Grace Abbott, social worker and public administrator, was an important member of the social reform movement in Chicago at the turn of the twentieth century.  As both teacher and political activist, she influenced the creation of state-sponsored programs and increased public awareness of concerns involving immigrants, women, and children.

 

Grace Abbott was born November 17, 1878 in Grand Island, Nebraska.  Her parents were Othman Ali Abbott, a lawyer and politician, and Elizabeth Griffin, a high school principal.  Elizabeth was raised as a Quaker, and instilled in her daughters a belief in the equality of men and women and the importance of social justice.[1]  Grace often commented that one of the most important influences in her life was her mother’s upbringing in a Quaker background and belief in peace and abolitionism.

 

Abbott was involved in education throughout her life.  She attended Omaha boarding school, graduated from Grand Island High School, and received a Ph. D. from Grand Island College in 1898.  She taught for seven years at a local high school while she studied at the University of Nebraska.  In 1906 she followed her sister, Edith, to the University of Chicago.  At the University of Chicago, her knowledge in law and interest in social welfare administration attracted the attention of Professors Ernst Freund and Sophonisba Breckenridge, both important figures in Progressive and social reform movements.[2]  Grace studied political economy, political science, and law in pursuit of a master of philosophy degree in political science, which she achieved in 1909.

 

Abbott took a position with the Juvenile Protective Association to support her studies, which allowed her to move into the Hull-House.  In 1908, Breckinridge, Freund, and Judge Julian Mack founded the Immigrant’s Protective League, and chose Grace Abbott as its first director.  This organization was established to combat abuses many new immigrants in Chicago faced, such as exploitation by unscrupulous ticket agencies and employment bureaus, working in dangerous conditions, and targets for prostitution and other illegal vice rings.  As director of the league, Abbott employed various methods typical of progressive-era reformers: scientific fact-finding with precise documentation, publication of the results in professional journals and the popular press, and lobbying for remedial and protective legislation.[3]  Abbott became an active member of the Women’s Trade Union League where she supported local workers during the Garment Worker’s Strike of 1910-11.  She also promoted women’s suffrage, developed a state plan for the enforcement of compulsory school attendance of immigrant children, chaired a special committee on Penal and Correctional Institutions in 1915, where she especially explored the treatment of women in prison.

 

In 1917, Abbott was offered the opportunity to direct the Industrial Division of the Federal Children’s Bureau.[4]  At the bureau, Abbott created a new system for inspection, certification, and enforcement of child-labor laws and worked to ensure the new system did not conflict with local state practices.  She succeeded Julia Lathrop as the chief of the Children’s Bureau, where she administered the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921, which extended the first federal grants-in-aid for social welfare purposes and authorized federal-state cooperation in promoting medical and child health.

 

Grace Abbott left the Children’s Bureau in 1934 to become Professor of Public Welfare at the Graduate School of Social Service Administration.  At this institution, Abbott developed standards and methodologies for advocating and training social workers.[5]  She continued to testify before congressional and state legislative committees, was an editor of the Social Service Reform from 1934 to 1939, and compiled an extensive collection of documents published in 1938 as The Child and The State.[6]  Grace Abbott died of acute anemia on June 19, 1939.

 

Grace Abbott’s article “A Study of the Greeks in Chicago,” published in the American Journal of Sociology in 1909, is one of the many articles she wrote exposing the conditions and dangers many immigrants faced as residents in the United States.  She discusses the complexities and municipal discrimination many Greek immigrants encountered.  She admires the pride Greek immigrants hold in the traditions of their ancestors.  She considers them bright, industrious and capable people, and she encourages the reader to recognize their ability to contribute to American society, and to help them evade those who continue to exploit them.