of technological

149

150

development and by the breakdown of those devices and controls for
the realization of personality that were automatically supplied
by the customs of an earlier and more stable society.

Work with groups began during the pre-Civil War era, at
a time when America was entering the Industrial Revolution and
dedicated to the development of its vast economic and industrial
power. This was a period when the frontiers were everywhere--
geographic, social and industrial--and the heroes were the empire
builders and self-made men. The mood of the country was material-
istic and expansionistic, with "change" and "growth" the bywords.

The Industrial Revolution brought far-reaching social and
cultural changes to American cities. Cities grew at a phenomenal
rate and were subject to the many dislocations caused by economic
expansion. To the cities came many new ethnic groups, which, up-
rooted from long-familiar surroundings, confronted one another with
deep mistrust. The individualism and self-reliance which had pre-
vailed in the earlier America gave way to interdependence and the
need for greater social regulation in newer America.

The philosophy of Charles Darwin, as interpreted by
Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner, provided the intellectual
base for the new competitive order. The Darwinian theory, according
to its proponents, demonstrated that those who survived were the
fittest. Translated into economic and social terms, this assumption
brought science to the support of predatory capitalism and justified
poverty and slums. These conditions, it was argued, were natural

for the unfit, who, by lack of thrift and industrious habits, had

151

not survived the economic struggle. Any governmental effort to
relieve poverty was a perversion of the law of nature.

It was in their social context that the first leisure-
time agencies took form and function in America. In their beginnings,
they were adaptations of services already developed in England. The
YMCA appeared first, followed by the YWCA, the Scouts, the Boy's
Clubs, and the YMHA's and the YWHA's. In many respects they were
protective associations, created as a response to city life in an
industrial and urbanized society. These organiZations ranged them-
selves against the mobility and rootlessness, delinquency and crime,
and the inability of a transient and disorganized population to take
action in its own behalf. The major thrust of these early group-
serving agencies was toward the normal, rather than the maladjusted,
and stressed development of the "whole" person.

Another important root was the settlement movement, which
was copied after settlements already functioning in England. In
contrast to the methodological and case-oriented nature of casework,
group work in the settlements was considered something that a large
number of people could benefit from, to enjoy their leisure and
improve their lives. The small group was a means of recreation,
learning, and social action.

At approximately the same time, the Charity Organization
Societies (COS) were being organized and social casework was devel-
oping. The difference in function of the settlement and the COS
resulted in different approaches to individuals in need. The

handling of relief in the COS led to the investigation of a

152

person's needs, resources, and worthiness to receive aid. The
settlements viewed the recipients of their services as neighbors
and set themselves firmly against attitudes of condescension in
their relations with the poor and sought to break down the undemo-
cratic cleavage between social classes.

The youth-serving agencies, the social settlements, the
adult education movement, the recreation movement, and eventually
progressive education all assumed a stance of social responsibility
in a competitive order and a personal and cultural identity in an
impersonal culture. They stressed the need for individualizing, for
collective security, and for the equalization of political and eco-
nomic power. Common to all of these movements and agencies were
two important themes. First, the group was seen as a means of
socializing the individual. Second, the group was seen as a means
of maintaining a democratic society.

The use of the small group as a potent force in the sociali-
zation of the individual was most obvious in the "character-building"
programs, where desirable personal characteristics were set forth
in slogans, awards, and rituals and in a variety of inducements.
Honesty, loyalty, patriotism, courtesy, reverence, graciousness,
dependability, health of body, mind, and spirit were set forth in
alluring pledges and reinforced in impressive ceremonies.

In later years there was less emphasis on the use of slo-
gans and virtue and a move toward concepts such as social adjustment,
security of personality, capacity for self-maintenance, acceptance of

responsibility, and emotional security. These newer objectives grew

153

out of an increasing understanding of the dynamics of personality
and behavior as gleaned by the social and medical sciences, and
from the experiences and observations of group workers in various
agencies. Most notable of these were the writings of Cooley, Mead,
Simmel, Durkheim, and Dewey. Their contributions brought about
more than a change in words; it directed the group worker away from
symptomatic behavior to a deeper appreciation and understanding of
personality in action.

