Coördination.—In recent years social workers have developed a new sense of the interrelations of social agencies. As affecting case-work, this has showed in an increased appreciation of the idea of registration which had been one of the cardinal principles of the charity organization movement. Under the new name of “confidential exchange” or “social service exchange,” there has been established in the leading cities a central record of the families known to the various social agencies, so that each society may learn which other agencies may be, or have been, interested in any particular family and may consult with them. Furthermore, social workers began to think of particular agencies and particular methods as elements in the community's equipment, to consider what place each one should occupy, what its appropriate function was, and what was needed to supplement it. In other words, they began to make “programmes”: for a comprehensive campaign against tuberculosis; for a charity organization society in a small town; for an adequate system of care for the insane; for State legislation on behalf of children—“children's codes,” as they are called, presenting a harmonized plan of desirable laws; and so on. The national associations in the different educational movements not only outlined in a general way the elements in a “campaign” against the particular evil of their concern, but also suggested concrete programmes for local organizations. Councils of social agencies have been organized in some cities to promote mutual understanding and the development of a community programme, while the financial federations which have been developed for joint raising of funds have, as an incident to their main purpose, perhaps been the strongest influence of all in this direction. Since the World War it has become obvious that there is need for coördinating the work of the national agencies also.
Financial Federations.—The financial federations bid fair to establish themselves as an integral feature of social work in America. Before the end of the 19th century bureaux of advice and information had been created by the charity organization societies in several of the large cities, supplying information about organizations and individuals and appealing for contributions. Beginning with Cleveland about 1900, the chamber of commerce in various cities had established a “charity endorsement committee,” which made up a list of approved agencies for the convenience of its members, who, with their families, constituted a large part of the giving public. As social agencies multiplied, competition became so intense that protests from harassed contributors led to the idea of financial federation, viz. that all the agencies in a community which depended on voluntary contributions for their support should form an association, agree on a joint budget for the next year, throw into a common pool their contributors' lists and other information about sources of income, present their united needs to the public in a single campaign, and share in the results in proportion to their budgets. Jewish charities were the first to do this successfully, but by 1917 there were general federations in several cities. When the war brought demands from a host of new and old organizations, in sums that had never before even been imagined, a development of the fundamental idea in federations was forced. “War chests” were set up in some 300 cities by the summer of 1918, to raise the money asked for by the American Red Cross, the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., the War Camp Community Service, and other “war work” agencies, and in some places the local charities also were included in the chest. The general satisfaction felt with the experiment led a number of the cities to convert their war chests into “peace chests” or “community funds,” and by March 1921 at least 30 important cities had adopted this method of raising their funds. A great deal more money is secured in this way than by separate competitive appeals; a much larger proportion of the population contributes (20-30% instead of an estimated 2-10%); less expense is involved and less annoyance to contributors. The strongest argument in favour of financial federations, however, is that through joint budget-making, joint study of community needs, joint planning for community welfare, they tend to dissipate the narrow institutionalism of the agencies concerned; while, on the other hand, they increase the public interest in the social work of the community, and provide a channel through which the public may register its judgments of the social agencies and share in directing their development.
Increased Reliance on Government.—Even before the war there was a noticeable tendency away from the old American individualism and distrust of government. Supervision over private social work has been extended, and there has even been a tendency towards some degree of public control. Recourse has been had to legislation to establish minimum standards of housing, of working conditions, even of wages, to protect women and children in industry, and otherwise to promote social welfare; and such legislation has been increasingly sustained by the courts. The great cost of adequate provision for the sick and adequate hygienic education of the well, together with the growing recognition that, to be adequate, such measures must reach all citizens, have made it inevitable that they should be undertaken largely by public authorities. Boards of health have accordingly extended their control over infectious diseases, established sanatoria and all sorts of clinics, distributed much information, and maintained nurses and physicians to visit the poor in their homes and give them oral instruction. Public schools have added physicians, nurses, psychiatrists, dentists and “visiting teachers” to their staffs, have offered evening classes and vocation schools and public lectures and opened their buildings as “community centres,” as well as admitted into the curriculum new subjects. Three-fourths of the states have established bureaux of child welfare or child hygiene.
There has even been an extension of public out-door relief, which had fallen into disrepute during the 19th century. Partly as a result of the new conviction that children were better off with their mothers than in institutions or in foster homes, partly from a sudden appreciation of the service performed to the State in the bearing of children and a determination that the State should recognize this service, most of the states of the Union (beginning with Missouri in 1911) made special provision for payments of “widows' pensions” or “mothers' allowances,” “mothers' aid,” “funds to parents,” or “mothers' compensation,” to mothers who without this assistance might be obliged to place their children in institutions.
Reliance on the State has gone so far as to demand assistance in promoting social welfare from the Federal Government. Its taxing power has been invoked to discourage the employment of children in factories, mines and quarries, in order to extend some protection to the children in the more backward states. Financial aid for vocational education and (by a measure passed in 1920) for the reëducation of industrial cripples, has been granted by the Federal Government to the states in proportion to their population and their own appropriations. The Department of Agriculture has done social work on a substantial scale in rural districts. The Bureau of Labor has been erected into a separate department, with corresponding increase in importance. A children's bureau, placed almost by chance in the Department of Labor, was created in 1912, at the instance of the social workers of the country.
The World War and Social Work.—The first effect of the war on social work in America, while the United States was still neutral, was to strengthen and improve it. Sympathy for sufferings in Europe quickened sensitiveness to social problems at home. A little later the appeals for war relief tended to drown those of the familiar everyday agencies at home. This was not an unmixed evil, for it compelled scrutiny of plans within each organization to determine what could be spared with least disadvantage. When the United States entered the war, in April 1917, social work leaped into unprecedented prominence. Many of the wonted social problems were intensified and some new ones created, especially by the operation of the draft and the establishment of training camps; while a new demand for persons with experience in human problems sprang up in government departments and war industries. A fervour developed for service, especially for service to American soldiers and sailors and to the civilian sufferers in the Allied countries. The Red
