Failure Of Reconstruction

The civil war brought a social welfare shift in societal opinions and policies as the Reconstruction era and the Freedmen’s Bureau emerged. Upon gaining freedom, former slaves faced troubling times getting work, housing and access to resources even as soldier’s due to their race. The Freedmen’s Bureau was established to deal with transient blacks and managing property that was confiscated or abandoned. The black codes practiced among southern states except for Tennessee limited black’s rights; they were denied many of the rights and resources that whites had as citizens of the US and were criminalized for being poor (Stern & Axinn, 2018).
As discussed by Stern & Axinn (2018), blacks faced extreme poverty being displaced by their newly acquired
Public Health Service, and began regulating food and drugs, in addition to creating a pension program for Civil War veterans and their dependents or survivors. Unfortunately, Reconstruction was considered a failure which was followed by the upsurge of the Charitable Organization movement which considered the poor as being a result of individual behaviors of human weakness. The Settlement House movement developed soon after as a means of overcoming the spiritual and social depreciation by blending underprivileged with privileged in order to create a community atmosphere that would hopefully motivate and inspire individuals to better themselves. These movements similarly looked down upon the underprivileged with apprehension. Charitable Organizations divided the poor with discriminating labels such as the worthy and unworthy poor. Those who engaged in unworthy behavior such as substance abuse and criminal activities were less likely to receive assistance. The Settlement House reformers approached poverty as being an effect from one’s social environment whereby changing the surroundings would lift individuals up to socially acceptable norms by example. In any event, the social work profession began to
123). The Charity Organization and Settlement House movements leaders joined forces to facilitate the need for social reform. The family was deemed “the unit of social order” and an effort for the moral improvement of individuals was designed into a program of education beginning in the home then continuing into the school (Stern & Axinn,