Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1156390

Sadie American was an influential clubwoman and social

reformer during the Progressive Era. She was a self-defined

modern Jewish woman who practiced liberal Judaism and advocated

an expanded role for women in the Jewish community and

synagogue. Dedicated to improving the conditions of

coreligionists who had come to the United States as immigrants

and settled in major cities, Ms. American worked tirelessly in a

succession of efforts on their behalf (Holland, 2001).

Belatedly, she is getting some credit for her social service

accomplishments benefiting both Jews and non-Jews (Cutler, 1996,

1982; Meites, 1990; Abbott and Breckinridge, 1936; Berkow, 1977;

Wirth, 1928; Baum, Hyman and Michel, 1976; Berrol, 1985;

Kuzmack, 1990; National Council of Jewish Women, 1943; Rogow,

1993; Holland, 2001; Elwell, 1982; Logan, 1912; Blair, 1980;

Katz-Hyman, 1998; Hinding, 1979; Kneeland and Davis, 1913;

Kramer, 1993; Gutstein, 1953). Little has been written,

however, about her career as a sociologist and pioneer of a

sociological subspecialty called visual sociology. Ms. American

helped to establish this sociological tradition at the

University of Chicago at the end of the 19 th century. This paper

examines her sociological work and how it was shaped by her

sense of herself as an immigrant, a Jew, and a woman. A number

of specific factors delimit her influence upon academic

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1156390

2

sociology; however, the visual sociological tradition she helped

to establish in the 19 th century lives on in the new millennium.

Personal History

Sadie American was born in Chicago, Illinois on March 3,

1862. She was the only child of Oscar L. American, a German

immigrant and successful merchant, and Amelia Smith American of

New York. Oscar American ran a dry goods business with a

partner, I.J. Smith. Ms. American was raised in Chicago and

attended public grammar and high schools. She wanted to go to

college but her strict, conservative parents did not allow her

that privilege; the parents felt this was too extreme a move for

their daughter (Logan, 1912; Holland, 2001; Elwell, 1982).

Her successful parents taught her how to work hard and to

value a sense of obligation to community. Chicago’s Jewish

population was small but self sufficient, due to the tendency of

neighbors to look after neighbors. Working together, the Jewish

population established a burial society and the Michael Reese

Hospital, whose primary mission was to serve the German Jewish

poor and others on the near South Side (Wirth, 1928; Holland,

2001; Cutler, 1996). When the Civil War broke out, Chicago’s

Jewish community raised funds to contribute to the welfare of

its own cadre of Jewish soldiers called the Concordia Guard, and

Sadie American’s parents contributed to the fund. They were

middle class Germans and reform-minded Jews, people of moderate

3

means and respected by the local business community; but not

barons of commerce (Baum, Hyman and Michel, 1976; Meites, 1990;

Berkow, 1977).

Records do not confirm the exact year of the arrival of

Oscar American and I.J. Smith from the east coast, but they had

apparently been among the first Jewish immigrants to settle in

Chicago as permanent residents. Young Jewish men of the era

postponed marriage until they could adequately afford it; Sadie

American’s father, in apparent obedience to this norm,

established himself as a merchant first before marrying Amelia

Smith. He had time to do all of this and become a father by

1862, when he contributed funds for the Jewish Civil War

soldiers. To have established himself so completely by 1862

suggests an early arrival.

With college not an option, Ms. American served as an

apprentice in social services; this experience would be

important in introducing her to a wide variety of interests that

she would pursue during her lifetime. Her advocacy of an

increased role for women in reform Judaism is a notable

accomplishment, along with her assistance in founding the

National Council of Jewish Women. Her sociological work, to be

examined in some detail, was an outgrowth of her Jewish and

nonsectarian social service career as well as her activism as a

woman outside the traditional roles of home and family.

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Ms. American was seriously injured in a railroad accident

in 1900 while in transit to New York. Her health after the

accident forced her to conduct most of her work from her home in

New York City. Her participation in civic projects and

sociological work declined sharply after that, and she resigned

from her longest running assignment in the NCJW in 1914.

