Sept 12 J741 USC Levy

1. Social Policy:
Historical Perspective

2. Cultures Across the World
Elements of Commonality
• Each culture developed a system or
institutionalized method to address vulnerable
populations
• Historically charity was defined as a religious
duty
• Accepting charity was non-stigmatizing
• (Chapin 2011)

3. Notions of Philosophical Difference
• Would rewarding beggars discourage working?
Are there those that deserve our assistance and
those that do not?
Are the poor different?
What is the role of government in addressing social
welfare?

4. Religious Traditions
• Religious tenets that explore a duty/commitment/ideal to
address poverty
• Fill in the blank with postings
• Native American religions reflect a ________approach to
using the tribe’s resources.
• The practice in Islam of almsgiving is called_________.
• The Torah commands Jews to_________ for people living in
poverty.
• Christianity addresses this issue throughout the New
Testament instructing people to serve God by ________for
each other.

5. Ring Around A Rosie
• Have you ever played this game or sang this
rhyme as a child?
– Ring around a rosie
– Pocket full of posies
– Ashes, Ashes
– We all fall down!

6. English Poor Laws
• Feudal System
– Black Death
• Rise of the Merchant Class
– Guilds and Apprentice System
• From Farm to Town
– Land use
– Poor Harvests and Famines

7. Poor Law of 1601
• What does this have to do with 2012?
• A uniform system to address poverty and
unemployment
– Outdoor Relief Public and Private
– Workhouses Public
– Almshouses Private

8. English Colonies
• What is the intersection of poverty, economic
enterprise, religious sects and power holders?
• How do the establishment of colonies address
social issues of the day?

9. The Puritans
• Calvinism
• Reverend Cotton Mather:
– The Responsibility of Doing Good Bonaficius
– Dispute with Reverend Thomas Hooker

10. Slavery and Indentured Servants
• Control of Human Labor to benefit and profit
the ruling class.
• Sometimes people agreed to become
indentured to pay off their passage.
– What current illegal system in the U.S. is identical
to this?
• Slavery the ownership of people who are
understood to be property

11. The Worthy and Unworthy Poor
• Worthy: widows with children, aged, orphans,
blind
– What current U.S. document that we fill out
annually asks us if we are a) blind and b) aged?
• Unworthy: drunks, indolent, persons of ill
repute (prostitutes, gamblers)
• It depends: the unemployed, the injured, ill,
veterans,

12. The Sanchez Family
• How do we understand the Sanchez family in
the context of Worthy/Unworthy Poor?
• “What historic factors do you think contribute
to the Sanchez family more willing to receive
help through their church than through public
social service agencies? (Chapin,2011, 56)”.

13. The Constitution and Civil Rights
• Group Breakout:
– Open another browser
– With your group select one of the Bill of Rights
Prepare to discuss how this issue or constitutional protection
is reflected in as a current policy issues
For example:
unreasonable search and seizure: if a child welfare worker
suspects the family is using meth can they demand a drug
test on the children without the parents consent?

14. Racism, Westward Expansion and
Waves of Immigrants
• African-Americans and the Self-Help Tradition
– Racism
– Left Out
– Jim Crow Laws
– Self-Help
– Mistrust of the Public System
• Native Americans
– Treaties
– Removal Policies
– Genocide
– Issue of Tribal Sovereignty
– Homestead Act of 1862

15. The Child Saving Movement
• What to do with those children running wild
on the streets?
– Orphanages
– Apprentices
– The Shakers
– Charles Loring Brace and Orphan Trains
• www.orphantraindepot.com

16. The Dichotomy of Social Work’s
History
• What women noticed during the Abolitionist
Movement to end slavery.
• Charity Organization Society
– Mary Richmond
• Settlement House Movement
– Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr

17. Famous Social Work Founders
• http://www.naswfoundation.org/pioneer.asp
• http://www.pendletonhistoricfoundation.org/
– Mary Richmond, Jane Edna Hunter, Florence Kelley, Ellen
Gates Starr, Lillian Wald, Grace and Edith Abbott, William
English Walling, Abigail May Alcott, Jane Addams, Janie
Barrett and Doctor Alice Hamilton.
– Who’s missing from the Social Work pioneer’s list and why to
do think this is so (critical thinking)?