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The Minneapolis Family and Children's Service records were a gift from Minneapolis Family and Children's Service, with the bulk of the records received in March and June,1983. Additional records were received by the Archives in 2003. Microfilm copies of case records were received in 1972.
Unpublished inventory available. Please contact the Archives for more information.
In addition to the above-mentioned MFCS case records on microfilm
(SWF19), the Social Welfare History Archives also holds the records of the
The records are arranged into four series:
The Minneapolis Family and Children's Service had its origins in two charitable movements that spread across the country during the years following the Civil War. The humane movement, which sought to halt mistreatment of animals and, sometimes almost as an afterthought, children, was represented by the Minneapolis Humane Society, first established as a branch of the Minnesota Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1878. The Humane Society employed an agent to discover cases of child and animal abuse and neglect, campaigned to improve conditions in maternity homes, and, together with the Juvenile Protective League (est. 1905), helped to improve the court system's handling of juvenile offenders through the introduction of probation officers and policewomen assigned to cases involving juveniles. The Humane Society and The Juvenile Protective League merged in 1917 to form the Juvenile Protective Society. The Humane Society's work with animals was turned over to the Animal Rescue League, forerunner to the present Hennepin County Animal Humane Society.
The second, and more prominent, wing of what was eventually to become the Family and Children's Service grew out of the charity organization movement, a national phenomenon that stressed the importance of placing charity on a systematic, business-like basis to discourage waste, duplication, and fraud that resulted from uncoordinated efforts. The Minneapolis Associated Charities was established in 1884, seven years after the first such American society was started in Buffalo, New York.
The Associated Charities quickly became the largest charitable agency in the city. It emphasized careful investigation of all its clients, at first relying heavily on a corps of volunteer "friendly visitors" but increasingly turning to paid agents as the social work profession began to develop in the early twentieth century. The Associated Charities also initiated a number of innovative social and public health programs which, once they proved their worth, were turned over to independent organizations. Among these were anti-tuberculosis, visiting nurse, and legal aid activities. During World War I general secretary Frank Bruno and other Associated Charities staff members were loaned to the American Red Cross Northern Division which assisted communities throughout the upper midwest in dealing with social problems caused by the war mobilization effort.
Strong leadership from Bruno and his successor, Joanna Colcord, earned the agency, which changed its name to Family Welfare Association in 1922, a national reputation for the quality of its services. That reputation suffered during the 1930s as sadly inadequate financial resources and personnel problems left the agency struggling to cope with the demands of massive unemployment during the Great Depression. During the early years of the Depression it was primarily responsible for distributing relief funds in Minneapolis until the city's public relief program was reorganized and the federal government assumed responsibility for economic assistance through the Social Security and other New Deal programs
The extent to which the work of the Family Welfare Association and the Children's Protective Society overlapped led many persons to call for the merger of the two agencies throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The Children's Protective Society resisted the argument that a unified organization would be more efficient, contending that specialized work with children would inevitably suffer. Despite that resistance, the merger was carried out, and the Family and Children's Service began operation in 1945. The new agency formed a Family Division, which offered counselling and support services, and a Children's Division, which handled services for children outside the home, include foster care and homemaker service.
During the 1940s, MFCS increased its work in the areas of marriage counselling, housing, child care and senior services in response to post-war social issues. It attempted to broaden the constituency it served by beginning a fee-for-service policy in 1948 with a sliding fee scale geared to the client's ability to pay. It continued the agency's reputation of providing leadership to the profession. Executive directors Frank Hertel and Clark Blackburn both went from the Minneapolis agency to head the Family Service Association of America, and their successor, Earl Beatt, who served for twenty six years, held numerous national professional elective positions as well.
The 1960s saw a renewed emphasis on strengthening families and an increase in related services, such as marriage couselling, family counselling, family life education, and day care. With federal funding, the agency started a New Careers Project to provide para-professional jobs for low income residents of Minnespolis as part the War of Poverty. During the 1970s and 1980s, the agency continued its family and community strengthening initiatives while it broadened its conceptions of its client population and the meaning of family. MFCS, initiated a gay and lesbian counselling program, which became a model for similiar work in other agencies. It also formed a program to help women leave prostitution and also instituted domestic violence and employee assistance programs. The agency also added a staff member to head the Family Advocacy Department, which sought to affect public policy relating to families and communities. Among other topics, the agency fought for the Children's Mental Health Act, crisis nurseries, Head Start, and early intervention for child abuse and neglect.
In 1986, Terry Steeno was appointed executive director of MFCS and initiated an eight-month strategic planning and agency study project. The project resulted in a new approach to the existing service areas of counseling, family life education, and support services as well as a renewed committement to strengthen vulnerable families and communities. MFCS also opened new branches during the 1980s and 1990s, allowing closer contact with client communities. Several significant projects took place during the 1990s. The first was a series of programs to reduce the problem of violence in area families and communities. These included abuse and violence counseling, youth diversion, services for abusive men, and family education aimed at preventing violence. In 1994, the agency also launched its School Home Community Programming Initiative (SHCPI), which is well-documented in the records. The project sought to meet clients on their home ground and to provide resources to help them strengthen and transform communities. In 1996, the agency launched the Minnesota Family Strength project, which is partially documented in the records. The project began with a study to assess the strength of Minnesota families and then used study results to develop new service models and community partnerships. Today, Family and Children's Service continues to provide resources for families and communities and to work in a wide variety of areas, including violence and abuse prevention, anti prostitution programs, educational and job programs, chronic illness, services for the elderly, family education and support.