However, her program of aid to immigrant Jewish girls initiated

in 1903 and designed to prevent their participation in white

slave trafficking, won her worldwide praise. After finally

severing her ties with the NCJW in 1916, no documents exist to

verify any further social service or sociological

accomplishments. Sadie American died in 1944 in Morristown, New

Jersey (New York Times , 1944; Logan, 1912).

Social Services

After graduating from high school, American served as an

apprentice civic activist in Chicago working to form the Young

Ladies Aid Society in 1882, where she was elected its treasurer

at the first regular meeting. In 1896, it was renamed the

Chicago Woman’s Aid. The organization’s founding members

adopted a benevolent philosophy toward those in need. In its

early years, committees were appointed to visit Michael Reese

Hospital on a regular basis, providing blankets and other items

to people in need. Later the club’s interests included aid for

the blind and visually handicapped, improvement of public

5

schools, the provision of birth control facilities at Jewish

social agencies, and sponsorship of children’s facilities at the

Michael Reese Hospital and programs for senior citizens

(Holland, 2001). Additionally, Ms. American was a club leader

working with immigrants from Eastern Europe at the Maxwell

Street Settlement in the heart of the Jewish ghetto from 1894 to

1898. These experiences working with the Chicago Woman’s Aid

and the Maxwell Street Settlement introduced Ms. American to the

kinds of worthwhile and productive social interventions that

would preoccupy her for most of her adult life. The record shows

here to be a tireless organizer and worker who served on over

100 Jewish and nonsectarian civic boards, committees, and social

welfare organizations (Logan, 1912). The volume of her civic

efforts is such that only the highlights can be adequately

reviewed.

At least partially because of her leadership in

establishing the Medill model school and her work to establish

playgrounds (discussed below), Ms. American became the founder

and chairman of the Permanent Vacation School and Playground

Committee of the Chicago Women’s Club from 1896 to 1900. This

entity was crucial in raising funds to establish several

vacation schools in Chicago in 1898. Another organization that

was important in generating public support for the vacation

schools was the Civic Federation of Chicago, where Ms. American

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was a member of the Executive Committee from 1895 to 1899. In

addition, she served as president of the League for Religious

Fellowship in 1896, and was also a member of the executive

committee of the South Central District of Chicago and a

director of the Cook County League of Women’s Clubs (Logan,

1912).

Her work in Chicago on behalf of playgrounds was recognized

nationally and internationally; she was one of the founders of

the Playground Association of America, and a member of the

Executive Committee and Secretary of the Board of Directors

(Elwell, 1982). She was chairman of the Association’s Committee

on Playgrounds in Institutions for 1908. Word of her work

reached overseas, and she was sought out by organizations

throughout the world that were interested in her expertise. She

lectured to a group in London concerning vacation schools in

1899 and spoke about playgrounds before gatherings in Berlin in

1904 and Toronto in 1909 (Logan, 1912).

Ms. American was very active in New York City, where she

moved after leaving Chicago in 1900. There she worked in the

Consumers' League, serving as State President from 1901 to 1905,

and in the State Federation of Women’s Clubs as well as the

Women’s Municipal League of New York (Logan, 1912).

Thus, the range of her overall civic involvement extended

well beyond Chicago and far beyond the playground and vacation

7

school movements that she founded and that constituted the bulk

of her work in visual sociology. Because of the unique knowledge

she possessed, she was a frequent speaker at clubs, conventions,

synagogues, and churches on the other subjects she was deeply

interested in (Meites, 1990; Rogow, 1993; Council of Jewish

Women, 1894). The notoriety she gained from these efforts gave

birth to her academic accomplishments and those accomplishments,

in turn, encouraged and added more fuel to the social movements

that she had started.

Reform Judaism

Sadie American was a member of Chicago Sinai Congregation,

where Reform Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch served as religious leader.

