From the days when economics still had room for policies of social work, Helen Russell Wright, economics Ph.D. alumna of the University of Chicago (1922).
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Helen Russell Wright.
1891, February 26. Born in Glenwood, Iowa.
1912. A.B. Smith College.
Studied economics and social work in the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy (CSCP) under Sophonisba Breckenridge and Edith Abbott
1912-13. Appointed research student in the Department of Social Investigation. (CSCP)
1913. Certificate of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy.
1913-14. Senior Research Studentship (honorary). Department of Social Investigation (CSCP)
1914-15. Senior Research Studentship (honorary). Department of Social Investigation (CSCP)
1917-18. Research assistant at Department of Social Investigation (CSCP)
1918-19. Assistant in Social Investigation (CSCP).
1919-1920. Assistant in Social Investigation (CSCP).
1920-21. Fellow in Political Economy, University of Chicago.
1922. Ph.D. University of Chicago. Thesis: The political labour movement in Great Britain, 1880-1914.
1922. Children of Wage-Earning Mothers: A Study of a Selected Group in Chicago. U.S. Department of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Publication No. 102. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1922.
1922-24. Senior Staff member, Brookings Graduate Institution of Economics, Washington, D.C.
1924-28. Member of the faculty of the Brookings Graduate Institution of Economics, Washington, D.C.
1926. Co-authored with Walton Hale Hamilton, The Case of Bituminous Coal. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926.
1928. Co-authored with Walton Hale Hamilton, A Way of Order for Bituminous Coal. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1928.
1928. Joins University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration.
1931. Associate Professor of Social Economy, Graduate School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
1938. Professor and Assistant Dean of the School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
1944. Social Service in Wartime. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
1942-1956. Succeeded Edith Abbott as Dean of the Social Service Administration, University of Chicago.
1950-56. Editor of the Social Service Review.
1954. Received the University of Chicago’s alumni medal.
1955. Illinois Welfare association’s annual award for outstanding service in 1955.
1956. Retired from the University of Chicago
1957-58. Chief of a technical assistance team of the Council on Social Work Education to assist the development of the schools of social work in India.
Part-time teaching at the University of Southern California.
1969, August 14. Died in Pasadena, Los Angeles, California.
Image Source: Helen Russell Wright’s senior year portrait in Smith College, The 1912 Class-Book, p. 56.