| Creator | Family Service of Greater Boston (Boston, Mass.) |
| Title | Family Service of Greater Boston records |
| Dates | 1839-1992 |
| Identification | CC 7 |
| Quantity | 1.25 linear feet (3 manuscript boxes) |
| Collection Abstract | The records of the Family Service of Greater Boston (FSGB) include the records of its predecessors and other organizations absorbed by the FSGB. The organizations documented include the Associated Charities of Boston; Provident Association; Family Society of Greater Boston; Industrial Aid Society for the Prevention of Pauperism; and Boston Society for the Prevention of Pauperism. This collection records the effort of the FSBGB to prevent pauperism in the early 19th century, the local impact of the charity organization movement, the trend to provide volunteer counseling rather than financial aid to the poor, and later the increasing use of trained social workers to provide a great variety of services to a broad group in the community. The records include annual reports with statistics on families aided, financial statements, objectives, and activities; constitutions and by-laws; bulletins including case histories; manuals which include rules for paid and volunteer workers and agency policies; correspondence which includes referrals to and from the Associated Charities of Boston; and pamphlets whose authors include Robert Winthrop, Robert Treat Paine; and Octavia Hill. The collection also contains bound materials including constitutions, rules, essays, speeches, pamphlets, and annual reports. |
| Historical Abstract | The Family Service of Greater Boston is an organization that arose out of the combination of a variety of charitable organizations from within Massachusetts. These charities, some of which date back to 1657, were focused on aiding their own and providing help and support for particular ethnic or religious groups. These various charities were eventually absorbed into the Family Service of Greater Boston, which provides intensive family-based services, services to pregnant women, and parenting women and their children, elder services, mental health and substance abuse services, and services for the business community. The latter program includes a workplace solutions department providing a full range of employee assistance to organizations and their employees. They also offer a corporate elder care program for employees who are concerned about caring for elder relatives. |
| Language | Material in English. |
| Location | Collection may be stored offsite. Please contact Archives staff for more information. |
Collection is open.
Copyright for materials resides with the creators of the items in question, unless otherwise designated.
Please contact the College Archivist with requests to publish any material from the collection.
[Identification of item: description and date], Family Service of Greater Boston records, CC 7, Simmons College Archives, Boston, MA, USA.
Gift of Donald Moreland, 1988, 1989. Transferred from the Simmons College School of Social Work Library, 1991
Accession number: 88.012, 93.032
Processed by Richard S. Carroll, June 1994
Supervised by Peter Carini and Megan Sniffin-Marinoff
This collection guide was encoded as part of the LEADS project by Meghan Poepping, August 2012
Early Charity History in Massachusetts
Five charitable societies were organized in Massachusetts before the American Revolution: the Scots Charitable Society (1657), the Boston Episcopal Society (1724), the Charitable Irish Association (1737), the Boston Marine Society (1742), and the Massachusetts Charitable Society (1762). Shortly after the Revolution, five other charities were established: The Humane Society of Massachusetts (1785), the Massachusetts Congregational Charitable Association,(1786), the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society (1792), the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Society (1795), and the Roxbury Charitable Society (1795).
These early charities were cooperatives, taking care of their own and providing--from their limited resources--help to their particular ethnic or religious group, or to members of their own guild. (1)
Charity Work in the 19th and 20th Centuries
In the 19th century, the cooperative spirit of the early charities waned. The new relationship of the charitable agency was of the rich to the poor (regardless of background), and the poor were recognized as a permanent group within the community. A second trend was to provide counseling rather than relief grants to the needy.
In the 1830's, Joseph Tuckerman, a Unitarian clergyman, began to work as a city minister among the Boston poor. His concept of charity came from Thomas Chalmers, a Scottish rector who had transformed his own parish in Glasgow by strict adherence to a standard of self-help. Tuckerman advocated three principles of charity: "the abolition of outdoor relief, the organization of the forces of charity, and personal visitation to the poor -- forty years before they were generally applied by charity societies."(2)
In 1834, Tuckerman convened an Association of Delegates from the Benevolent Societies of Boston. Their endorsement of his principles began a new era for Boston philanthropy.
The histories of the Boston Society for the Prevention of Pauperism (founded by Tuckerman), the Boston Provident Association, and the Associated Charities (whose records form the basis of this collection) are interconnected and difficult to trace. Shown below is a time line deconstructing their genealogies:
Objectives (1835-1994)
In the 19th century, an early target of charitable agencies was the problem of pauperism. The term referred to the poor who remained in a state of unnecessary dependence. By contrast, poverty was an occasional matter of temporary misfortune. The two societies for the prevention of pauperism sought to find jobs for both groups--especially for released convicts--and also to find suitable homes for children and widows. They considered their approach preventive as opposed to remedial.
Another problem was the proliferation of the charities themselves--and of people receiving unregulated relief--in Boston. The Provident Association sought to organize the local charities through a central register, and led in constructing a Charity Building (1869) which brought together many agencies under the same roof.