Established in 1861, Chicago Sinai was influential in the Reform

movement of the nineteenth century; under the leadership of

Hirsch, it stood in the radical camp of the Central Conference

of American Rabbis. The Reform movement sought to modify

traditional Judaism so that it could better express the

prophetic philosophy and ethics of the religion for modern Jews.

Radical and moderate Reform leaders were firmly committed to

rationalism and placed their emphasis on the moral aspects of

Judaism, dismissing the ritual and ceremonial laws as outdated.

They were more likely to accept the aesthetic standards and

cultural patterns of Protestantism and reveled in the climate of

equality in America, seeking to be as much like their neighbors

8

as possible (Holland, 2001; Baum, Hyman and Michel, 1976;

Gurock, 1983).

Ms. American taught in the Sunday school at Sinai from 1894

to 1899 but felt that Jewish women should have a more expanded

role in congregational and religious life. In 1897 she spoke

from the pulpit at the Sinai congregation, a privilege generally

reserved for men. American favored the ordination of women as

rabbis, and believed women should not only study Judaism but

work in its name. Women’s duties should extend beyond the home

and serve the social needs and concerns of the community at

large. Yet, the critical role of Jewish women as homemakers and

teachers of children was not to be neglected (Baum, Hyman and

Michel, 1976; Rogow, 1993; Holland, 2001).

The NCJW

One of the more significant positions American assumed was

her role in the founding and development of the National Council

of Jewish Women (NCJW). In 1891, Ellen Henrotin, vice-president

of the Board of Lady Managers of the World’s Columbian

Exposition, asked Hannah Solomon to gather Jewish women in an

effort to include them in the Woman’s Branch of the World’s

Congress Auxiliary to be held at the same time as the World’s

Columbian Exposition. Later that year, Solomon formed the Jewish

Women’s Congress, and selected sixteen prominent women to serve

on a committee that would organize its program and plan a

9

convention. The women were mostly middle class German Jews and

reform-minded (Baum, Hyman and Michel, 1976; Holland, 2001).

Among the sixteen women selected was thirty-one year old Sadie

American. Ms. American’s speech on “Organization,” on the last

day of the Congress, became the blueprint for the NCJW (Council

of Jewish Women, 1894). American and Solomon would eventually

have a falling-out, but Ms. American would enjoy a long

association with the NCJW (Elwell, 1982). She served as the

NCJW’s first corresponding secretary from 1893-1905, as Chair of

the Press Committee from 1899-1904, and later the paid executive

secretary from 1905-1914. She was also an Executive Director.

She organized local sections across the United States, and

represented the group at national and international meetings

such as the International Congress of Women and the Atlanta

Exposition of 1896 (Logan, 1912).

As president of the council’s New York section she was

instrumental in establishing the organization’s reputation as an

effective agency for assisting Jewish immigrants. Her

chairmanship of NCJW’s Committee on Immigrant Aid was the main

vehicle for establishing the organization’s effectiveness, and

was a project of utmost personal interest to Sadie American.

She held on to this assignment the longest, directing the

organization’s immigrant aid activities until 1914 (New York

Times , 1944). The most important part of that work concerned

10

programs to support the Jewish immigrant girl, and by means of

such support, to discourage the participation of the girls in

the white slave traffic. Her committee, after being viewed with

scorn and skepticism by professional social workers (Baum, Hyman

and Michel, 1976), followed every Jewish immigrant girl who came

to the United States no matter what her destination. It

received, from shipping authorities, the names of all immigrant

girls and women aged fourteen to thirty five who were traveling

alone or with children. Between 1909 and 1911 a staff worker

and volunteers rendered services to about 30,000 women and

children. Home follow up visits were also made to assure the

immigrants’ successful adjustment. This great effort aroused a

general interest in the welfare of immigrant girls regardless of

their race or ethnicity, and that interest was subsequently

taken up by a number of other philanthropic societies. Long

before the white slave traffic appalled the country, Ms.

