Book Quotes: Social Work

From A Passion for the Impossible by Miriam Huffman Rockness (page 87):

We do know that her choice to work as she did, among the most despised of society, had the effect of separating her and her mother from friends who held to a more moderate (and fashionable) view of "social work." Indeed, philanthropic enterprises and charitable volunteer organizations were not only an acceptable pasttime for women of leisure but also the main service institutions in a society that had not yet developed the mechanics of law and government to deal with its social problems.