Sophonisba Breckinridge
Encyclopedia
Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge (April 1, 1866 – July 30, 1948) was an American
activist, Progressive Era
social reformer, social scientist and innovator in higher education.
, Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge was a member of the political active and social elite Desha family and Breckinridge family
. She was the daughter of Issa Desha Breckinridge who was the second wife of Col. William C.P. Breckinridge, a member of Congress from Kentucky, editor and a lawyer. Her grandfather was the abolitionist minister Robert Jefferson Breckinridge
. Her great-grandfather was John Breckinridge
. She was the second child of five: Eleanor Breckinridge Chalkley, Desha Breckinridge
, Curry Desha Breckinridge.
Since she had no clients who would hire a woman lawyer, she left Kentucky after a few months to become a graduate student at the University of Chicago
. Her thesis for the Ph.M. degree in 1897 was on "The Administration of Justice in Kentucky," and her Ph.D. in Political Science came in 1903 with her dissertation, "Legal Tender; A Study in English and American Monetary History." Meanwhile she was appointed in 1902 as assistant dean of women of the university, and the next year she was hired as an instructor. She was in 1904 the first woman to graduate from the law school of the University of Chicago
and the first woman to be admitted to Order of the Coif
, an honorary legal scholastic society. A news writer in Paris, Kentucky
announced her achievement and gushed that Breckinridge "is considered one of the most brilliant women in the South."
In 1907 she moved into the Hull House
and began in earnest to work with the first leaders in the Chicago settlement house movement on issues such as vocational training, housing, juvenile delinquency and truancy. Breckinridge worked with Vassar College
graduate and social reformer Julia Lathrop
, social gospel minister Graham Taylor
(founder of the settlement house, Chicago Commons) and others to create the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, becoming its first (and only) dean.
By 1920, Breckinridge and Lathrop had convinced the Board to merge the School into the University of Chicago, forming the Graduate School of Social Service Administration. By 1927 the faculty of this new academic unit created the scholarly journal Social Service Review
which remains the premier journal in the field of social work. Breckinridge was one of the founding editors and worked on its publication every year until her death in 1948.
By 1909 she had become an assistant professor of social economy, and over ten years later (1920) she finally convinced her male colleagues of her research abilities and earned tenure as associate professor at the University of Chicago
. From 1923-1929 she was also dean in the College of Arts, Literature and Science. She earned full professorship in 1925, and in 1929 she served as the dean of pre-professional social service students and Samuel Deutsch professor of public welfare administration until her retirement from the faculty in 1933.
"My record there was not distinguished", she wrote, "but the faculty and students were kind, and the fact that the law school, like the rest of the University...accepted men and women students on equal terms publicly" (http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0306/features/cause-timeline.shtml).
She was awarded honorary degrees by:
The University of Chicago currently houses undergraduate students in Breckinridge House, named after Sophonisba Breckinridge, where students celebrate "Sophie Day" in the early spring.
. As a resident of Hull House until 1920, she became active in several causes, including:
When the women of Chicago gained limited voting rights in 1913, Breckinridge was one of eight women that ran for "alderwomanic" office.
the 1933 Montevideo Conference.
, Breckinridge continued to teach courses in public welfare until 1942. In Chicago, on July 30, 1948, Sophonisba Breckinridge died from a perforated ulcer and arteriosclerosis, aged 82.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
activist, Progressive Era
Progressive Era
The Progressive Era in the United States was a period of social activism and political reform that flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s. One main goal of the Progressive movement was purification of government, as Progressives tried to eliminate corruption by exposing and undercutting political...
social reformer, social scientist and innovator in higher education.
Background
Born in Lexington, KentuckyLexington, Kentucky
Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
, Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge was a member of the political active and social elite Desha family and Breckinridge family
Breckinridge family
The Breckinridge family is a family of politicians and public figures from the United States. The family has included six members of the United States House of Representatives, two United States Senators, a cabinet member, two Ambassadors, a Vice President of United States and an unsuccessful...
