Excerpt from Social Work in Greater Cleveland: How Public and Private Agencies Are Serving Human Needs

The story of how these public and private social agencies have grown, how they have fitted themselves into the changing life of the community is an interesting and dramatic one. But the organization is so complex and has grown so gradually that it is difficult for the public in general to understand just what part each one has in this dramatic advance toward creating a social order to go with this industrial age. What do these agencies do? What people do they help? How do they do it? How do they decide which agency will perform a certain task, and how do they work together while they are doing it?

This book is written with the hope that it will give to the students of our schools a clearer idea of what must be done to adjust human beings to the changing conditions of our present life and that it will inspire in them a desire to prepare themselves to attack courageously and effectively the greater social task that lies ahead.

This volume is the result of many months of careful study and hundreds of inter views with persons engaged in actual social service in Cleveland and familiar with its history. We believe it is as accurate a picture of what Cleveland has done and is doing as it is humanly possible to paint. It should be remembered, however, that as conditions change there is a constant change of relationship among the agencies. What we are trying to show here is how the social problems of the community are solved rather than to name and describe the particular agencies that may be engaged in the work at any one time.

In selecting a person who has to perform this difficult task, the Welfare Federation sought one who had some personal knowledge of the history of social work in Cleveland, who had taken an active part in it and who was fitted by temperament and training to state in understandable terms, the facts and principles involved in the growth of Cleve land's social program.

We were fortunate in securing for this purpose the services of Mrs. Lucia J. Bing. Mrs. Bing has been an active worker in the social agencies of Cleveland and is familiar with their history. She was formerly superintendent of the Division of Charities of the Department of Public Welfare of Ohio and has been nationally recognized as a student of social problems. H. H. Griswold, President.

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