1600 • 1700 • 1800-1850 • 1851-1899 • 1900-1950 • 1951-1999

Events in American Social Welfare History include an exciting and diverse array of significant developments. Illustrations include:

1619: First Africans arrive in Virginia as slaves for plantation owners.

1624: Virginia Colony passes the first legislation recognizing services and needs of disabled soldiers and sailors based on “special work” contributions to society.

1636 Harvard College founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1647: Massachusetts Bay Colony required an elementary school in towns of 50 families.

1647: First Colonial Poor Law? enacted by Rhode Island emphasizes public responsibility for “relief of the poor, to maintain the impotent, and to employ the able and shall appoint an overseer for the same purpose.”

1692: The Province of Massachusetts Bay Acts establish indenture contracting or “binding out” for poor children so they will live “under some orderly family government.”

1729: Orphanage established by the Ursuline Sisters in New Orleans to care for survivors of a nearby massacre

1765: The Pennsylvania Hospital (in Philadelphia) first institution in the U.S. exclusively for the care of the sick. Funded by voluntary subscriptions.

1773: First public mental hospital established in Williamsburg, Virginia.

1785: First Federal grant made: land was allocated for establishing public schools in the Northwest Territory.

1787: The Northwest Ordnance endowed States and territorial universities with land grants.

1789: The Federal Government accepted the responsibility of providing pensions to disabled veterans of the Revolutionary War.

1789: U.S. Constitution ratified with clause equating slaves to 3/5ths of a white citizen and provision that slave trade would end within 20 years.

1790: First state public orphanage founded in Charleston, South Carolina.

1793: Eli Whitney’s invention of cotton gin sets stage for expansion of slavery in American South using slaves to pick cotton.

1793: The first local health department with a permanent board of health was formed in Baltimore, Maryland.

1795: Thomas Paine wrote his pamphlet, "Agrarian Justice," (published in English in 1797) in which he proposed a social insurance program for the nations of Europe and potentially for the young American Republic.

1796: The founding of the Boston Dispensary, Boston, Massachusetts, was the first organized medical care service in New England. This was the recognized forerunner of present day home care programs.

July 16, 1798: The Marine Hospital Service was established by an act of Congress, to provide for the temporary relief and maintenance of sick and disabled seamen. This was the first prepaid medical care program in the United States, financed through compulsory employer tax and federally administered. This service later became the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, predecessor to the Public Health Service of today.

March 2, 1799: States were given Federal help in quarantine law enforcement. The Marine Hospital Service extended to Navy men.

May 3, 1803: The first permanent Marine hospital was authorized to be built in Boston, Massachusetts.

1817: Gallaudet University for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing the first free U.S. school for the deaf is founded in Hartford, CT.

1824: The House of Refuge, the first state-funded institution for juvenile delinquents, is founded in New York.

1831: First trade union unemployment insurance plan in the United States was adopted.

1840: There were only eight “asylums for the insane” in the United States. Dorothea Dix crusaded for the establishment or enlargement of 32 mental hospitals, and transfer of those with mental illness from almshouses and jails. First attempt to measure the extent of mental illness and mental retardation? in the United States occurred with the U.S. Census of 1840, which included the category “insane and idiotic.”

1843: Sojourner Truth, an African-American woman who escaped from slavery, begins lecturing for abolitionism.

1843: Robert Hartley and associates organize the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor?, which later merges with the Charity Organization Society of New York to form the present Community Service Society.

1847: The American Medical Association was founded and began the formation of State and local societies.

1848: The first Woman's Rights Convention, was held at Seneca Falls, N.Y. July 19-20. At the convention, A "Declaration of Sentiments," a document that became a major root of the woman's suffrage movement, was approved.

1851: Young Mens Christian Association (YMCA) organized in Boston, Massachusetts.

1852: New York Childrens Aid Society is founded by Charles Loring Brace and began sending abandoned children to homes and farms in the Western U.S.

1855: The Government Hospital for the Insane was established (later became St. Elizabeth's Hospital of Washington, D.C.)

1857: The first municipal pension fund was established providing disability and death benefits for New York City police.

1857: The Columbia Institution for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind was founded (later became Gallaudet College).

1857: Dred Scott decision by Supreme Court denies any possibility of citizenship for African Americans, imperils fugitive slaves, and sets back cause of abolition.

1859: John Brown’s unsuccessful raid at Harper’s Ferry, Virgini failed to incite slave rebellion heightens tension over slavery.

