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DIMENSIONS OF HUMAN SERVICES MANAGEMENT

wages in order to assist capitalist development, and reassert political authority in the face of frequent popular protests (Piven & Cloward, 1995). The North American colonies established

by Great Britain modeled their social welfare sys-

tems after these laws, sometimes word for word.

Before the American Revolution, formal social

welfare systems had been established in North America in which local religious and secular authorities shared responsibility for assisting dependent individuals. This reflected civil gov-

ernment's communal concerns and the "charity"

missions of religious organizations (Axinn & Stern, 2007; |ansson, 2005).

Even before independence, Private benevolent

societies and self-help organizations emerged to

address the consequences of Poverty and immi-

gration because decentralized government responses proved insufficient or ineffective (Axinn

& Stern, 2007). Upper class leaders of secular groups and Protestant churches sought to assist the poor through cash assistance, moral suasion,

and personal example. The constitutional separa-

tion of civil government from religious organiza-

tion enabled churches to develop their own charitable activities, which often included reli-

gious proselytizing. One consequence was the

organization of these activities under. "lay" rather than clerical leadership, particularly'in the

congregation-governed Protestant denominations

(Leiby, 1978). Another result during the 19th cen-

tury was the establishment of Protestant missions

in crowded urban slum neighborhoods' to serve humanitarian ends and strengthen the role of organized religion in society (Boyer, 1978; Day, 2005). Unlike today's churches, l9th-century churches wanted to maintain, not break down, the

wall separating church and state.

While the provision of aid to people in their

own homes (called "outdoor relief") continued

the Poor Law tradition of categorizing and stig-

mati"Zing the needy, the number of state-funded

institutions tb serve the mentally ill, orphans, the

aged, and the able-bodied poor increased in the

19th centirry. Often called "indoor reliefi' these "asylums" remoVed certain classes of persons and

their problems from public view, reinforced the

impression that societywas helping individuals in

need, and labeled those being helped as "deviant'"

They established a moral tone for the treatment

of those in need and a moral justification for social policies. By the mid-century, these morally

based ideas acquired scientific and pseudoscien-

tific rationales (Rothman, 1971; Trattnet 1999)'

Spurred by reform movements, particularly in

the fields of mental health and child welfare, states also began to assume responsibility during

this period for the limited distribution of out- door relief formerly left to towns and counties'

By the late 1830s, government leaders also recog-

nized that indoor relief was inadequate to meet

the problems of the poor, particularly those pro-

duced by ryclical economic depressions or peri-

odic epidemics of infectious diseases' such as cholera or tuberculosis. As social conditions wors-

ened and government responses proved insuffi-

cient or ineffective, private benevolent societies and self-help organizations, the antecedents of contemporary nonprofit human services agen-

cies, began to play a leading role in social welfare

provision (Mandler, 1990).

Secular reformers hoPed organizations like

the Association for the \Improvement of the Condition of the Poor and the Children's Aid Society in New York City would create a "harmo-

ni<jus community" and protect traditional values

, i-g an environment of rapid social and economic

change. Both sectarians and secularists consid-

ered private social welfare to be a potential deter-

rent to the excessive accumulation of governmdnt

power, a tool to strengthen American democrac;,

and a means to resist the influence of unp6pular

or foreign political ideas (Wenocur-& Rei 19b9). Although large private organizations,

as the U.S. Sanitary Commission and the

Cross, emerged during the Civil War, it was

after the war that problems associated wi poverty were seriously addressed. States c

boards of charity in the 1860s to oversee management of charitable institutions

to address such problems as mental illness,

quency, and pauperism (Axinn & Stern,2007)'