American had been doing work in the interest and protection and

saving of these young women. Her efforts were honored in 1910,

when she was selected as the United States’ representative to

the International White Slave Traffic Convention (Logan, 1912;

Baum, Hyman and Michel, 1976).

In 1914, due to differences of opinion about how the

organization should be run, American resigned as Executive

11

Secretary in 1914 and severed all ties with the council in 1916

(Logan, 1912; Elwell, 1982).

Visual Sociology

Ms. American’s substantial career included her efforts to

establish the sociological subspecialty called visual sociology,

now one of the discipline’s oldest traditions. Twelve percent of

the articles in Volumes 2-21 of the American Journal of

Sociology (1896-1916) were pictorial essays that documented

social problems and/or proposed solutions. The influence of

female writers was especially strong; women wrote half of the

visual essays (Moore, 1897; American, 1898a, 1898b; Chandler,

1903; MacLean, 1903; Simons, 1904; Norton, 1913). Sadie American

wrote two of the earliest visual articles in AJS .

Ms. American’s articles in AJS amounted to a compilation of

the knowledge and wisdom she had gained from her civic work on

behalf of playgrounds and vacation schools. However, she was

not the first woman or even the first visual sociologist to

publish in the prestigious AJS , that honor went to Dorothea

Moore, who had written a piece on Hull House, the Chicago

settlement program founded by Jane Addams (Moore, 1897). Because

of her background serving immigrants at the Maxwell Street

settlement, Sadie American was deeply interested in Hull House

and in virtually any program that benefited immigrant families

and particularly immigrant children. She would eventually

12

develop a network of professional contacts with Jane Addams and

with academic network of sociologists at the University of

Chicago who studied the settlement (Cutler, 1996). Her work for

the immigrant children culminated in the playground and vacation

school movements in Chicago which historians credit her with

founding. (Logan, 1912). Of all her achievements, her work on

behalf of the playgrounds and vacations schools was the most

personally rewarding. Her publications in AJS gave voice and

momentum to those social movements she created. In many ways

this work was simply an expression of and an extension of the

work she was doing on behalf of immigrant children. The

articles gave encouragement to others around the country who

struggled with the same kind of problems, and the photos

published provided proof beyond a doubt that ideas had been put

into action. They additionally showed what an activist Jewish

woman could accomplish: a social service endeavor that would

help not only Jewish but non-Jewish families. Along the way,

the photo essays helped spur a tradition of visual sociology

that lives to this day.

Ms. American, as a Chicago native educated in the public

schools there, had firsthand knowledge about the lack of

recreational outlets for immigrant families – she had grown up

in such a family herself. (Logan, 1912; Baum, Hyman, and Michel,

1976). Especially for the waves of immigrant families that began

13

to appear around 1880, those families tended to be poorer than

average and without resources (Abbott and Breckinridge, 1936;

Berkow, 1977). They were simply unable to transport their

children to city parks or to the countryside for field trips or

recreation. This led to the substantial problem of idleness,

which in turn led to a lack of respect for the rights of others.

In a properly supervised playground, children could be taught an

appreciation of others’ rights and the realization that in order

to enjoy themselves they must permit others to do so. Ms.

American believed that children must be taught respect for

property - common, shared property as well as other people’s –

and such respect would help build good citizens who would carry

this respect into adult life (American, 1898a).

At the time Sadie American wrote, police in Chicago knew

too well the problems related to idleness, and the corresponding

lack of organized and supervised recreation for young people.

For her initial article in AJS , Sadie interviewed a Lieutenant

Kroll, whose precinct was located near a new playground that

opened near Northwestern University. He compared youth activity

before and after the playground appeared:

The young boys between thirteen and sixteen who are not at work loaf around street corners; they have no place to go; they get into the saloons, they annoy the passers-by, or they form in crowds. They resent the interference of the police, and finally they are arrested. We hate to do this, as it is the first step

14

pushing a boy downward into the criminal class. Since the playground has been opened and they are permitted to come in here, they give us no trouble whatever (American, 1898a: 163). The playground at Northwestern accommodated 4,000 children.

