In a dissertation on Bertha Reynolds, “A Woman Struggling in her Times,” her biographer felt Reynolds’ creativity and intellectual work were shaped by three major conflicting philosophies: Christianity, Freudian (and other) dynamic psychological theories, and Marxism. In her autobiography, An Uncharted Journey, Reynolds stated that she felt as though a door had closed on her. The profession has managed to open that door and future generations will benefit.
Here are other references to Bertha Capen Reynolds
In a preface to Si Kahn’s book titled Organizing, Richard Edwards includes the work of Bertha Capen Reynolds in his essay/introduction. We recommend having a look at that and, of course, at Si’s book as well.
Dr. Sharon Freedberg gave a presentation at the Lehman College for a Women and Work Conference in 2001. Dr. Freedberg also has an article about Bertha Capen Reynolds in Freedberg, S. (1986). Religion, profession, and politics: Bertha Capen Reynolds’ challenge to social work. Smith College Studies in Social Work, 56/2: 95-110.
Dr. Michael Reisch wrote an article about social justice in which he cites and discusses Bertha Capen Reynolds. This article can be found in Families in Society with the title “Defining social justice in a socially unjust world”.
Changing names was a difficult choice for our organization mostly because we know Bertha Reynolds was SO cool and had such an impact upon our profession and those who knew her. Still, unlike Jane Addams and Mary Richmond, two well-known and acknowledged leaders in the social work profession, Bertha Reynolds’ work, ideas, and activism were not as popular or well-received. As a result, she is less well-known. For us, as progressives who value education, we thought learning about her, especially as we struggled to make a new organization with a different kind of structure and presence in and around social work, would lead to greater recognition of both Bertha Reynolds’ life and work but also of our original society, the Bertha Capen Reynolds Society.
However, over the years it became apparent to us in our activist lives that we spent a good deal of time talking about who Bertha Capen Reynolds was and what she did and stood for and that cut into the time of actually working on the issues of the day – with potential allies, students, co-workers, consumers – it didn’t matter. Too few people knew who she was and we had to make a decision – keep the name as it was and continue to work on name recognition, mission and goals alliances, and process for the organization or, change our name and suffer the consequences that name changes result in but regain a focus for our purpose and mission. All of this in light of the fact that very few presenters at our gatherings “invoked” the work of BCR or, for that matter, had many of our own members read her work. We knew this was an uphill battle and we opted for the change, but to keep her presence alive in our materials, Book Fund, sample syllabi, and such. In fall, 1999, the National Steering Committee voted to change the name from Bertha Capen Reynolds Society to the Social Welfare Action Alliance.
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Don’t be one of the few progressive human service workers who has yet to read any of the works by Bertha Capen Reynolds. Visit our Book Fund list today and make your order.
If you are a social work or human service librarian, a community librarian, an agency resource person and can purchase publications for your organization, please visit our Book Fund to make your purchases of BCR publications. No social work or human service program should be without them!
–Information compiled by Michel Coconis