University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration - History

History

SSA is one of a handful of institutions that helped create and define the social work profession and the social welfare field. The School of Social Service Administration’s first leaders were activists in the Chicago settlement house movement, one of the main strands in what eventually became social work. Graham Taylor, who organized SSA's predecessor, the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, was a social gospel minister and founder of the settlement house, Chicago Commons. Similarly, Sophonisba Breckinridge, Grace and Edith Abbott, and Julia Lathrop, the women who shaped SSA into an institution of national importance, had lived and worked at Jane Addams' Hull House.

While most early schools of social work concentrated on practical training for caseworkers, SSA's leaders immediately insisted on the need for a solid foundation in social science and social research as well. In its first decade, the faculty and students of The Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy were investigating such issues as juvenile delinquency, truancy, vocational training, and housing in the rapidly growing city of Chicago. The decision in 1920 to merge the Chicago School and the University of Chicago opened students to contact with the social sciences. It was from this union that the SSA was created. SSA's first requirement both in 1920 and today is that a student demonstrates a "good foundation in the social sciences."

In the decades since then, the emphases on social research and on applying the insights of social science to solving human problems have continued. SSA today continues to establish the connections between the social and behavioral sciences, research, and the real world of policy and practice.