Miriam Cohen - Julia Lathrop: Social Service and Progressive Government

Julia Lathrop was a social servant, government activist, and social scientist who expanded notions of womens proper roles in public life during the early 1900s. Appointed as chief of the U.S. Childrens Bureau, created in 1912 to promote child welfare, she was the first woman to head a United States federal agency. Throughout her life, Lathrop challenged the social norms of the time and became instrumental in shaping Progressive reform. She began her career at Hull House in Chicago, the nations most famous social settlement, where she worked to improve public and private welfare for poor people, helped establish Americas first juvenile court, and pushed for immigrant rights. Lathrop was also co-founder of one of Americas first schools of social work. Later in life she became a leader in the League of Women Voters and an advisor on child welfare to the League of Nations. Following Lathrops life from her childhood and college education through her social service and government work, this book gives an overview of her enduring contribution to progressive politics, womens employment, and womens education. It also offers a look at how one influential woman worked within the bounds of traditional conventions about gender, race, and class, and also pushed against them.