How Did Sophonisba Bridge Contribute To Social Work

Sophonisba Breckinridge was an American scholar and a pioneer of social work in the community. She was born in 1866 in Lexington, Kentucky. She joined Wellesley College and graduated in 1888. Later, she moved to the University of Chicago where she earned her Ph. D degree and also continued to teach there in the Department of Household Administration. She maintained a series of connections from many women that she interacted with, and she was involved in several progressive reforms, which included woman suffrage, labor reform, African American civil rights, and pacifism. Sophonisba Breckinridge contributed towards the foundation of social work as part of an academic discipline. Together with her colleague Edith Abbot, she taught at Chicago school of civics and philanthropy. They also oversaw the incorporation of Chicago school into the University of Chicago, and they both ran the graduate, and this is where they started teaching, publicizing and researching about social work. Finally, in 1925 she became a professor and was named as Samuel Deutsch Professor of public welfare administrations. She remained very active in the graduate school until her death in 1948 (Bowman, 1925).

It is believed that in deed that her involvement in social work was as a result of her being a sociologist. However, there was a time she openly declined that she was a sociologist, but that was because she didn’t want to be associated with the abusive male counterparts which worked at the University of Chicago. However, Sophonisba Breckinridge was a woman who had accomplished so much in life. She represented the United States at the Pan-American international conference in 1933. As part of her reforms, she helped in the drafting of legislation that regulated the wages earned by women and their working hours (Coghlan,