The National Catholic School of Social Service: Redefining Catholic Womanhood through the Professionalization of Social Work During the Interwar Years

The National Catholic School of Social Service: Redefining Catholic Womanhood through the Professionalization of Social Work During the Interwar Years L.E. Hartmann-Ting T hirteen years had passed since the death of her friend and mentor, Msgr. William J. Kerby, when Sara Laughlin, a social worker in the Philadelphia parochial schools, reminisced about their first meeting in 1913 at a lecture sponsored by the Ladies of Charity. His speech, she recalled, had been a defining moment in her life and she owed her career as a professional social worker to the guidance Kerby subsequently offered. Laughlin had been receptive to Kerby’s message , she explained, because her mother had been their neighborhood’s “unofficial social worker.”1 As such, her mother, with the help of neighbors, would care for the sick, read and write letters for the illiterate, make sure children were baptized, and that the sick received last rites. Kerby made clear, however, that the growth of cities and complexities of modern life demanded “intelligent service.”2 Historians of American Catholicism know Kerby as a strong supporter of higher education for women and a leader in the movement to change the organization and practice of Catholic charity during the first decades of the twentieth century. As chair of Catholic University’s Department of Sociology and founder of the National Conference of Catholic Charities in 1910, Kerby devoted himself to helping Catholics understand modern poverty as different from forms that preceded it. Poverty and its attendant ills were a systemic problem, he explained, a product of the current economic system.3 101 1. Karen Kennelly, “Ideals of American Catholic Womanhood,” in Karen Kennelly, ed., American Catholic Women: A Historical Exploration (New York: Macmillan, 1989), 4. 2. Written reflections from Sara E. Laughlin, February 11, 1949, William J. Kerby Papers, Collection 58, Box 1, folder 1, American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives, Catholic University of America (hereafter ACUA). 3. William J. Kerby, The Social Mission of Charity: A Study of Points of View in Catholic Charities (New York: Macmillan, 1921), 44-45. Published in 1921, this collection of essays brought together the ideas Kerby had been popularizing since the turn of the century. Simple relief, the kind of charity Catholics had long glorified, was no longer enough: “Now to give material relief . . . and to close the eyes to the processes that threaten a family,” he argued, “would be most inadequate. . . .”4 Laughlin’s awakening is emblematic of larger changes reshaping both the institutional Church and the laity. Signs of change in Catholic thought and practice regarding the function of charity were clear during the first decades of the twentieth century . The papal encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) gave the social justice movement in American Catholicism grounding and impetus just as non-Catholic reform efforts gained momentum. Fordham University in New York (1916) and Chicago’s Loyola University (1914) offered Catholic alternatives to the New York School of Philanthropy (1898) and the Chicago School of Social Service Administration (1903). The Proceedings of the National Conference of Catholic Charities and the St. Vincent de Paul Quarterly, the latter of which Kerby edited, were early efforts to build a body of Catholic literature for those interested in the work of reform. Advocacy for professionally trained social workers, to work in and outside of Catholic charities, became an essential part of the Church’s response to the demands created by industrialization , immigration and urbanization in a pluralistic society. Recognizing the increased role of government in the provision of social welfare, Catholic leaders modified their separatist strategies and emphasized the need for Catholics to be represented in public policy debates and government forums.5 Dramatic organizational, strategic and cultural shifts were inherent in the process of changing the way Catholics approached charity and reform. Influenced by the broadening of women’s roles and the social and economic crises that animated progressivism , lay Catholic women, once limited to parish-based activities or women’s auxiliaries of national organizations, were an underutilized and potent resource in the Church’s effort to “care for their own.”6 Though the hierarchy created and sanctioned broadened roles for Catholic laywoman, especially those involved in the developing field of professional...