Scientific Charity Movement

The Scientific Charity Movement was born after the Panic of 1873, which was a collapse of the postwar economic boom from the American Civil War as well as the Franco-Prussian War that concluded in 1871. This led to the failure of American banks and financial panic that ultimately began an economic depression.[3]^:20–21 The response from the white economic elites at the time, as agitation grew within the poor and working classes, resulted in a new social reform that attacked welfare and promoted rigorous, data-driven systems to acknowledge the “deserving” poor from the “undeserving”. [3]^:22

Two of the biggest advocates for moving Charity Organization Societies to the United States were Josephine Lowell and S. Humphreys Gurteen. Lowell had been raised by a radical abolitionist family and firmly believed that idleness was one of the largest causes of poverty. She believed that before someone should be allowed to receive aid they should first be required to complete a labor test of some basic task like cutting wood. She was opposed to local governments giving relief as well as almsgiving and stated that the best way to help the poor was to "help them help themselves".[4][5]

Gurteen, an English-born son of an Anglican preacher, is often attributed to bringing Charity Organization Societies to the United States. He was in support of consolidating already-existing groups who were providing aid and inspections in which COS agents would investigate those seeking aid to determine if they were faking or if they actually needed the aid.[4]

Poorhouses and workhouses were tax-supported residential institutions where those who could not support themselves were sent to work as an alternative to welfare systems then known as "outdoor relief." Poorhouses arose before the Scientific Charity Movement arrived in the US. While some members of the movement were in favor of the poorhouses, the Scientific Charity Movement had an instrumental role in the ending of the poorhouses. They were also responsible for the banning of children being allowed in the poorhouses. As time went on the safety net provided by progressive era reforms (many of which were supported by the Charity organization societies), helped to keep more people out of the poorhouses and eventually they were phased out or converted into nursing homes for the elderly or disabled. Many of the poorhouses laid the groundwork for orphanages general hospitals, and mental hospitals later on and while many of those in the poorhouses were able to reenter society, however those deemed unfit were moved to the asylums.[6][7]

The Invention of Casework

The idea and procedure of impoverished family “cases” and “casework” was established under the Scientific Charity Movement. Using the ideas of eugenics and the new technique of in-depth investigation and interviews as a means of social control, caseworkers were tasked with sorting through and categorizing impoverished people into two separate classes.[3]^:21–22 This idea of the “deserving” versus the “undeserving” was treated as a hereditary division and often was racially biased, treating African American poverty as a separate issue from white poverty and proving to be more willing to offer resources to white impoverished people than to African American impoverished people.[3]^:21–23

The asylums created by the Charity Organization Societies are the source of much of the criticism of the Scientific Charity Movement. Their purpose was to remove the "defective classes" from society. Members of society who were classified as the "defective class" were placed in asylums most of which were made of the remnants of the poorhouses. These asylums had been founded as a means to remove the defective classes, based on the idea of social Darwinism, from the genepool. Some of these asylums allowed their residents to be experimented on by scientists of the time. Many of these asylums would continue on long after the Scientific Charity Movement was over and into the late 1960s.[2]