The Social Survey and the Charity Organization Movement

The social survey represents a practical technique, as contrasted with scientific research. It has grown out of such social activities as the newspaper, industrial arbitration, municipal research, and charity organization, of which the common method is fact-finding. Studied from this point of view the social survey is seen to be a method of social control as well as of investigation. The charity organization movement, which began in England and later developed in America, grew out of the attempt to organize the charitable effort of the community in order to meet the problem of poverty. At first a reaction against indiscriminate relief-giving, it soon developed new positive techniques, of which one of the most important was the careful investigation of each case. Fact-finding and community action, emphasized in this movement, are also fundamental techniques of the social survey. The two movements, charity organization and the social survey, thus present suggestive points for comparison. In addition they are definitely related in America in that the pioneer survey, the Pittsburgh survey, was undertaken by a committee of a charity organization society journal. The study of one of the parent movements of the social survey helps to bring out more clearly its essentially practical nature.