African American Women and Social Action: The Clubwomen and Volunteerism from Jim Crow to the New Deal, 1896-1936

Front Cover
Bloomsbury Academic, Apr 30, 2001 - Social Science - 248 pages

Black women have a long history of collective struggle to create welfare organizations, schools, orphanages, and health centers for African Americans. Their clubs evolved for many reasons, including self-education, community improvement, and to raise the standards of black women. Many of these women, educated beyond their race and gender and with a commitment to their communities, turned to volunteer work. This book examines the volunteer efforts of black clubwomen in the National Association of Colored Women from 1896 to 1936, and explores how their work influenced the impact and direction of social services in black communities, especially during the Progressive era. The innovative role black clubwomen played at this time aided the African American community in both social change and community survival.

A variety of factors motivated black women to organize club associations, including the urgent social needs of poor African Americans who were excluded from all public relief, an increasing number of educated middle-class black women, and the growth of urban black communities due to migration from the South. The pioneer clubwomen of this time period established successful social service programs and agencies, and laid the foundation for opportunities and assistance in education, political and religious leadership, and social service within the African American community. Social services established by the clubwomen, such as travelers' aid, job training and placement, settlement houses, child and family welfare services, and preventive health care services, provided the foundation for the Urban League and the emergence of professional black social workers. The first black school of social work, the Atlanta School of Social Work, was a direct outgrowth of the activities of the Neighborhood Union Settlement.

From inside the book

 

Contents

A Historical Perspective
15
African American Women Organize to Ameliorate Social Conditions
29
Volunteerism for the Common Good
45
Copyright

7 other sections not shown

Common terms and phrases

activities African American women African Americans Afro-American agencies Association of Colored Atlanta University black and white black clubwomen black community black social workers black women black women's clubs Booker Boston Brooklyn Charities Chicago College Colored Women cultural domestic economic established female gender Georgia girls graduate Hampton Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman Community Haynes History improve Industrial institutions interracial cooperation Janie Porter Barrett Jim Crow Josephine Ruffin Lillian Wald Lincoln Settlement Lugenia Hope Margaret Washington Mary Bethune Mary Church Terrell Mary McLeod Bethune Mary Terrell middle-class Migration Missionary moral movement NACW National Association Notes National Urban League Neighborhood Union North organized Oxford University Press Phillis Wheatley political president problems programs racial School of Social segregation self-help settlement house settlement workers social service Social Settlement South Southern Tuskegee uplift Verina Verina Morton-Jones Victoria Matthews W.E.B. Du Bois White Rose Home white women Williams womanhood

References to this book

About the author (2001)

FLORIS BARNETT CASH is an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and History at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. She teaches in the Department of Africana Studies and has courses affiliated with Women's Studies.

Bibliographic information

TitleAfrican American Women and Social Action: The Clubwomen and Volunteerism from Jim Crow to the New Deal, 1896-1936
Contributions in Women's Studies
AuthorFloris B. Cash
Editionillustrated
PublisherBloomsbury Academic, 2001
Original fromthe University of Michigan
DigitizedSep 18, 2008
ISBN0313315639, 9780313315633
Length248 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Social Science / Ethnic Studies / General
  
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