Social Work

  • Colonial Period - Elizabethan Poor Laws

  • 1801-1860 - Pre-Civil War Period - Residential Institutions

    Gallaudet University for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing - first free U.S. school for the deaf founded in Hartford, CT
  • 1861-1874 - Civil War/Post-War Period - First Federal Intervention

    Civil War Pension Program passed to provide aid to Civil War veterans and their families
  • 1875-1925 - Progressive Era - Birth of Social Work Profession

    President Theodore Roosevelt called social workers and child welfare workers to Washington to participate in first White House Conference on Dependent Children
  • 1926-1940 - Great Depression / New Deal - Social Insurance and Public Assistance

    National Labor Relations Act was passed giving workers the right to bargain and to legally join unions
  • 1940-1959 - World War II and after - GI Bill

    National Mental Health Act passed; National School Lunch Program passed
  • 1960-1975 - Social Reform Period - War on Poverty

    Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962 was the country’s first major job training program