Harriett M. Bartlett papers

Harriett M. Bartlett was a moving force in the continued development of the fields of medical social work and social work education. Born July 18, 1897, in Lowell, Massachusetts to Henry and Alice Moulten Bartlett, she graduated from Vassar in 1918, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 1920, she earned a Social Service Certificate from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She was awarded an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Chicago in 1927 and, in 1969, received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Boston University.

Between the years of 1921 and 1945, Bartlett was employed in various capacities by the Social Service Department of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. For the academic year 1940-1941, she was an associate professor for the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Southern California. She served as president of the American Association of Medical Social Workers (AAMSW) from 1942 to 1944, and as executive secretary of the Joint Committee on Teaching of Social and Environmental Factors in Medicine from 1943 to 1945. From 1947 to 1957, Bartlett was a professor and director of Medical Social Work at Simmons College School of Social Work in Boston.

Bartlett was active in AAMSW and the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). While at NASW, she served on the Commission on Social Work Practice, which became the Division of Practice and Knowledge. Her work on these committees lead to her major study on social work practice, conducted during the 1960s. The study resulted in the publication, The Common Base of Social Work Practice. Bartlett also served as a member of the Committee on Medical Social Work Practice, earlier called the Committee on Functions, from the early 1930s until its dissolution in 1963. She chaired the committee from 1935 to 1939 and also served on various subcommittees throughout her years of membership. Several of her major publications resulted from studies she conducted under the auspices of the committee, including Medical Social Work: A Study of Current Aims and Methods in Medical Social Case Work; Some Aspects of Social Casework in a Medical Setting, 1940; and Social Work Practice in the Health Field and Analyzing Social Work Practice by Fields, 1961. She also published several articles as a result of these studies.

As President of AAMSW (1942-1944), Bartlett served on the Wartime Committee on Personnel, chairing the committee through 1944. She rejoined the committee in October of 1945 as a representative of the American Association of Social Workers and served until the committee disbanded in 1946.

During her years as Executive Secretary of the Joint Committee on Teaching of Social and Environmental Factors in Medicine, a committee composed of medical social workers and physicians, Bartlett was joint author of surveys of thirteen major medical schools. The final report of the committee, Widening Horizons in Medical Education, was published in 1948. Bartlett published an article, co authored by William W. Beckman, M.D., "Teaching of Social and Environmental Factors in Medicine: Some Unsolved Problems," which centered on areas they felt were not adequately dealt with in the committee's final report.

In 1944, Bartlett was authorized to establish a committee concerned with the development of an organization to deal with overall planning and coordination in social work. The Interim Committee for Joint Planning in Social Work was the result. She chaired the committee until it was dissolved in 1946.

Throughout her career, Bartlett was also actively involved in several other organizations. During the 1940s and early 1950s she served on several committees of the U.S. Children's Bureau, notably the Advisory Committee on Maternal and Child Health Care Services. From 1952 to 1954, she chaired the Committee on Inter Agency Relationships sponsored by the United Community Services of Boston Council of Social Work in Medical Care. She also participated in the Research Commission of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) from 1952 to 1958.