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Pioneers are the ones who set the mold for their field, they start the trend. There are hundreds of pioneers in social work, each one of their roles ranging from just their actions toward other people to the programs they set up. Three pioneer stuck out though, one was just someone who fought for social change through her words and actions to others. One started the first settlement home and set the standard of how the homes should be ran, and the job they wanted to get done there. The last one established the first social work training center for black graduate students.
Ida B. Wells
Ida B. Wells, was born on July 16, 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi to James Wells and Elizabeth Warrenton who were both social advocates. Wells went to college but was expelled due to disagreeing with and confronting the president of the college. Wells was a teacher using her money to support her family after her parents became gravely ill and passed away. Then with three of her siblings she moved to Memphis, Tennessee where she attended Fisk University. While in Memphis, Wells was riding on a train when she was asked to give up her seat on a train, she refused to give up her seat which caused the conductor of the train to drag her off the train. She then became a public figure of the social rights movement and worked with activist such as W.E.B. DuBois, Frederick Douglass, and Mary Church Terrell, to fight the injustice and create change.
An educator, and a leader in the civil rights movement, Ida B. Wells was a woman who, in her time, set the foundation for social work. She helped set the foundation through her actions to help people who cannot help themselves. Wells used her writing as her voice to speak for change. She helped founded the Alpha Suffrage League, an organization of black women who supported suffrage but also challenged the National American Woman Suffrage Association due to they forgot about African-American women in their movement, according to the NASW Social Work Pioneers. Ida B. Wells was a pioneer to social work not because what she directly did, but because of her actions and her words against injustice to women and African-Americans.
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Jane Addams
On September 6, 1860, Jane Addams was born in Cedarville, Illinois, to her father, John Addams and her mother, Sarah Addams, who died when she was two years old. At the age of four Jane contracted tuberculosis of the spine, known as Pott’s disease. A lifetime of disease made it hard for Jane to enjoy her childhood like the other children. Addams attended Rockford Female Seminary, as a requirement of her father. She moved to Pennsylvania to attend medical school, but she could not continue to get her degree due to her health problems. After, having surgery on her back she went on a tour of Europe and decided she did not need to become a doctor.
After sinking into depression due to her health problems, Jane got a burst inspiration and started building a settlement home, the Hull House, which opened in 1889. The Hull House helped women find jobs, provided children’s clubs, feed the woman the programs in this home would be the model for other homes of its kind. Addams did not stop there either, she used these homes to fix the difference in opportunity for the different social classes. The Charity Organization Society (COS) were welcomed to help the residents of the home, because Addams did not believe receiving aid should not be degrading. Addams was a pioneer of social work because she opened up the first settlement houses which set the mold of how the house should be ran, and the focus of what the houses did.
