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Abstract
I argue that there is a submerged cluster of people who, at one or other stage of their careers, took positions in relation to social problems, social work practice, modes of understanding, and research practice that reflected and anticipated – knowingly or not – something we might call a Chicago-enriched sociological social work. They are Harriett Bartlett, Stuart Queen, Ada Sheffield, Erle Fisk Young and Pauline Young. Several of the themes that emerge from a review of their work are today, as then, as much sociology as social work. In closing, I consider three questions. How can we generally explain the presence of this distinctive strand of thinking and practice? Why did it drift into subterranean obscurity? Why should it matter to us? I communicate my sense that the work of these people was premised on a fruitful but never fully realised relationship between ‘sociology’ and ‘social work’. Conjunctions between the largely forgotten heritage of Chicago social work and sociology would allow a less ‘pre-tuned’ discussion of how the respective fields are constituted, and how practitioners of either might pursue their profession.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Branco et al. have initiated interesting work on Richmond and Addams. http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.readperiodicals.com/201,101/2584917641.html&prev=search.
2. Addams was rarely among the visiting lecturers on the social service programmes and seems to have turned down an invitation to join the staff of the Sociology Department.
3. There were other sociologists whose work calls for attention, for example Robert MacIver (who wrote about social work, MacIver Citation1931), Stuart Chapin (who worked with Stuart Queen and authored major contributions relevant to the field, Chapin and Queen [Citation1937] Citation1972), and Greenwood. He and Chapin both wrote about sociology in ways that spoke to an applied agenda, for example through experimental designs (Chapin Citation1936; Greenwood Citation1945).
5. I do not know when she died but she is described in the Carey interviews for his 1975 book as ‘very ill now’ by Fay Karpf. University of Chicago. Special Collections. Department of Sociology. Interviews with Graduate Students of the 1920s and 1930s. Box 1, Folder 12.
6. http://special.lib.umn.edu/findaid/xml/sw0133.xml#a2. A brief illustrated life can be found at http://www.nycommunitytrust.org/Portals/0/Uploads/Documents/Harriett%20M.%20Bartlett.pdf.
7. By ‘objectively’ Young, as with most of her contemporaries, meant something broader than later meanings, using it more or less as equivalent to ‘scientifically’.
8. Cooley’s terms, who was often seen as arguing in ways that were akin to G.H. Mead.
9. Knowing Young’s regard for Burgess, it is hard not to hear echoes of Burgess own arguments about social work records (Burgess Citation1928; see Shaw, forthcoming-b, for a discussion).
10. Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate any significant archive of Shaw’s papers.
11. Mead had lectured to the School of Civics and Philanthropy in Chicago ten years before she wrote her book.
12. The whole of the following is taken from her interview with Carey. University of Chicago. Special Collections. Department of Sociology. Interviews with Graduate Students of the 1920s and 1930s. Box 1, Folder 4.
13. She may be referring to more measurement and evidence-based positions that were to develop subsequently. She refers later to how ‘after that period the drive to become scientific moved in the direction of following the methods of the physical sciences’.
14. He actually said ‘husband’.
15. University of Chicago. Special Collections. Department of Sociology. Interviews with Graduate Students of the 1920s and 1930s. Box 1, Folder 21.
16. University of Chicago. Special Collections. Department of Sociology. Interviews with Graduate Students of the 1920s and 1930s. Box 1, Folder 9.
17. Burgess, Ernest. Papers. Addenda [Box 204, Folder 20]. Special Collections Research Centre, University of Chicago Library. Training standards.
18. It is interesting that more recent critiques of Richmond have been on the grounds that she advocated an individualising medical model. Robinson was not the only contemporary to view matters differently. Young makes the same connection, although appreciatively (Young Citation1935), when she draws on both Burgess and Richmond saying that they are ‘perhaps complementary’ (106). See also Oakley (Citation2014, 252–253) for an interesting comment on how Charlotte Towle viewed Richmond.
19. University of Chicago. Special Collections. Department of Sociology. Interviews with Graduate Students of the 1920s and 1930s. Box 1, Folder 13. Saul Alinsky (1909–1972) was a community activist and organiser, active from the 1930s through to the 1960s, initially in Chicago and latterly more widely. His best known book is Rules for Radicals.