Women in Social Work: Friendly Visitors in Philadelphia, 1880

Abstract

Little is known about the history of women in social work; yet a need exists for study of this topic. The purpose of this article is to examine the characteristics of women affiliated with the Philadelphia Society for Organizing Charitable Relief and Repressing Mendicancy (SOC) by using data for Philadelphia obtained from the schedules of the 1880 United States Census. The founding of the SOC marked an expansion of women's participation in Philadelphia's formally organized charitable system and a weakening of role constraints which limited women's charitable activities. The typical SOC visitor was an older native-born white woman from Philadelphia's upper socioeconomic strata. She was either single or a married woman looking for a role alternative after her children had matured. This article suggests that charity organization flourished in the late nineteenth century because feminist impulses coincided with conservative class interests.