Edith Abbott

Edith Abbott

Edith Abbott (September 26, 1876 - July 28, 1957), older sister to Grace Abbott, both of Grand Island, Nebraska, would begin her career a school teacher only to become an esteemed social worker, author, legislative advisor and the first female to serve as dean of an United States graduate school. A leader in the establishment and development of organized social work, Edith Abbott’s enduring contributions also span the fields of education, economics and politics. Determined to correct the most extreme of the nation’s problems, Abbott’s success is often most credited to an atypical upbringing.

Life

Edith Abbott was born into a family that believed in the ideals of justice, women’s equality and political activism. Her father, Othman, would become the first lieutenant Governor of Nebraska, publicly maintaining a strict anti-slavery platform throughout his time in office. Her mother, Elizabeth, an educated abolitionist and women’s suffrage leader, would instill within her children similar values. Both Edith and her sister would in later years recall their mother's words, "...even if you are little girls, you can be suffragists too because it is right and just" (Costin, 6). Consequently, Edith Abbott’s home life would prove to play a large role in her future endeavors.

In 1893 Abbott graduated from Brownell Hall, a girls’ boarding school located in Omaha, Nebraska. Because her family could not afford to send her to college, Abbott began teaching high school in her hometown of Grand Island. After taking correspondence courses and attending summer sessions, Abbott earned a collegiate degree from the University of Nebraska in 1901. Two years later, Abbott enrolled at the University of Chicago where she would earn a Ph.D. in economics in 1905.

Receiving a Carnegie Fellowship in 1906, Abbott continued her studies abroad at University College London as well as the London School of Economics. There she studied with social reformers such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb, before returning a year later to the United States to teach economics at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.

One year later, aiming to work more directly with the issue of poverty, Abbott relocated to Chicago to join her sister, Grace, at the Jane Addams Hull House. While there, the sisters advocated for women’s suffrage, improvements in housing for the poor and legislation to safeguard immigrants, women and children.

At the age of eighty-one, Abbott would eventually succumb to pneumonia, spending her last years in Grand Island with her brother Arthur. Having never married, she left the bulk of her estate to the Grand Island Public Library and established a trust for a collection of non-fiction books in memory of her mother, Elizabeth.

Work

During her time at Hull House, Abbott drew sustenance from the settlement community, living alongside the likes of Jane Addams, Alice Hamilton, and Mary Kenney O'Sullivan (Hymowitz and Weissman, 231). At this time Abbott also worked as an assistant to Sophonisba Breckinridge, then director of social research at the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy. Abbott’s contributions included studies on delinquency and truancy, women in industry and problems in the penal system.

In 1920, Abbott and Breckinridge helped to arrange the transfer of the School of Civics and Philanthropy to the University of Chicago, where it was renamed the School of Social Service Administration. This school would prove the first university-based graduate school of social work. Abbott served as dean from 1924 until 1942, emphasizing the value of a formal education and the importance of field experience within social work.

In 1926, Abbott helped to establish a Bureau of Public Welfare within Cook County, Illinois while co-founding the Social Service Review with Breckinridge one year later. Abbott would later teach and edit this review, an examination of social welfare policies, until 1953. Arguably Abbott’s most recognizable contribution to the history of the United States came in 1935 as she helped to draft the still-standing Social Security Act.

In later years, Abbott was acknowledged as a confidant and special consultant to Harry Hopkins, a chief adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt throughout such historic events as the Great Depression and World War II.

Legacy

Throughout her career, Abbott wrote more than 100 books and articles on a variety of topics, earning her the nickname "the passionate statistician." In her writings, Abbott stressed the responsibility of the state to address social inequalities, the need for public welfare administration, and the desire for an equitable reform of the social welfare system.

Before 1924, a majority of United States welfare systems were controlled and funded on a strictly public basis. Less than thirty years later, upon her retirement in 1942, Edith Abbott had successfully established a public social service agency that proved a more centralized structure. A true pioneer in the struggle for social justice, Edith Abbott's legacy continues to contribute to the progress and advance of the United States system of social services.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Costin, Lela. Two Sisters for Social Justice: A Biography of Grace and Edith Abbott. Springfield, IL; University of Illinois Press, 2003. ISBN 0252071557

• Hymowitz, Carol and Weissman, Michaele. A History of Women in America. New York; Bantam Books, 1978. ISBN 0553269143

Publications

• Abbott, Edith. Finding Employment for Children who Leave the Grade Schools to go to Work: Report to the Chicago Women's Club. Chicago; Manz Engraving Co., Hollister Press, 1911.

• Abbott, Edith. Women in industry; A Study in American Economic History. New York; D. Appleton and Co., 1910.

• Abbott, Edith and Sophonisba P. Breckenridge. Employment of Women in Industries: Twelfth Census Statistics. Chicago; Chicago Women's Trade Union League, 1906.

External links

• The University of Chicago Centennial Catalogues. The University of Chicago Faculty: A Centennial View, Edith Abbott | Social Service Administration. A searchable online listing of prominent University of Chicago faculty.

• The School of Social Service Administration | SSA Chicago. The University of Chicago: About SSA, SSA Tour Edith Abbott. A brief overview of the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration, and its co-founder Edith Abbott.

• Harvard University Library Open Collections Program. Women Working, 1870-1930, Edith Abbott (1876-1957). A full-text searchable online database with complete access to publications written by Edith Abbott.

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