With this change came a new way of utilizing activities
and program. Heretofore, group workers had thought of activities
as something used as ends in themselves. Sports, aesthetic pur-
suits, social recreation, etc., were for enjoyment and were vehicles
for making use of one's leisure time. By the 1930's, there was the
realization that it was not the activity nor the subject alone that
was important, but also the human relations in which the activity
was set. The experience in and through the group began to emerge
as a significant part of the group work process.

The use of the group as a means of socialization of the
individual continued into the 1950's and was most observable in such
youth developmental agencies as the Y's and the Scouts, where the
primary objective is that of socialization. It was felt in these
agencies that group experience benefited the individual by develop-
ing potentialities that might not otherwise achieve fulfillment.

The theme of socialization of the individual also insured the preserv-
ation of social values dominant within the culture and enhanced the

human resources of a democratic society.

154

The concept of the group as a means of maintaining a
democratic society is closely intertwined with the use of the group
as a means of socialization. Group work from the beginning was
interested in the use of group experience as a preparation for
responsible participation in the democratic process. This interest
manifested itself in several ways. First, it was thought that
experience in the small, intimate, self-governing group found in
a club would provide experience in the development of common goals
and the creation and acceptance of self-imposed authority in the
acquisition of leadership skills. Secondly, it was felt that if
the worker introduced social issues as discussion topics during
group sessions, members could discuss the issues and be better in-
formed. Thirdly, the group was seen as a way to deal with neighbor-
hood tensions, especially in interracial or interethnic group
situations.

For those concerned by the emergence of a mass society and
the problems of urbanization, as were Follett, Lindeman, and Mayo,
the group could be used to conserve humanistic values. Small groups,
within or linked to larger social units, were viewed as providing
opportunities for collective decision making and individual par-
ticipation. Also, the individual, through the group, would have a
vehicle for articulating his concerns and decentralizing the decision-
making process.

Despite the fact that the concept of the group as a means
of maintaining a democratic society was one of the major tenets of

early group work, its importance has declined over the years. In

155

the 1949 "Definition of the Function of the Group Worker," there

are several phrases referring to the worker directing his energies
toward the improvement of society. By 1962, however, this idea

was more muted and no longer central. In "Frame of Reference for
Social Group Work Practice," there is only one leading reference

to "group life as experience in developing a sense of responsibility
for active citizenship, and for improving the nature of participa-
tion in social action."

Still, practitioners in settlement houses and other
agencies directly concerned with disadvantaged segments of the urban
population prized the concept very highly. By the 1950's, the
definition of "community" had been expanded to include mental hos-
pitals, treatment facilities, and correctional institutions. Social
group workers in these settings stressed client participation in
decision making, the development of leadership skills on the part
of the client, and social action as a way of bringing about change.

Until the late thirties, there was general agreement that
the chief aim of group work was the development and adjustment of
the individual through voluntary group association and activity.
Such development was seen as occurring, with the assistance of a
trained worker, primarily out of the interplay of personalities in
group situations and out of the activities which made up the program.
The objective was the development of socially desirable attitudes
within the individual. "Socially desirable" was understood to cover

a wide range, from the development of tolerance of people from other

156

cultural backgrounds to the promotion of socialization within the
community.

By 1938, there began to be discussions as to whether or
not group work should be aimed at individuals requiring corrective
or therapeutic treatment. Many argued that group work should be
mainly concerned with education and prevention rather than with
therapeutic goals. World War II in many ways settled the issue.
Group work began to be used in military and veterans' hospitals
and, soon after, became a part of the services of child guidance
clinics, state hospitals, and private hospitals. Initially, the
worker was part of the treatment team in which his observations of
the client's behavior were used for diagnostic purposes. As workers
became more skilled, and through the writings of Redl, Lewin, Moreno,
and Konopka, their roles changed from being gatherers of information
to therapists.

