Bradley Buell papers

Josiah Bradley Buell (usually known as Bradley or "Si"), social worker, author/editor, and community planning consultant, was born in Chicago on January 29, 1893. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1915 and completed his graduate training at the New York School of Philanthropy and Columbia University in 1918. While a student, he was employed part-time in the Division of Industrial Studies of the Russell Sage Foundation. After a term of military service during World War I he returned to the Russell Sage Foundation in 1919.

He worked under Frances Perkins on the New York State Industrial Commission during 1920. From 1921 through April 1923 he was on the staff of the American Association of Social Workers (known then as the National Social Workers Exchange), an organization in which he had already been active for a number of years. From 1923 until 1925 he was secretary of the New York City Council on Immigrant Education. In 1925 he began a lengthy association with the community chest movement, first as associate director of the New Orleans Community Chest. Later he moved to the national offices of Community Chests and Councils, Inc., where he was the field director from 1930 until 1943. He joined the staff of Survey Midmonthlyas executive editor, 1943-1947, and as contributing editor, 1948-1949. In 1947 he founded Community Research Associates, Inc., a profit organization engaged in research and consultation for local community problems. He was its executive director and, later, chief consultant until his retirement in 1972.

He wrote two books, Community Planning for Human Services(1952), and The Road to Solving Community Problems Has Been Paved with Good Intentions(1973).

Buell died on March 23, 1976, in Fort Meyers, Florida.

The first step toward the formation of an organization for social workers came in 1911 with the establishment of the Intercollegiate Bureau of Occupations to provide information about jobs and careers for young women. Heave demand led to the creation of a separate department for social workers in 1913. In 1917 department leaders decided to form an independent agency, the National Social Worker's Exchange. Soon perceiving the need to be more than a job placement bureau, leaders of the Exchange formed a council to develop plans for a professional organization that could deal with issues such as education and training, standards of employment, and systematic recruitment of competent job applicants. This resulted in the establishment of the American Association of Social Workers in 1921. Thus Bradley Buell's position on the AASW staff, 1921-1923, involved him firsthand in the formative years of the association. The AASW attracted members from throughout the social work profession, but specialists in group work, medical social work, school social work, psychiatric social work, and community organization gave primary allegiance to their own associations, leaving social caseworkers as the principal constituency of the AASW. This situation remained until 1955 when the AASW merged with six other professional social work associations to form the present National Association of Social Workers.