Edith Abbott - Later Career

Later Career

Abbott was a prominent immigration expert, working for reforms that would end exploitation of immigrants. She was appointed chair of the Committee on Crime and the Foreign Born of the Wickersham National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement (1929-31).

In 1935, Abbott helped draft the Social Security Act. From 1942 to 1953, Abbott taught and edited the Social Service Review, which she had co-founded with Breckinridge in 1927.

Abbott was known to be a confidant and special consultant to Harry Hopkins, adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Abbott was also notable for being appointed to a single case on the California Supreme Court in 1950, making her the first woman to sit on the state's supreme court.

During her career, Abbott wrote over 100 books and articles on a variety of topics. For this reason, she was known as the "passionate statistician." In her writing, Abbott stressed the importance and the essential need of a public welfare administration, the need for a more humane social welfare system, the responsibility of the state in relation to social problems, and the social aspects of legislation.

Abbott spent her last years with her brother Arthur in the family home in Grand Island, where she died of pneumonia in 1957. She left the bulk of her estate to the Grand Island Public Library. She also left a trust for a collection of non-fiction books in memory of her mother, Elizabeth Abbott.