. She was the daughter of Issa Desha Breckinridge who was the second wife of Col. William C.P. Breckinridge, a member of Congress from Kentucky, editor and a lawyer. Her grandfather was the abolitionist minister Robert Jefferson Breckinridge
Robert Jefferson Breckinridge
Robert Jefferson Breckinridge was a politician and Presbyterian minister. He was a member of the Breckinridge family of Kentucky, the son of Senator John Breckinridge....
. Her great-grandfather was John Breckinridge
John Breckinridge (1760-1806)
John Breckinridge was a United States Senator and Attorney General. He was the progenitor of the Breckinridge political family.-Early Life in Virginia:...
. She was the second child of five: Eleanor Breckinridge Chalkley, Desha Breckinridge
Desha Breckinridge
Desha Breckinridge was the editor and publisher of the Lexington Herald from 1897 to 1935. In 1898 he married Madeline McDowell, who became nationally known as Madeline McDowell Breckinridge. He was a brother of Sophonisba Breckinridge and the son of William Breckinridge, a member of Congress from...
, Curry Desha Breckinridge.
Education and Academic Innovator
She graduated from Wellesley College in 1888 and worked as a school teacher in Washington, DC teaching mathematics, before returning to Lexington to study law in her father's office. In 1895 she became the first woman to be admitted to the Kentucky bar.Since she had no clients who would hire a woman lawyer, she left Kentucky after a few months to become a graduate student at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
. Her thesis for the Ph.M. degree in 1897 was on "The Administration of Justice in Kentucky," and her Ph.D. in Political Science came in 1903 with her dissertation, "Legal Tender; A Study in English and American Monetary History." Meanwhile she was appointed in 1902 as assistant dean of women of the university, and the next year she was hired as an instructor. She was in 1904 the first woman to graduate from the law school of the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
and the first woman to be admitted to Order of the Coif
Order of the Coif
The Order of the Coif is an honor society for United States law school graduates. A student at an American law school who earns a Juris Doctor degree and graduates in the top 10 percent of his or her class is eligible for membership if the student's law school has a chapter of the...
, an honorary legal scholastic society. A news writer in Paris, Kentucky
Paris, Kentucky
As of the census of 2000, there were 9,183 people, 3,857 households, and 2,487 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 4,222 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 84.23% White, 12.71% African American, 0.16% Native American, 0.16%...
announced her achievement and gushed that Breckinridge "is considered one of the most brilliant women in the South."
In 1907 she moved into the Hull House
Hull House
Hull House is a settlement house in the United States that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located in the Near West Side of , Hull House opened its doors to the recently arrived European immigrants. By 1911, Hull House had grown to 13 buildings. In 1912 the Hull...
and began in earnest to work with the first leaders in the Chicago settlement house movement on issues such as vocational training, housing, juvenile delinquency and truancy. Breckinridge worked with Vassar College
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...
graduate and social reformer Julia Lathrop
Julia Lathrop
Julia Clifford Lathrop was an American social reformer in the area of education, social policy, and children's welfare...
, social gospel minister Graham Taylor
Graham Taylor
Graham Taylor may refer to:* Graham Taylor , footballer and manager* Graham Taylor , British novelist and part-time priest* Graham Taylor , Major League Baseball player...
(founder of the settlement house, Chicago Commons) and others to create the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, becoming its first (and only) dean.
By 1920, Breckinridge and Lathrop had convinced the Board to merge the School into the University of Chicago, forming the Graduate School of Social Service Administration. By 1927 the faculty of this new academic unit created the scholarly journal Social Service Review
Social Service Review
The Social Service Review is an academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press which covers social welfare policy and practice and its effects....
which remains the premier journal in the field of social work. Breckinridge was one of the founding editors and worked on its publication every year until her death in 1948.
By 1909 she had become an assistant professor of social economy, and over ten years later (1920) she finally convinced her male colleagues of her research abilities and earned tenure as associate professor at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
. From 1923-1929 she was also dean in the College of Arts, Literature and Science. She earned full professorship in 1925, and in 1929 she served as the dean of pre-professional social service students and Samuel Deutsch professor of public welfare administration until her retirement from the faculty in 1933.