Associated Charities completed the organization of local charities--as the culmination of a charity organization movement imported from England--and also introduced a new concept of "not alms, but a friend" by organizing volunteer visitors to counsel the poor.(3)
This approach clashed with the Provident's procedure of dispensing funds rather than counseling.(4) In fact, both agencies ended up giving material help during the recessions of the 1870's and 1893. In the 1930's, the Permanent Charity Fund also made its largest grants to Provident and Family Welfare (successor to Associated Charities) as "the city's two principal relief agencies."(5)
At present, the Family Service of Greater Boston carries on and expands the activities of its predecessors through: intensive family-based services, services to pregnant women, and parenting women and their children, elder services, mental health and substance abuse services, and services for the business community. The latter program includes a workplace solutions department providing a full range of employee assistance to organizations and their employees. They also offer a corporate elder care program for employees who are concerned about caring for elder relatives.(6)
Why the Name Changes?
The Society for the Prevention of Pauperism probably added the term "Industrial Aid" to clarify its objective of finding jobs for people.
In 1922, when Associated Charities became Family Welfare, the new name reflected the fact that the word "charities" had "latterly come to signify material relief" rather than the service their organization could provide to families needing counseling. Family Welfare also stated that the term "Associated Charities" emphasized "mechanism"--reflecting the charitable organization movement of the mid-nineteenth century--rather than the Society's primary purpose "to promote sound family life."(7)
In the same fashion, the changes of title from "association" and "society" to "service" presumably indicate the different structure of the organizations and later the increasing use of trained social workers to provide a great variety of services.
The records of the Family Service of Greater Boston and its predecessors (1835-1992) document successively: (1) the effort to prevent pauperism in the early 19th century, (2) the local impact of the charity organization movement, (3) the trend to provide volunteer counseling rather than financial aid to the poor, and later, (4) the increasing use of trained social workers to provide a great variety of services to a broad group in the community.
The records include annual reports, constitutions and by-laws, bulletins, manuals, correspondence, and miscellaneous pamphlets.
The various names included in the genealogy of the organization were: Associated Charities of Boston; Boston Provident Association; Family Society of Greater Boston/Family Service of Greater Boston; Family Welfare Society of Boston; Industrial Aid Society for the Prevention of Pauperism; and Boston Society for the Prevention of Pauperism.
These and related materials may be found under the following headings in online catalogs.
Arranged into seven series:
Part of the School of Social Work Library Charities Collection.
Annual reports cover the period from 1839 through 1992 with numerous gaps, particularly 1854-1869, 1873-1893, 1949-1965 and 1966-1991. Early reports from 1839 to 1854 take the form of an address or discourse, with a few figures on the number of people served. Later reports describe the objectives of the organization and the activities of the central board of directors and district offices. There are statistics on the families aided and often a financial statement. (Reports from 1941 through 1949 were issued also as Bulletins. See Series III.)
Box 1
Editions are available from 1851, 1879, 1886, 1897, 1907, 1908, 1920, and 1938. (The last three editions appear as manuals. See Series IV.)
Box 1
Bulletins were issued weekly by the Family Society of Greater Boston from January 3, 1945 to April 25, 1945, and from October 3, 1945 to April 24, 1946. Later bulletins were issued monthly from October 1946 to October 1952 (with gaps) with the general objective of keeping members of the Society posted on the agency's activities. As mentioned above, some were annual reports. Others included case histories, fact sheets, and various items of news.
Box 1
Box 2
Six publications from 1878 through 1938 are variously titled Directory, Manual, or Handbook. The two directories and an early manual provide rules for paid and volunteer workers. The Handbook of Instruction issued in the 1920s gives these rules in more details, with sections also on the organization of the agency (the Family Welfare Society of Boston), agency policies, and relations with other agencies. As mentioned above, the manuals of 1908, 1920, and 1938 contain only constitutions/by-laws, with the exception of 1908, which includes the Act of Incorporation.
Box 2
Correspondence (mainly 1907 to 1911) covers a few referrals to or from the Associated Charities of Boston and various other agencies, business cards, and several bills for lodging or other services.
Box 2
Important pamphlets include: Robert Winthrop's "Remarks at the Opening of the Bureau of Charity" (1868) in his role as President of the Boston Provident Society; two addresses (in 1879 and 1880) by Robert Treat Paine, President of the Associated Charities of Boston, on "Charity Organization" and "The Work of Voluntary Visitors...among the Poor, Its Limitations, Allies, Number of Workers, Aims"; five essays (1886) by Octavia Hill, a leader in the Charity Organization Movement in Great Britain; "Then and Now a Friend in Need" (1929), a brief 50th anniversary history of the Family Welfare Society; and "Can You Tell Me..?" (1945), a questionnaire to test public awareness of the activities of the Society, and of the general role of social work.
Box 2
Bound material, some available elsewhere in the collection, including constitutions, rules, essays, speeches, pamphlets, and annual reports.
Box 3
