Unfreezing the Progressive Era: The Story of Julia Lathrop

Public administration needs to pay more attention to the Progressive era, not less. The field has forgotten what settlement workers learned about policy and administration. Julia Lathrop, a 20-year resident of Hull House and the first woman to head a federal agency, serves as an exemplar. Whereas Olasky (1992) maintains that settlement residents used poor people as means to the grandiose aim of societal change, Lathrop's life and work, particularly as chief of the U. S. Children's Bureau, show how settlement folk consciously linked their own lived experience and those of their neighbors to policy concerns. Today, their voices remind us of the inadequacy of private charity; the value of government in social action; and the importance of person-to-person connections between people in government and people in neighborhoods.