1860: The United States Census reported 849,000 persons 65 and over (2.7% of the United States population).

1860: On December 20, the state of South Carolina seceded from the Union after Abraham Lincoln’s election as president. Ten other states seceded by May 1861. In April, Confederate forces fired on U.S. troops at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. President Lincoln called for troops to put down “insurrection” in the South, beginning the Civil War.

1861: In February, the seceding states established the government of the Confederate States of America and created a constitution endorsing slavery but prohibiting slave trade.

1862: On September 22, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, granting freedom to slaves in areas of the South in active rebellion on 1 January 1863.

1863: New York Catholic Protectory established. It became the largest single institution for children in the U.S.

1865: The 13th Amendment to the Constitution was approved, abolishing slavery in the U.S.

1865: The Freedmens Bureau? (Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands) is founded as a joint effort of the federal government with private and philanthropic organizations. The bureau provides food, clothing and shelter for freedmen and refugees; administers justice to protect the rights of Black men; protects freedmen and refugees from physical violence; and provides education.

1866: The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was adopted. It defines a citizen as anyone born in the U.S. (except Native Americans) or naturalized, thereby extending all rights of citizenship to African Americans.

1867: Federal Department of Education was established.

1868: The first major industrial medical care prepayment program, the hospital department of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, was organized in Sacramento, California.

1869: The first State Board of Health in the United States was formed in Massachusetts.

1872: The American Public Health Association was organized. During its early years this organization was composed largely of administrative health officers who were concerned with public health in cities, States, and with the responsibilities of the Federal Government in this field.

1874: Representatives of the State Boards of Charity? of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and Wisconsin meet and organize Conference of Boards of Public Charities?. The name changed to National Conference of Charities and Corrections in 1879.

1875: The first private pension plan in American industry was adopted by American Express. It provided benefits for employees 60 years of age or over who had 20 years service with the company and were incapacitated for further performance of duty.

1877: America’s first Charity Organization Society established in Buffalo, NY.

1882: The first major employee-sponsored mutual benefit association was established by the Northern Pacific Railway Beneficial Association which developed a program of complete medical care and other benefits financed by employer-employee payments.

1883: Supreme Court Civil Rights Cases overturns the Civil Rights Act and rules that 14th Amendment does not apply to privately owned facilities, including hotels, restaurants, and railroads, leading to segregated “Jim Crow” laws, especially in the South.

1886: University Settlement (originally Neighborhood Guild) established in the Lower East Side of New York by Stanton A. Coit?.

1889: Hull House opened on West side of Chicago by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr.

1890: Jacob Riis's classic How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York is published. A documentary and photographic account of housing conditions in the New York City slums, it helps initiate the public housing? movement.

1893: Lillian Wald? founds the Nurses Settlement, a private nonsectarian home nursing service. In 1895 it moved to become Henry Street Settlement.

1894: The first statutory retirement system for teachers was adopted in New York City.

1894: A school health program was inaugurated in Boston as a means of controlling communicable diseases.

1896: The first statewide legislation for teachers' pensions was enacted in New Jersey.

1896: Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company became the first American life insurance organization to provide disability benefits.

1897: The first State law to provide medical and surgical aid for crippled children was enacted by Minnesota.

1898: The first State law in the USA providing pensions for the blind was enacted in Ohio.

1902: The first State workmen's compensation law was enacted in Maryland; it was declared unconstitutional in 1904.

1903: Illinois passed a law authorizing special pensions for the blind.

1906: The American Association for Labor Legislation (AALL) was founded.

1907: The first Federal employment service (forerunner of the United States Employment Service) was created in the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, Department of Commerce and Labor.

1908: A workmen's compensation system was established for civilian employees of the Federal Government.

1909: Credit Unions first acquired legal status in the U.S. when the Massachusetts legislature passed a law providing for the chartering and organization of credit unions.

1909: The first public commission on aging was established in Massachusetts.

1909: The Niagra Movement stimulates the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People by a group of black and white citizens committed to helping to right social injustices.

1909: Christodora Settlement House Annual Report Published

1909: A Conference on the Care of Dependent Children was held in Washington, D.C. at the invitation of President Theodore Roosevelt?. This was the first of the White House Conferences on child welfare.

1909: The first Federal old-age pension bill was introduced in Congress.

1910: Health insurance plans, which offered medical protection in the form of medical care for industrial workers in isolated areas, and disability benefits, were first introduced by commercial and nonprofit organizations.