Sources:
The Minneapolis Family and Children's Service (MFCS) records contain reports, minutes, studies, correspondence, memoranda, manuals, pamphlets, photographs, newspaper clippings, publications, and case records. Much of the material is from its pre-1945 predecessor agencies: Minneapolis Associated Charities, Juvenile Protective League, Children's Protective Society, and Family Welfare Association.
The records are divided into four series. The first two series comprise the administrative records of the Associated Charities/Family Welfare Association and the Children's Protective Society. Of these, the records of the Associated Charities/Family Welfare Association (boxes 1-11) are the richest and most extensive. They provide detailed information of many of the agency's activities, particularly between 1915 and 1940. These records reflect the evolution from early volunteer efforts to a professionally staffed casework agency; the initiation of numerous innovative programs, including anti-tuberculosis, visiting nurse, visiting teacher, and legal aid programs; and emergency relief efforts during the Depression. Some of the records, particularly the studies and surveys (contained in box 8), provide an account of social and economic conditions in the city. Correspondence between agency executives Frank Bruno and Joanna Colcord and other leaders in the social work profession (among them Mary Richmond and Francis McLean) also affords a picture of national developments in the social work field. The correspondence is concentrated in folders related to the 50th anniversary of family social work (Box 9) and to the Russell Sage Foundation (Box 11). Records for the Children's Protective Society (boxes 11-14) are limited to board of directors minutes and to much more selective subject files.
The records of the merged Minneapolis Family and Children's Service form the third series. They appear to document only a portion of MFCS' programs and do no fully reflect the adminsitration and operation of the agency. In particular, there is very little material dating from the 1970s. Records dating from the 1940s to the 1960s relate primarily to program areas such as child care, foster care, casework and family counselling, family budgets and senior services. More recent records from the 1980s through the 2000s document agency planning and administration; its efforts to influence public policy relating to families and children; and a series of family and community strengthening programs, in particular those that occurred as part of the School, Home and Community Programming Initiative project. The records also include the speeches of agency executive director, Terrence Steeno, as well as publications and public relations materials.
Series 4 comprises two sets of case records: paper case records contained in boxes 18-24, dating from 1913 to 1965, and 339 reels of microfilmed case records dating from 1895 to 1950, with the heaviest concentration in the 1920s and 1930s. The paper records are a sample of case files that was selected by the agency before the records were archived. The estimated 762 paper case records document services provided to specific families and individuals. There are an estimated 35,000 microfilmed cases, each organized around a family unit, often with attention focused on a particular adult or child. The case records do not represent the total number of cases handled by MFCS and its predecessors.
The case records are restricted and access to case files requires special permission from the curator or director of the Archives and from the executive director of Family and Children's Service.
The Minneapolis Family and Children's Service records are indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the University of Minnesota Libraries. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.
finances
Master's degree "Plan B" paper, University of Minnesota School of Social Work.
Includes "Family Welfare Association in Action," which covers the period from 1917 to 1926
vol. 1 to 5
Part of Minneapolis Council of Social Agencies Community Survey
Family Welfare Association was involved in this Council of Social Agencies-sponsored study.
Service to older, single women
Includes strategic plans, directors’ correspondence, historical accounts, board of directors’ handbooks, a FSAA accreditation study and other studies of MFCS; copies of documents from the 1950’s-1960’s; a power point presentation from the 2001 Annual Meeting.
Minutes of an intake seminar at Family Service of Cincinnati
Paper by Family Service staff member, Florence Hollis
Outline and notes for an "institute" presented by a Miss Hutchinson, possibly a Family Service staff member.
Letter and chart sent to Child Welfare League of America assesing services to children.
Information and instructions for field placement students
Miscellaneous correspondence about program, public policy, and routine matters. Include correspondence of Earl Beatt, executive director.
Hired in 1982 as director of family advocacy, became vice president of policy and community initiatives.
Evaulates agency services, administration, finances, work loads, facilities, and outside relationships
The agency won the award in 1989 for the Family Advocacy Program component of its Children's Health Initiative.
Regarding social welfare topics in general and MFCS programs. Arranged by topic.
Newsletters, invitations, and development campaign materials from the 2000’s
1 reel of film (about MFCS?)
The program worked to influence policy and legislation for families.
Manuals and reports
Series 4 comprises two sets of case records: paper case records contained in boxes 18-24, dating from 1913 to 1965, and 339 reels of microfilmed case records, dating from 1895 to 1950. The two sets of case records do not appear to overlap. Virtually all records that were preserved by the agency as paper files were not microfilmed and records that were microfilmed were not preserved on paper.
