Early Career
Abbott also worked as an assistant to Sophonisba Breckinridge, then director of social research at the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy. In that position, Abbott contributed to studies of juvenile delinquents and truants. She also created studies on women in industry and problems in the penal system. She lived with her sister, Grace, at Hull House from 1908 to 1920, associating with the men and women who worked in support of Jane Addams and her social reform causes.
In 1920, Abbott and Breckinridge helped arrange the transfer of the School of Civics and Philanthropy to the University of Chicago, where it was renamed to the School of Social Service Administration. The school was the first university-based graduate school of social work. In 1924, Abbott became the school's dean, the first US woman to become the dean of an American graduate school. She served in that position until 1942, and she emphasized the importance of formal education in social work and the need to include field experience as part of that training. In 1926, Abbott helped establish the Cook County Bureau of Public Welfare.
Abbott published research into several social issues:
- Women in Industry (1910)
- The Real Jail Problem (1915)
Together with Breckinridge, she published the following studies:
- The Delinquent Child and the Home (1912)
- Truancy and Non-Attendance in the Chicago Schools (1917)
The two women launched the influential journal Social Service Review in 1927, in addition to launching the University of Chicago Social Service Series of books and monographs, "making use of case records and public documents in a novel and striking way", as in the classics Immigration: Select Documents and Case Records (1924) and Historical Aspects of the Immigration Problem: Select Documents (1926).
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