"My record there was not distinguished", she wrote, "but the faculty and students were kind, and the fact that the law school, like the rest of the University...accepted men and women students on equal terms publicly" (http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0306/features/cause-timeline.shtml).
She was awarded honorary degrees by:
- Oberlin CollegeOberlin CollegeOberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...
in 1919, - University of KentuckyUniversity of KentuckyThe University of Kentucky, also known as UK, is a public co-educational university and is one of the state's two land-grant universities, located in Lexington, Kentucky...
in 1925, - Tulane UniversityTulane UniversityTulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...
in 1939, and - University of LouisvilleUniversity of LouisvilleThe University of Louisville is a public university in Louisville, Kentucky. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of the first universities chartered west of the Allegheny Mountains. The university is mandated by the Kentucky General...
in 1940.
The University of Chicago currently houses undergraduate students in Breckinridge House, named after Sophonisba Breckinridge, where students celebrate "Sophie Day" in the early spring.
Social Activism
When she obtained an appointment as a part-time professor in the Department of Household Administration which was a part of the Sociology department, in 1907, she also became a resident of Hull HouseHull House
Hull House is a settlement house in the United States that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located in the Near West Side of , Hull House opened its doors to the recently arrived European immigrants. By 1911, Hull House had grown to 13 buildings. In 1912 the Hull...
. As a resident of Hull House until 1920, she became active in several causes, including:
- Women's suffrageWomen's suffrageWomen's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
- African-American civil rightsCivil rightsCivil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
(she helped establish the NAACP) - Labor
- Immigration
- Children's protection and labor laws reform
- Progressive PartyProgressive Party (United States, 1912)The Progressive Party of 1912 was an American political party. It was formed after a split in the Republican Party between President William Howard Taft and former President Theodore Roosevelt....
- PacifismPacifismPacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
When the women of Chicago gained limited voting rights in 1913, Breckinridge was one of eight women that ran for "alderwomanic" office.
1933 Montevideo Conference
Breckinridge was the first woman U.S. representative to a high-level international conference,the 1933 Montevideo Conference.
Publications
She wrote many books on family, public welfare, and children.- The Wage-earning Woman and the State: a reply to Miss Minnie Bronson (191-)
- The Delinquent Child and the Home (1912)
- Papers presented at the conferences held during the Chicago Child Welfare Exhibit, The Child in the City (New York, Amo Press, 1970 - reprint of the 1912 edition)
- The Modern Household (1912, 2nd edition, 1916)
- Truancy and Non-Attendance in the Chicago Schools: a study of the social aspects of the compulsory education and child labor legislation of Illinois (1917)
- Madeline McDowell Breckinridge: a Leader in the New South. Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1921.
- New Homes for Old. New York: Harper and Brothers Publisher, 1921.
- Family Welfare Work in the Metropolitan Community: selected case records (1924)
- Public Welfare Administration in the United States, select documents (1927)
- The Illinois adoption law and its administration (1928)
- Marriage and the Civic Rights of Women: separate domicil and independent citizenship (1931)
- Women in the Twentieth Century: a study of their political, social and economic activities (1933)
- The Family and the State, select documents (1934)
- The Ohio poor law and its administration ... and appendixes with selected decisions of the Ohio Supreme Court (1934)
- Public welfare administration, with special reference to the organization of state departments; outline and bibliography; supplementary to Public welfare administration in the United states: select documents (1934)*Social work and the courts; select statutes and judicial decisions (1934)
- The development of poor relief legislation in Kansas, by Grace A. Browning... and appendixes with court decisions edited by Sophonisba P. Breckinridge (1935)
- The Michigan poor law: its development and administration with special reference to state provision for medical care of the indigent / by Isabel Campbell Bruce and Edith Eickhoff, edited with an introductory note and selected court decisions by Sophonisba P. Breckinridge (1936)
- Indiana poor law; its development and administration, with special reference to the provisions of state care for the sick poor (1936)
- The Tenements of Chicago, 1908-1935 (http://books.google.com/books?id=4mmRAAAAIAAJ&source=gbs_ViewAPINew York: Arno Press, 1970; reprint of 1936 edition)
- The illegitimate child in Illinois, by Dorothy Frances Puttee ... and Mary Ruth Colby ... edited by Sophonisba P. Breckinridge (1937)
- State administration of child welfare in Illinois (1937)
- The Illinois poor law and its administration (1939)
- The Stepfather in the Family (1940)
Organization Involvement
- American Association of Schools of Social Work (president in 1934)
- American Association of Social Workers, AASW (charter member then president of the Chicago branch)
- American Political Science Association
- American Social Science Association
- American Sociological Society
- Hull HouseHull HouseHull House is a settlement house in the United States that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located in the Near West Side of , Hull House opened its doors to the recently arrived European immigrants. By 1911, Hull House had grown to 13 buildings. In 1912 the Hull...