1910: The first major survey of the economic conditions of the aged was conducted in Massachusetts.

1911: The Triangle Waist Factory Fire in New York City

1911: The first State laws for "mothers' aid" (forerunner of aid to dependent children were enacted in Missouri and Illinois.

1911: The first workmen's compensation law to be held constitutional was enacted in Wisconsin.

1911: The first contributory system of pensions covering all State employees was established in Massachusetts.

1912: In December, A Social Insurance Committee was created by the American Association for Labor Legislation.

1912: The first State minimum wage law was enacted by Massachusetts.

1912: The Progressive Party platform called for the protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular employment and old-age through the adoption of a system of social insurance adapted to American use.

1912: The first division of child hygiene was established in a State Department of Health in Louisiana.

1912: The Children's Bureau was established in the Department of Labor by an act of Congress. Among the functions of this Bureau was the safeguarding of the health of mothers and children.

June, 1913: The American Association for Labor Legislation sponsored the First National Conference on Social Insurance in Chicago, Illinois.

1913: The American Association for Labor Legislation's Social Insurance Committee issued a Report favoring a State-run compulsory health insurance system.

1914: The first State law providing old-age pensions was enacted in Arizona. It abolished almshouses and provided pensions for aged persons, persons incapable of self support because of physical infirmities, and certain mothers with children. It was declared unconstitutional by the State Supreme Court in 1916.

1915: The first old-age pension legislation not challenged on the grounds of constitutionality was enacted in the Territory of Alaska.

1917: Social Diagnosis published by Mary Richmond?. It is the first textbook on social casework?, marking the development of a body of social work? knowledge and techniques.

October, 1917: The War Risk Insurance Act was passed. This legislation set up the first government life insurance program.

1917: The first Federal legislation establishing grant-in-aid provisions for vocational education was enacted.

1917: The first State Department of Welfare was established in Illinois.

1917: A cooperative Federal-State program of cash grants for public health services was inaugurated.

1918: The first Federal grants to States for public health services, for prevention and control of venereal diseases were instituted.

1920: The Child Welfare League of America is founded.

1920: A Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund was established for Federal employees.

June, 1920: The Vocational Rehabilitation Act (commonly called the Smith-Fess Act) was one of the first Federal grant-in-aid programs passed by Congress. It was originally conceived as a vocational training and counseling program for industrially-injured civilians. (The restoration of medical and physical ailments were not introduced as parts of this program until 1943.)

August 26, 1920: The 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified guaranteeing a woman the right to vote.

1921: The Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Act of 1921? was the first federally funded social welfare measure in the United States. Sponsored by Texas Senator Morris Sheppard and Iowa Congressman Horace Towner, it distributed federal matching grants to the states for prenatal and child health clinics, information on nutrition and hygiene, midwife training, and visiting nurses for pregnant women and new mothers. It did not provide any financial aid or medical care. According to some historians, the Shepherd-Towner Maternity and Infancy Act became the model for most of the social welfare legislation for the rest of the century.

1927: The American Association for Old-age Security was established by Abraham Epstein.

1927: The Federal Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act set up a workmen's compensation program for certain maritime and related industries workers who could not be covered under State programs.

1927: The Committee on the Costs of Medical Care (CCMC) was "organized to study the economic aspects of the prevention and care of sickness, including the adequacy, availability.

1929: In June, the Sheppard-Towner Act was allowed to expire.

1929: State laws for workmen's compensation were in effect in all but four States.

1929: The Great Depression creates an economic, political and social welfare crisis in the U.S.

January 1, 1930: The California Old-age Pension Law, which was mandatory and Statewide in its application, became effective.

June 1, 1930: The Wyoming Old-age Pension Law became effective.

July 21, 1930: The Veterans Administration was established by Executive Order.

1930: The census reported 6,634,000 persons (5.4% of the population) over 65.

1931: The Nobel Peace Prize? is awarded to Jane Addams, the founder of Hull House.

1932: The Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds? is founded.

1932, July 17: President Herbert Hoover? signs The National Emergency Relief and Construction Act of 1932.

January 29, 1932: The first State unemployment insurance law was enacted in Wisconsin.

July, 1932: The Reconstruction Finance Corporation was given authority to make loans and advances to States for relief purposes.

October, 1932: The Committee on the Costs of Medical Care's report endorsed group practice and voluntary health insurance. The report recommended State-sponsored medical care supported by taxes or insurance for the medically indigent. The AMA called the idea cumbersome and bureaucratic.