Most of the paper case records are from the Family Welfare Association and the Family and Children's Service. A few are from the Children's Protective Society for the period circa 1930 to 1955. They represent a sample saved for historical purposes. Apparently, the agency first selected every tenth case for preservation. Later, when even this proved to occupy too much file space, they discarded additional files. The bulk of this historical sample was preserved only on microfilm and only approximately 762 cases were preserved as paper documents.
Date span reflects the years that cases were opened.
Date span reflects the years that cases were opened.
Date span reflects the years that cases were opened.
Date span reflects the years that cases were opened.
Date span reflects the years that cases were opened.
Date span reflects the years that cases were opened.
Date span reflects the years that cases were opened.
The second part of Series 4 consists of microfilm reels containing the cases that were opened by the Associated Charities/Family Welfare Association between 1895 and 1929; cases of the Children’s Protective Society from 1917 through 1945; and a few hundred cases from the Citizen’s Aid Society Girls’ Department from 1920 to 1930. In 1948 and 1949, Minneapolis Family and Children’s Service decided to film case records that had been opened prior to 1930. The majority of case records were filmed at that time. Subsequently, cases opened by the Children’s Protective Society between 1929 and 1945 were filmed in 1953.
The microfilm records cover a period from approximately 1895 to 1950, with the heaviest concentration in the 1920s and 1930s. The cases were filmed in numerical order, based on a numbering that was assigned as cases were opened during intake. However, occasional exceptions – cancellation of inactive cases and reassignment of the numbers – disrupt the general chronological pattern. The records often include information about the family for periods of time before the intake date. In the same way, cases remain active for periods that range from a few weeks to many years, again making it difficult to establish accurate inclusive dates. Thus, for the researcher who is interested more in the social and economic data about the clients than in their contacts with the agency, the order may be said to be chronological only in a very general sense.
There are many gaps in the numerical order. Many cases were discarded before the historical sample was microfilmed. In some instances, a case was transferred to another agency, and the case was attached to another file; for example, Children’s Protective Society case #5146 became part of the file of Family Welfare Association case #80.
The collection contains documentation on an estimated 35,000 cases, each organized around a family unit, often with attention focused on a particular adult or child. Each record includes three components: a face sheet (sometimes known as a social sheet) summarizing basic demographic and social data about the family; chronological notes dictated by social case workers to summarize each contact with the client, conferences to discuss the case, and other agency actions related to the case; and correspondence and other documents related to the case. Most of the correspondence concerns verification of out-of-town births and marriages or with social agencies from other cities that had past contacts with the family. There is little correspondence with the clients themselves, except in cases where a family was broken up and some members resided away from Minneapolis. Some diagnostic test results are included in the records, but other documents, such as relief records, bank books, cancelled checks, grocery slips, and receipts, were discarded during microfilming.
In order to insure that the confidentiality of names or clients or any other information that would serve to identify an individual or family are not violated, the researcher must agree not to use the names or identifying information of any client in note-taking, publication, teaching, or in conversation. The Archives reserves the right to inspect research notes and to require a copy of any manuscript resulting from the research prior to its publication.
Cases are arranged numerically, usually in increments of ten, but the numbering is based on an alphabetization of the clients, i.e., Abbott, Adams, Baker, rather than the usual chronological arrangement. These are an early subset of the cases of the Associated Charities / Family Welfare Association in reels 106-338, but the relationship to the main set of cases is unclear.
233 reels, Cases 1-38179. Cases are arranged numerically, forming a generally chronological sequence throughout the three decades. The Associated Charities changed its name to Family Welfare Association in 1922, with no interruption or change in casework services or the resulting records. Cases dating from 1933 to 1945 are available as the original paper records, which were never microfilmed. (See above)
101 reels, Cases 151-10999. The Children’s Protective Society was formed in 1917 by the merger of the Minneapolis Human Society and the Juvenile Protective League. Existing active Humane Society cases apparently were renumbered (Humane Society case #14036, opened in 1915, became Children’s Protective Society case #134, for example), but there is no evidence of similar renumbering of Juvenile Protective League cases.
60 reels, Cases 11001-14715. This sequence continues where reels 4-104 ended. These records were microfilmed at a later date. Cases remaining active past 1945 were carried by Minneapolis Family and Children’s Service after the merger with the Family Welfare Association. A card index for client names is available for this segment of the records.
The Children's Protective Society card file index to case records (circa 1932-1945)Arranged alphabetically by family name. Provides access to some of the case records preserved on microfilm, but is not related to case records in boxes 18-24. Accessible only to staff members for use in responding to authorized reference requests.
Partial reel, Cases 1-225. Related to cases of children placed in institutions, such as the Washburn Home, as opposed to placement with foster parents. The Bureau was discontinued in January, 1932.
Partial reel. Arranged alphabetically by client. Relationship to the numbered Children's Prtotective Society cases is unclear
Cases 1-611. Cases involve supervision of teenage girls, usually placed in work homes, either for economic or behavioral reasons.