Sophonisba Breckinridge

Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge (born April 1, 1866 – died July 30, 1948), was an American social worker and reformer, the pioneer of the social-work education movement in the United States.

Life

Sophonisba Breckinridge was born in Lexington, Kentucky, the second of seven children of Issa Desha and William Campbell Preston Breckinridge. Her father was a member of Congress and a distinguished lawyer, while her great-grandfather John Breckinridge (1760-1806) was a Senator of Kentucky and Attorney General under Thomas Jefferson.

Sophonisba Breckinridge graduated from Wellesley College in 1888 and worked as a school teacher in Washington, DC. After spending one year in Europe she decided to study law at her father's office. Although her father did not agree with this, Breckinridge continued as planned. Later in 1894, she became the first woman to be admitted to the Kentucky bar.

In late 1890s Breckinridge decided to move to Oak Park, Illinois, and enroll in the doctoral program in the University of Chicago. She became the first woman to receive a doctoral degree in political science from the University of Chicago. She completed her J.D. from the law school in 1904.

In 1906 Breckinridge come in contact with Edith Abbott and started to work on the issues of women’s employment and juvenile delinquency. At the same time she was writing for the American Journal of Sociology and began teaching in the Chicago Social Science Center for Training and Practical Training in Philanthropic and Social Work, later renamed the School of Civics and Philanthropy. She became the assistant to Julia Lathrop, then Director of Research and co-director of the Center. In 1908 Lathrop stepped down and Breckinridge became the head of the school’s research department. She took Edith Abbott for her assistant.

In 1907 Breckinridge entered the Hull House settlement, staying there until 1920. The same year she became a member of the Women's Trade Union League, and founded the Immigrant's Protective League. In 1909 she became an assistant professor in the University of Chicago’s new department of household administration. In 1920 she negotiated merging of the School of Civics and Philanthropy with the University of Chicago, making the later the center of social work in America.

As she worked in academia, Breckinridge became increasingly involved with research on different social problems. She focused on subjects as housing, immigration, minorities, and working conditions of women. She also worked as Chicago’s health inspector and campaigned for federal child labor laws. With her help the Journal of Social Service Review was started in 1927. She is also responsible for making, together with Florence Kelley, Jane Addams, and Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

In 1925 she became full-time professor in Graduate School of Social Service Administration, introducing new methods in training social workers. With that she set the standard for social-work education in the United States.

President Roosevelt named Breckinridge in 1933 to be a delegate, the first women to be awarded this honor, to the Pan-American Congress in Montevideo. In 1934 she was elected the president of the American Association of Schools of Social Work.

Sophonisba Breckinridge died in 1948 in Chicago, from a perforated ulcer and arteriosclerosis, aged 82.

Work

Sophonisba Breckinridge believed that social research could be used to create better society. Her legal training and academic background gave her strong foundation in her work. She pioneered use of research in fieldwork, and advocated that social work needs to be grounded in social theory. She rejected the pure vocational approach to social work, as it was predominantly used in her time. According to her, scientific analysis and scholarly research need to be applied in dealing with practical social problems. Only then the change can take roots. Because of her insisting on scientific approach to social work, she was sometimes criticized as being too academic.

One of the greatest accomplishments of Breckinridge was in the field of social-work education. She came as an assistant to Julia Lathrop in the School of Civics and Philanthropy, and soon became the dean of the school. However, as the school was without funding, Breckinridge had to negotiate merging of the school with the University of Chicago. This was the first graduate school of social work in the United States to become affiliated with a major research university.

Breckinridge pioneered use of mapping and canvassing in their work, recording whole maps of areas with social picture of people living in those areas. The maps helped her to more effectively present her arguments.

Some of her other contributions to social reforms include obtaining the congressional support for a national study of children and women wage earners, which led to the Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States. The report revealed miserable working conditions, unsafe and exploitative in nature, under which women and children earned wages. The report contributed toward subsequent reforms to improve working conditions of women, and abolish child labor.

Legacy

Sophonisba Breckinridge holds legacy as being the first woman elected to several important positions. She was the first woman elected to the Kentucky bar, and became the first woman to receive a doctoral degree in political science from the University of Chicago. With that she pawed the path for many women who followed in her steps.

With her pioneering work in different social areas she contributed toward many reforms, including abolishment of child labor, improving of working conditions for women, and advancing the juvenile court system. Under her presidency the new standards were set in training the social workers, and the University of Chicago became center of social work in America. Her idea that state needs to be more involved in social welfare took roots during the New Deal era.

The University of Chicago houses undergraduate students in Breckinridge House, which was named after Sophonisba Breckinridge. There is also a "Sophie Day" that students celebrate every April 1.

Publications

• Breckinridge, Sophonisba. 1911. Chicago housing conditions: South Chicago at the gates of the steel mills. University of Chicago Press.

• Breckinridge, Sophonisba. 1920. A Summary of juvenile-court legislation in the United States. United States G.P.O.

• Breckinridge, Sophonisba. 1924. Family welfare-work in a metropolitan community University of Chicago Press.

• Breckinridge, Sophonisba. 1930. Separate domicile for married women. Committee on the Legal Status of Women

• Breckinridge, Sophonisba. 1931. Marriage and the civic rights of women: Separate domicile and independent citizenship. The University of Chicago Press

• Breckinridge, Sophonisba. 1931. Re-examination of the work of children's courts. National Probation Association

• Breckinridge, Sophonisba. 1970 (original published in 1912). The delinquent child and the home. Arno Press. ISBN 040502438X

• Breckinridge, Sophonisba. 1969. Legal tender: A study in English and American monetary history. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0837110793

• Breckinridge, Sophonisba. 1972 (original published in 1934). The family and the state. Ayer Co Pub. ISBN 0405038518

• Breckinridge, Sophonisba. 1972 (original published in 1933). Women in the twentieth century: A study of their political, social and economic activities. Ayer Co Pub. ISBN 040504450X

• Breckinridge, Sophonisba. 2001. (original published in 1921). New homes for old. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 076580607X

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Addams, Jane. 1999. Twenty Years at Hull-House. Signet Classics. ISBN 0451527399

• Boxer, Marilyn J. 2001. When Women Ask the Questions: Creating Women's Studies in America. The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0801868114

• Kleinberg, S. J. 2006. Widows and Orphans First: The Family Economy and Social Welfare Policy, 1880-1939. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252030206

• Lemons, Stanley J. 1990. The Woman Citizen: Social Feminism in the 1920's. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 0813913020

• Lenroot, Katharine F. 1948. Friend of Children and of the Children’s Bureau. Social Service Review, 22, 427-430.

• Muncy, Robyn. 1994. Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195089243

• Wright, Helen R 1954. Three against time: Edith and Grace Abbott and Sophonisba P. Breckinridge. University of Chicago Press

External links

• Sophonisba P. Breckinridge – Biography on Webster University website

• Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge – Extended biography by Cathy Coghlan on Boise State University website

• Sophonisba P. Breckinridge - Biography in Encyclopedia Britannica

• Works about the Women of Hull-House – List of material on Hull House settlement

• Hull House Museum – Website of the Hull-House Museum

• Hull-House and its Neighborhoods – History of the Hull-House

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