1932: The American Federation of Labor endorsed social insurance.

March 4-June 16, 1933: During the Roosevelt Administration's first "Hundred Days", Congress committed the country to extraordinary reforms with the Federal Government assuming responsibility for the welfare of millions of unemployed. The primary aim of all the legislation was recovery.

1933: Frances Perkins? is appointed United States Secretary of Labor

1933: The March 1933 issue of Survey? Mid-monthly carried the first in a series of columns that would continue for a decade. The subject of the columns — Amelia Bailey — "Miss Bailey" to most people — was a 1930s-style virtual-reality public relief supervisor.

1933, May 12: Federal Emergency Relief Act signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt?.

May 12, 1933: The Federal Emergency Relief Administration was created with an appropriation of $500,000,000. It was authorized to match the sums allotted for the relief of unemployed by State and local governments with Federal funds. The measure providing for the first direct grants to States for unemployment relief was expanded to provide medical attention and medical supplies to recipients of unemployment relief programs.

May 12, 1933: The Agriculture Adjustment Act created the Agricultural Adjustment Administration.

May 18, 1933: The first significant use of the term "Social Security" came about when the American Association for Old-age Security became the American Association for Social Security.

June 6, 1933: The Wagner-Peyser Act was enacted to establish a national employment system. It provided Federal grants to States that affiliated their employment services with the United States Employment Service. The latter was established as a separate bureau in the Labor Department to administer the Act.

1933, June 16: National Industrial Recovery Act signed.

June 16 1933: The Public Works Administration was established.

June 16 1933: The Glass-Steagall Banking Reform Act was passed.

Fall of 1933: Upton Sinclair launched his EPIC (End Poverty in California) movement.

November 1933: The Civilian Works Agency was set up.

January 1934: Dr. Francis Townsend and Robert Clements set up the organization Old-age Revolving Pensions, Ltd.

June 6, 1934: Congress established the U.S. Employment Service which, jointly with the States, established and maintained employment agencies.

June 8, 1934: Federal legislation to promote economic security was recommended in the President's Message to Congress which stated: "Among our objectives I place the security of men, women and children of the nation first."

June 26, 1934: The Federal Credit Union Act of 1934 was approved, making it possible to establish federally-chartered credit unions in all of the United States. The Federal Credit Union Section was established in the Farm Credit Administration.

June 27, 1934: The Railroad Retirement Act of 1934 was approved by the president. The Act, to be administered by the Railroad Retirement Board, provided for retirement and disability annuities and lump-sum payments to survivors.

June 29, 1934: The President created the Committee on Economic Security to study the problems relating to economic security and to make recommendations for a program of legislation. (This was Executive Order No. 6757.)

July 24, 1934: Dr. Edwin E. Witte accepted the position of Executive Director of the Committee on Economic Security.

August 13, 1934: First meeting of the President's Committee on Economic Security.

October 1, 1934: The first Federal Credit Union charter was issued to a group of people in Texarkana, Texas.

November 5, 1934: Roosevelt announces the members of a 23-member Advisory Council to the Committee on Economic Security, with Frank P. Graham, President of the University of North Carolina, as Chairman.

November 14-15, 1934: The National Conference on Economic Security was held in the District of Columbia. Representatives of employers, labor and the public attended.

January 4, 1935: President Roosevelt's message to Congress called for legislation to provide assistance for the unemployed, the aged, destitute children and the physically handicapped.

January 15, 1935: The Committee on Economic Security released its Report to President Roosevelt.

January 17, 1935: The Committee on Economic Security's recommendations, embodied in the Economic Security Bill, were introduced in the 74th Congress. Recommendations included Federal old-age insurance, Federal-State public assistance and unemployment insurance programs, and extension of public health, maternal and child health, services for crippled children and child welfare services, and vocational rehabilitation but not health insurance.

March 1, 1935: Congressman Frank Buck (Calif.) made the motion to change the name of the Economic Security Bill to the Social Security Bill. The motion was carried by a voice vote from the House Ways and Means Committee.

April 4, 1935: The Social Security Bill was introduced in the House of Representatives with a report. This bill (H.R. 7260) replaced the Economic Security Bill.

April 8, 1935: The Works Progress Administration created by the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, established a Resettlement Administration and a National Youth Administration to administer emergency work relief programs for the unemployed.

April 19, 1935: The Social Security Bill (H.R. 7260) was passed by the House of Representatives, 372 to 33 (25 not voting). Against were 13 Democrats, 18 Republicans and 2 Farm Labor.

