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ABBOTT, Edith

Born 26 September 1876, Grand Island, Nebraska; died 28 July 1957, Grand Island, Nebraska

Daughter of Othman Ali and Elizabeth Abbott

Edith Abbott was the first woman dean of a graduate school in an American university and, simultaneously, the first dean of the first school of social work in the nation. A dedicated social reformer and scientist, Abbott's significant contributions are often overshadowed by the fame and writings of her close friends and colleagues at Hull House in Chicago: Jane Addams, Sophonisba Breckinridge, and her sister, Grace Abbott.

Born into a well-established family that had moved to the Nebraska frontier just prior to her birth, Abbott was encouraged to be independent and intellectual. She graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1901 and, frustrated with the lack of career opportunities in Nebraska, moved to Illinois where she began her studies at the University of Chicago.

After receiving her Ph.D. in political economy in 1907, Abbott became an industrious and illustrious faculty member of the University of Chicago. When the School of Social Services Administration was founded in 1920, she was appointed dean. Always interested in women's rights, Abbott fought for high positions for women, laying a foundation for the female control and domination in social work that has continued until today. Abbott, her sister Grace, and Sophonisba Breckinridge were major leaders in the formation of public policy affecting women, children, industrial relations, and immigration. Furthermore, they helped establish the profession of social work as an academic occupation, raising its prestige and power as a source of social change. Unfortunately, their tradition of sound research and political advocacy on behalf of the underprivileged, especially women, has lost much of its momentum among conservative social workers of today.

Abbott's first book, Women in Industry: A Study in American Economic History (1909), is a massive, comprehensive study of women's work in the marketplace. Evolving out of earlier work done with Breckinridge on census statistics dealing with the employment of women, it developed a complex and thorough analysis of women in various industrial areas, including factories, cotton mills, and the clothing and printing industries. The book records not only historical antecedents of women's industrial labor but also 1909 public opinion. It is an invaluable history of the early labor movements and occupational structures, as well as the more specialized topic of women and industry.

Abbott coauthored The Delinquent Child and the Home with Breckinridge in 1912. It elaborates in a systematic and documented fashion the problems of urban youth. Abbott and Breckinridge again collaborated when they wrote Truancy and Non-Attendance in the Chicago Schools: A Study of the Social Aspects of the Compulsory Education and Child Labor Legislation of Illinois (1917). Highly committed to the need for education until age sixteen, the authors examine the many factors leading to school absence, such as poverty, mental and physical defects, lack of knowledge of immigrant parents and children, and delinquency. Documenting the existence and extent of missed school days and the historical development of compulsory education, remedies are suggested. The authors' arguments are still timely and the controversy still lively.

The Tenements of Chicago, 1908-1935 (1936), is a massive study of housing conditions and poverty in Chicago. The book, a result of 25 years of study, is based on house-to-house canvassing in 151 city blocks, including visits to 18,225 apartments. The problems Abbott and Breckinridge noted, such as lack of enforcement of housing regulations, too few city inspectors, high rents for substandard housing, large numbers of unemployed suffering from the social stresses of broken families, ill health, and lack of education, are as relevant today as they were over 40 years ago. The documentation of these problems provides an excellent basis for their understanding today.

Abbott's vision of social work as an aggressive, policymaking, and controversial profession is clearly specified in Social Welfare and Professional Education (1931). Partially written during the Great Depression, it advocates government-sponsored, guaranteed employment, centralized and organized through public agencies.

Abbott was a talented, conscientious scholar, educator, and social reformer who was overshadowed during her life by her association with famous and more charismatic figures. Today she remains little known outside of the field of social work, but her writings are a witness and a tribute to her talents and contributions.