Despite the influences from such roots as recreation,
education, and the youth-serving agencies, the historical impetus
of group work was toward an identification with social work as a
profession and with social welfare as a field of service. By their
very nature, group workers reflected concern with social conditions
and their effects on people. Even though they drew inspiration from
educational theory, psychiatric learnings, and small group research,
these developments were seen by many as instruments to be used in
achieving social objectives.

The fact that a substantial number of the early group-work

programs were sponsored and financed by many of the same funding

157

sources as social casework programs also served to draw group work
toward social work. The relationship between these various efforts
took on greater importance and meaning during the 1929 Depression,
as they came together around common problems and clientele. It

was recognized by each that the other had valuable knowledge and
skill that could be used to reduce suffering and meet human needs.

The alliance of group work with social work soon began
to have implications for both parties. It served to expand the
scope of social work itself, bringing it back to the earlier and
broader conception of its role and function. It brought sociologi-
cal thinking into a profession that had almost totally come to view
man and human behavior in individualistic terms. It brought to
social work a recognition of its lack of commitment to social reform.
Finally, it reintroduced to social work the "normal" client, some-
thing that had become completely antipathetic to the development of
social work as a therapeutic profession.

For group work, it gave professional identification and
status to a collection of individuals of various backgrounds working
in diverse fields. It gave promise of a clearer and more distinct
sense of function and focus, something that many group workers lacked.
The merger also led to a more conscious method of working, super-
vising, and recording, and it stimulated a greater awareness of
basic concepts of human behavior.

From a negative standpoint, group work quickly embraced,
as had casework before it, the Freudian explanation of human

behavior to the exclusion of other explanations and approaches.

158

The alliance lessened much of the spirit of inquiry that had been a
part of early group work. Perhaps most significant was a decrease
in the emphasis that group workers placed on social action. Ironi-
cally, while group work was to make social action more visible
within the profession of social work, group workers generally became

less involved in social action.

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Richmond, Mary. "Some Next Steps in Social Treatment." Reprint in
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487-488 0

 

Romney, G. Ott. "The Field of Recreation." Proceedings of the
National Conference of Social Work, 1947. New York:
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Rowe, Helen. "Report of the Central Committee." Toward Professional
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Smith, Anne. "Group Play in a Hospital Environment." Proceedings of
the National Conference of Social Work, 1935.~ Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1935, 346-352.

 

Sorenson, Roy. "Case Work Integration: Its Implication for Community
Planning." Proceedings of the National Conference of Social
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1935, 311-322.

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165

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"Trends in Professional Education." Toward Professional

 

 

Standards, New York: Association Press, 1947, p. 33.

APPENDIX

APPENDIX
DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL WORK IN THE UNITED STATES

RECIPROCAL MODEL)

Developmental model

‘ SOCIAL CHANGE MODELI

IREMEDIAL MODEL

1955

 

Formation of NASW
Exodus From Cities
Korean Conflict
World War II

 

ISOCIAL
CASEWORK

 

 

 

 

 

 

’ GROUP DYNAMICSI
1936
Social Security AAGW
Depression

Roaring Twenties PSYCHOANALYTIC
THEORY

 

 

SMALL GROUP THEORY]

PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1919 [GRACE COYLE PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION
World War I James
Progressive Movement Dewey

 

Influx of Population to

Cities
MEDICAL &
SOCIAL SCIENCES
IADULT PLAYGROUND-RECREATION]
1399 EDUCATION MOVEMENT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Increase in Immigrants -Mary F011€tt
Urbanization & Growth —-Eduard
of Slums Lindeman

Social Darwinism
Industrial Revolution

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Civil War . SETTLEMENT MOVEMENT]
CHARITY
ORGANIZATION YOUTH-SERVING AGENCIES
1850 SOCIETY
—YMCA/YWCA
”Scouts
[Jewish Youth Groups

 

Boys Clubs

  

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