Social Welfare in the early age

BY: CHE

PICTURE LINK

Everyone has a need. We need something in order to keep being alive. Our needs consist from simple oxygen to psychological peace and happiness. Social welfare is something that’s created by humans to meet those need as much as possible. In this post, I’ll be talking about how the concept of social welfare int the early American society.
    The first big changes in the United States of America were made in the mid-1800s and early 1900s due to the huge transition to industrialization and urbanization. Social problems increased such as unemployment and less rewarding jobs, and thus society had to create new ways to fulfill such needs.
    In the early age, people’s wealth status was believed to be the result of their own behavior according to Puritan ethic: Those who are poor are being punished for their moral weakness, and those who are wealthy are being rewarded for their moral strength. However, the society started to recognize that it might not be the truth when the French Enlightenment of the eighteenth century—people are inherently good and need for assistance is not related to morality—emerge in America.  
    Dorothea Dix(1802)is one of the most effective social welfare pioneers. She contributed to the passage of the bill in the US Congress to grant land to states to help to have care system for mentally ill people which were first vetoed by President Franklin Pierce in 1854. Then the US started to expand on the success of mental health care system. Lots of voluntary associations such as the Charity Organization Societies, Settlement Houses, the Mental Hygiene Movement, and programs to assist former slaves in integrating into the dominant society arose, and from there on the awareness of mental health started to increase in America.
    Social welfare and the profession of social work have started as a voluntary form. The acceptance from the society of social worker as an actual profession took a lot of effort of pioneers and time. I think it is a fascinating process and interesting to see how people changed their mind about social welfare.