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ABBOTT, Grace (Nov. 17, 1878-June 19, 1939), social worker, director of the federal Children's Bureau, was born in Grand Island, Nebr. . . .
She . . . moved to Chicago in 1907, and earned a master's degree in political science in 1909. She also did some work toward a law degree, but found herself more attracted by the life at Hull House, of which she had become a resident in 1908. Under the leadership of JANE ADDAMS, this pioneer social settlement offered not only intellectual stimulus—here, she and her sister later recalled, they first came in contact with the world of ideas—but also an environment informed by social concern. . . .
It was, however, as head of the Immigrants' Protective League that she first attracted notice. This organization was founded in 1908 by SOPHONISBA BRECKINRIDGE and other Chicago social workers to combat the hordes of unscrupulous cab drivers, lawyers, travel agents, "white slavers," and operators of fraudulent "savings banks" and "employment agencies" who were preying upon the masses of confused and often frightened immigrants then arriving in Chicago. . . .
In 1917 Grace Abbott accepted a longstanding invitation from JULIA LATHROP, the head of the federal Children's Bureau (and an old Hull House friend), to join the bureau's staff. The offer attracted her not only because the flow of immigrants had fallen off during the war but because the recent enactment of the first federal child labor law (1916) had strengthened the authority of the Children's Bureau. As head of the bureau's child labor division, Miss Abbott supervised the painstaking investigations—verification of birth dates, proof that illegally produced goods had in fact entered interstate commerce, etc.—which effective enforcement of the law demanded. In June 1918, however, the child labor law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States. This discouraging development convinced Miss Abbott of the need for a constitutional amendment abolishing child labor, a cause she championed for the rest of her life. . . .
Although her cherished child labor amendment was never ratified by the required number of states, she was gratified in 1938 when at least a partial ban on child labor was effected through the Fair Labor Standards Act. In the spring of 1939 she was hospitalized with acute anemia, and that June she died at the age of sixty. Following Quaker services, her ashes were buried at Grand Island.
Working under somewhat trying circumstances, Grace Abbott achieved distinction in two different branches of social work. In a time of rising hostility toward immigrants, she contended steadily for liberal admission standards and against the exploitation of newcomers. Later, in a decade when reformist sentiment was at a low ebb, her strong voice in Washington was a continual reminder that social welfare was a legitimate—indeed an essential—concern of the state. Although her career did not stem from any conscious feminist bias, it encouraged those of her sex who were seeking a larger role in American life.
-Janet Wilson James, (Ed.), Notable American Women, 1607-1950
