Grace
Abbott,
the sister of Edith
Abbott,
was born
in Grand Island, Nebraska on 17th November, 1878. Both sisters were
influenced by their mother's passionate belief in equal rights for
women. After graduating from college she worked as a school teacher
in Grand Island while continuing her studies at the University of
Nebraska.
In 1907 Abbott moved to Chicago where she became a resident of Hull
House and
joined other women interested in social reformer such as Jane
Addams, Ellen
Gates Starr, Mary
McDowell,
Mary
Kenney,
Edith
Abbott, Alzina Stevens, Florence
Kelley, Julia Lathrop, Alice
Hamilton and Sophonisba
Breckinridge.
Abbott joined with Sophonisba
Breckinridge
to establish the Immigrants'
Protective League (IPL).
As well as being director of IPL she taught at the University of Chicago
(1910-17). Abbott wrote a series of articles about the way immigrants
were exploited for the Chicago
Evening Post (1909-10). A book
on the subject, The
Immigrant and the Community,
was published in 1917.
In 1917 Woodrow Wilson appointed Abbott
as director of the child-labour division of the United States Children's
Bureau. After the Keating-Owen Act
was declared unconstitutional in 1918, Abbott resigned and became
director of Illinois State Immigrants
Commission.
Warren Harding appointed Abbott to replace
Julia
Lathrop
as head of the Children's
Bureau
in 1921. However, her work was handicapped by the Sheppard-Towner
Act being declared unconstitutional in 1922. During this period
Abbott was a member of the Advisory Committee
on Traffic in Women and Children (1922-34)
that had been established by the League of
Nations.
In 1934 Abbott became professor of public welfare at the University
of Chicago and was involved in helping Franklin
D. Roosevelt
draft the Social
Security Act (1935). This legislation that set up a national system
of old age pensions and co-ordinated federal and state action for
the relief of the unemployed.
Abbott was also editor of the Social
Service Review (1934-39) and
the author of The
Child and the State (1938).
Grace Abbott
died in Chicago on 19th June, 1939. From
Relief to Social Security (1941)
was published posthumously.
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