Richmond's Macro-Level Social Work

Richmond is known for her advocacy work and her writing. She also was a hands-on person who was involved with families on a person-to-person level. Her work with the poor, during her involvement with charity organizations was in fact tantamount to actually conducting hands-on social work in homes and with families.

In the book From Charity to Social Work: Mary E. Richmond and the Creation of an American Profession (Agnew, 2004), the author mentions the fact that Richmond's "…increasing exposure to actual families" led her to have a "greater appreciation of the social factors" that contribute to poverty (Agnew, 97). The hardships that women and children faced -- especially when husbands were irresponsibly missing from the family -- were a motivating factor for Richmond, Agnew explains (97).

She visited and nurtured families in the name of social work, and because she believed in the individual care of widows, mothers, and women with children, she made a commitment to the "…wholesale, preventable...

Skinner) or sociologists (like Emile Durkheim), but she has to be given credit for being a pathfinder in the very beginnings and origins of social work, which is as important to the health and well-being of American families as psychological and sociological theories.
Works Cited

Agnew, E.N. (2004). From Charity to Social Work: Mary E. Richmond and the Creation of an American Profession, Volume 13. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Dictionary of American Biography. (1936). Mary Ellen Richmond. Retrieved July 26, 2013,

From Biography in Context / Gale Group.

Murdach, A.D. (2011). Commentary: Mary Richmond and the Image of Social Work. Social Work, 56(1), 92-94.

Rasmussen, F.N. (2001). Richmond was a pioneer in social work nationally. Baltimore Sun.

Retrieved July 26, 2013, from http://articles.baltimoresun.com.