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Paul U. Kellogg and the Survey
Voices for Social Welfare and Social Justice
Clarke A. Chambers
University of Minnesota Press, 1971

Paul U. Kellogg and the Survey was first published in 1971. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

This joint biography of an editor, Paul U. Kellogg, and a journal, the Survey,provides new insights into the story of social work, social welfare policy, and political and social reform in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. Under Kellogg's editorship, the Survey and Survey Graphic journals stood at the heart of the evolution of social work as a profession and the development of a public social welfare policy during those years.

Early in his career, in 1901, Kellogg joined the staff of the Charities Review,the leading social service publication at that time. In 1912 he became editor in chief of the successor to that journal, the Survey, and he held this position of leadership for forty years until the magazine ceased publication.

The journals Kellogg edited played a major role in shaping and defining areas and methods of social service in all its diverse fields — the settlement movement, casework, recreation and group work, community organization, and social action. They carried news in depth about all manner of social work practice—juvenile courts, penology, health, education, institutional care, public relief, the administration of social insurance, and other aspects. The Survey's influence was profound in promoting the elaboration of public policy in social welfare fields, such as housing reform, workmen's compensation, the rights of organized labor, old age and survivors' insurance, unemployment compensation, aid to dependent children, and health insurance. Thus this account represents an important chapter in American social history.

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Seedtime of Reform
American Social Service and Social Action, 1918-1933
Clarke A. Chambers
University of Minnesota Press, 1963

Seedtime of Reform was first published in 1963. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

This is a detailed history of the social welfare movement in the United States during the period from the end of World War I to the inauguration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, an era which most historians characterize as one of normalcy and reaction. In his book Professor Chambers demonstrates that this was actually a seedtime of reform, a period when the groundwork was laid for many of the sweeping social changes which were to take place under the New Deal.

While it is true, as the author points out, that the years from 1918 to 1933 were not hospitable to the cause of reform, it was during these years that reform leaders and welfare workers (and the associations and agencies they directed) elaborated new theories and programs of action to alleviate, prevent, and overcome certain persisting social ills. Although little was constructively achieved until new political leadership, operating in the context of acute and prolonged economic crisis, acted in the 1930s, much of what we identify as the New Deal was rooted not only in prewar progressivism but in the research, agitation, and welfare services of the 1920s as well. Reformers and welfare workers made especially significant contributions in the areas of housing, social security, public works, federal responsibility for dependent groups in society, and working conditions.

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