July 5, 1935: The National Labor Relations Act was enacted.

July 15, 1935: The first compulsory health insurance bill was introduced in Congress, the "Epstein bill" sponsored by Senator Arthur Capper, (Kansas).

August 14, 1935: The Social Security Act (H.R. 7260, Public Law No. 271, 74th Congress) became law with the President's signature at approximately 3:30 p.m. on a Wednesday.

January 15, 1936: Murray W. Latimer was appointed the Director, Bureau of Federal Old-Age Benefits.

January 1936: Miss Jane Hoey was appointed Director, Bureau of Public Assistance.

February 11, 1936: The first appropriation act was made to implement the Social Security Act with funds for organization of the Social Security Board, and for the administration of the Federal program and grants to States.

February 13, 1936: The first Public Assistance checks were mailed (5 States).

August 17, 1936: An unemployed worker--Neils B. Ruud--in Madison, Wisconsin, received the first unemployment benefit check paid under a State law. The amount was $15.00.

August 1936: Publication of the Social Security Journal, Selected Current Statistics, began on a monthly basis.

May 24, 1937: In three decisions, the Supreme Court validated the unemployment insurance provisions of the Social Security Act and ruled old-age pensions were constitutional, (301 U.S. 495, 548, 619) in Steward Machine Company v. Davis; Helvering v. Davis; and Carmichael v. Southern Coal Company.

June 30, 1937: Unemployment insurance legislation became nationwide with approved laws in all States. Illinois was the last State to pass such legislation.

September 17, 1937: The name "Old-Age Benefit Program", which was provided for under Title II of the Social Security Act was changed to "Old-Age Insurance Program" to distinguish it from old-age benefits under the public assistance program. The Bureau of Federal Old-Age Benefits became the Bureau of Old-Age Insurance.

1939: A food stamps? plan to dispose of agricultural commodities is begun in Rochester, NY.

January 31, 1940: Ida M. Fuller became the first person to receive an old-age monthly benefit check under the new Social Security law. She paid in $24.75 between 1937 and 1939 on an income of $2,484. Her first check, dated January 31, was for $22.54.

1944: The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, the “GI Bill of Rights?” provides education and training through state-administered payments to educational units; subsistence allowance; loans for the purchase or construction of homes, farms, or business property; job counseling and employment placement; and 52 weeks of adjustment allowances, i.e., the “52/$20 Club.”

1946: On July 3, President Harry Truman? signed the National Mental Health Act?, creating for the first time in US history a significant amount of funding for psychiatric education and research and leading to the creation in 1949 of the National Institute of Mental Health? (NIMH).

1955: National Association of Social Workers founded by a merger of seven social work membership groups

1962: Michael Harrington's The Other America is published, awakening the American public to the nation's increasing level of poverty.

1963: August 28, March on Washington DC for Jobs and Freedom

1964: Civil Rights Act of 1964? passed. Title II and Title VII forbid racial discrimination in "public accommodations" and race and sex discrimination in employment.

1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson? declares War on Poverty?. The Economic Opportunity Act? passed by Congress on August 20. The legislation established the Office of Economic Opportunity? and called for the creation of Volunteers in Service to America? (VISTA), Job Corps?, Upward Bound?, Neighborhood Youth Corps? and Community Action? programs.

1965: Voting Rights Act is passed.

1965: The 89th Congress enacts a number of pieces of social legislation, among them: the Older Americans Act is passed creating the U.S. Administration on Aging, the first central federal body dealing with aging; the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is passed, initiating the first major infusion of federal funds into the U.S. educational system; Medicare? is enacted as Title XVIII of the Social Security Act; and Medicaid? is enacted as Title XIX of the Social Security Act.

1965: U.S. Administration for Children and Families? (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services?) is established.

1969: President Richard M. Nixon? proposes the Family Assistance Plan? in an historic message to Congress. He asserts the existing welfare system has failed and recommends a federal welfare system with a virtually guaranteed annual income?. Eventually the plan is withdrawn.

1972: Social Security Amendments of 1972? established the Supplementary Security Income? (SSI) program, a federally administered welfare program to replace the state/federal programs of ((aid for the aged, blind and disabled)) populations.

1990: On July 26 President George H.W. Bush? signed the Americans with Disabilities Act

1996: On August 22, President William Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act?, ending “welfare as we know it.” The heart of the new legislation is Temporary Assistance for Needy Families?(TANF).