Jessie E. Dean papers
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Scope and Content
The papers in this collection were created and collected by Jessie Dean during her work for the Los Angeles County Department of Charities between 1919 and 1943. Included are annual reports, financial reports, and reports from various welfare agencies. There are also essays pertaining to different social work-related topics, copies of speeches she gave, instructions on how to properly run a social work office, and miscellaneous notes. Also included in the collection is a manuscript draft of a critical account of County Welfare operations in 1925, journals, reprints, pamphlets, articles, sermons, seminar notes and transcripts, reports, teaching materials and book excerpts and outlines, together with some examples of intake forms used by Dean’s office during the Depression.
Dates
- Creation: 1916 - 1960
Creator
- Dean, Jessie E. (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
Advance notice required for access.
Conditions Governing Use
The use of archival materials for on-site research does not constitute permission from the California Social Welfare Archives to publish them. Copyright has not been assigned to the California Social Welfare Archives, and the researcher is instructed to obtain permission from the copyright holder to quote from or publish manuscripts in the CSWA's collections.
Historical note
Jessie E. Dean was employed by the Los Angeles County Department of Charities from 1919 to 1943, and served as Supervisor in the successive Divisions of Outdoor Relief, County Welfare, and Indigent Relief. A citation of appreciation from her fellow workers, found in this collection, noted that she was the first, or "near first" trained social worker to practice in Los Angeles. Certainly she was a founding member of the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Association of Social Workers, begun in 1923, and also of its journal "The Lens", published from 1926-37. A 1916-17 bulletin of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, annotated in Dean's handwriting, indicates that she studied there and was taught by Edith Abbott and Sophonisba Breckinridge.
The collection, made up of a miscellany of professional papers accumulated during Dean's career and preserved by a co-worker on her retirement, reflects the high level of personal dedication, social conscience, and moral conviction characteristic of social workers of her generation. A strong teaching ethic is evident in the detailed instructional outlines she compiled for the training of new "visitors" and student social workers. The collection contains descriptive annual reports for the County Welfare Division, from 1921-32 and for 1935, written by Dean for delivery to the Board of Supervisors by her Superintendent. In effect these long accounts are vivid essays on social welfare conditions prevailing in Los Angeles during the hectic population increase of the 1920’s followed by the Depression. The gradually changing tone of the reports, as professional social workers found themselves transformed into emergency relief dispensers, indicates the difficult adaptation required of Dean and her co-workers in the early 1930s.
Extent
0.42 Linear Feet (1 box)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
Jessie E. Dean was employed by the Los County Department of Charities from 1919 to 1943, and served as Supervisor in the successive Divisions of Outdoor Relief, County Welfare and Indigent Relief. A citation of appreciation from her fellow workers, found in this collection, noted that she was the first, or "near first" trained social worker to practice in Los Angeles. Certainly she was a founding member of the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Association of Social Workers, begun in 1923, and also of its journal "The Lens", published from 1926-37. A 1916-17 bulletin of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, annotated in Dean's handwriting, indicates that she studied there and was taught by Edith Abbott and Sophonisba Breckinridge. The collection, made up of a miscellany of professional papers accumulated during Dean's career and preserved by a co-worker on her retirement, reflects the high level of personal dedication, social conscience, and moral conviction characteristic of social workers of her generation. A strong teaching ethic is evident in the detailed instructional outlines she compiled for the training of new "visitors" and student social workers. The collection contains descriptive annual reports for the County Welfare Division, from 1921-32 and for 1935, written by Dean for delivery to the Board of Supervisors by her Superintendent. In effect these long accounts are vivid essays on social welfare conditions prevailing in Los Angeles during the hectic population increase of the 1920s followed by the Depression. The gradually changing tone of the reports, as professional social workers found themselves transformed into emergency relief dispensers, indicates the difficult adaptation required of Dean and her co-workers in the early 1930s. Also included in the collection is a manuscript draft of a critical account of County Welfare operations in 1925, journals, reprints, pamphlets, articles, sermons, seminar notes and transcripts, reports, teaching materials and book excerpts and outlines, together with some examples of intake forms used by Dean's office during the Depression.
Subject
- Los Angeles County (Calif.). Department of Charities -- Archives (Organization)
- Dean, Jessie E. -- Archives (Person)
Genre / Form
Geographic
Topical
- Title
- Finding aid for the Jessie E. Dean papers
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Lisa Ebiner Gavit
- Date
- 2013 November
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the USC Libraries Special Collections Repository
Doheny Memorial Library 206
3550 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles California 90089-0189 United States
specol@usc.edu