Association - Illinois Child Labor Committee
- Illinois Citizens Political Action Committee
- Illinois Welfare Association
- Immigrant's Protective League (charter director then secretary of the board until 1942)
- League of Women VotersLeague of Women VotersThe League of Women Voters is an American political organization founded in 1920 by Carrie Chapman Catt during the last meeting of the National American Woman Suffrage Association approximately six months before the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution gave women the right to vote...
- National American Woman's Suffrage Association (served as vice president in 1911)
- National Conference of Social Workers
- National Child Labor Committee
- National Consumers LeagueNational Consumers LeagueThe National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is an American consumer organization. The National Consumers League is a private, nonprofit advocacy group representing consumers on marketplace and workplace issues....
- National Probation Association
- National Urban LeagueNational Urban LeagueThe National Urban League , formerly known as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, is a nonpartisan civil rights organization based in New York City that advocates on behalf of African Americans and against racial discrimination in the United States. It is the oldest and largest...
- Phi Beta Kappa
- Vocational Supervision League
- Woman's City Club of Chicago (served as charter president)
- Women's International League for Peace and FreedomWomen's International League for Peace and FreedomThe Women's International League for Peace and Freedom was established in the United States in January 1915 as the Woman's Peace Party...
- Women's Trade Union LeagueWomen's Trade Union LeagueThe Women's Trade Union League was a U.S. organization of both working class and more well-off women formed in 1903 to support the efforts of women to organize labor unions and to eliminate sweatshop conditions...
Death
Following her retirement from the faculty of the University of ChicagoUniversity of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, Breckinridge continued to teach courses in public welfare until 1942. In Chicago, on July 30, 1948, Sophonisba Breckinridge died from a perforated ulcer and arteriosclerosis, aged 82.
External links
- Barr, Nancy Ellen. "A Profession for Women: Education, Social Service Administration, and Feminism in the Life of Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge, 1866-1948," Ph.D. dissertation, Emory UniversityEmory UniversityEmory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...
, 1993. - Bettis, Nicolle. Sophonisba Breckinridge, a paper written for an undergraduate seminar, Women's Intellectual Contributions to the Study of Mind and Society, Webster UniversityWebster UniversityWebster University is an American non-profit private university with its main campus in Webster Groves, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. Webster University is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission and is a member of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools...
, St. Louis, Missouri. - Coghlan, Cathy.Sophonisba Breckinridge: Social Work Pioneer and Progressive Era Reformer, an essay written January 21, 1999, while a doctoral student at Texas Woman's UniversityTexas Woman's UniversityTexas Woman's University is a co-educational university in Denton, Texas, United States with two health science center branches in Dallas, Texas and Houston, Texas...
, Denton, Texas. - Day, Hollie. A Woman of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Sketch of Sophonisba P. Breckinridge, an essay written May 6, 2002, for a graduate seminar on Women in the Legal Profession at Stanford Law School, Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, Stanford, California. - Klotter, James C. The Breckinridges of Kentucky. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986.