Youngsters were able to play on swings and seesaws, and in sand

piles. There was also a large shelter with plenty of benches

and rest rooms. Lieutenant Kroll estimated that the playground

had prevented fifteen youngsters from dying in electric car

accidents; and, juvenile arrests in his precinct had decreased

by one-third (American, 1898a).

Though Ms. American believed that increased public safety

and reductions in juvenile delinquency were important

justifications for playgrounds, there was a more important issue

involved. She contended that by denying children a place to

play, they were being denied their full rights as citizens.

Having a place to play is one of those rights. Pressures of

urbanization had claimed all the open spaces that could be used

for recreation. As she noted in her initial AJS piece, “property

is more considered the realm of law than people; even an empty

lot which tempts boys to use it as a ball ground at the same

time invites the interference of the police, lest windows be

broken or passers-by be struck” (American, 1898a: 159). She

observed that the schoolyards and basements could become spaces

for play, and it was poor financial policy for such buildings to

15

remain idle one quarter of the time; yet this was the short

sighted policy of the majority of school boards.

She continued her article by pointing out some successful

efforts to establish playgrounds. In several cities, under

private management, schoolyards were opened to the children

during mornings in the months of July and August. Boston was

the pioneer in this effort. Beginning in 1888, the Massachusetts

Emergency and Hygienic Association maintained playgrounds under

the supervision of one or more kindergarten teachers. The

grounds were equipped with sand gardens, swings, picture books,

small blackboards, small toys and games. These were designed

especially for young children, and while not regular

kindergartens, kindergarten games and songs occupied the

children. Hundreds of youngsters participated in this new

program. A photo of a sand bin appears on page 160 of the

article. Several youngsters can be seen playing in the bin,

underneath the shade of a large tree (American, 1898a).

Another way of creating play places for children noted by

Ms. American was introduced by the Episcopal City Mission of

Boston. A number of playrooms were kept open during July and

August, in the Sunday school rooms of churches or halls. Here

there were morning sessions of about two hours each, with an

average attendance of fifty children. Two teachers supervised

each room; one played the piano, while the other directed the

16

children, whose ages averaged from five to fifteen (American,

1898a).

The vacation school movement, the subject of Ms. American’s

second AJS article, had the same basic goal as the playground

movement: taking children from the streets. Those streets had

proved hostile to children’s safety and basic human rights. The

vacation school movement was different, however, in that it

hoped to provide a type of work for the student that he or she

would find pleasurable, in contrast to a program that is purely

recreational (American, 1898b).

Ms. American argued powerfully that urban life had taken

away the pleasures that youngsters have when they grow up in

rural areas. In the cities, the grass no longer invited the

tripping of feet but sternly warns to “keep off!” (American,

1898b). Birds and butterflies have fled to parks, too distant

for the child to follow; and the buzz of bees is “replaced by

the gong of the electric-car Moloch, claiming the street for his

own, and sacrificing all who may dispute his sovereignty”

(American, 1898b: 309). With a lack of activities, boredom

became a problem, especially for the poor. Living in crowded

tenements where often the kitchen, living room and bed were all

within the same four walls, children had no space in which their

natural energies could spend themselves.

17

A great number of teachers and principals had testified to

the demoralizing effect of the long weeks of idleness during the

summer and the necessity of spending the greater part of the

early fall months in overcoming the effects of this

deterioration. Ms. American was confident that vacation schools

would help with this problem by teaching students

resourcefulness and by giving the hands something to do. For

this reason manual training was emphasized in the curriculum

more than academics. One school superintendent commented: “The

value of these schools consists not so much in what shall be

learned during the few weeks they are in session, as in the fact

that no boy or girl shall be left with unoccupied time.

Idleness is an opportunity for evil doing. These schools will

cost money ... Reform schools also cost money. It is by no means

certain that, considered in the light of dollar and cents only,

it is not true economy for the city to spend money for vacation

schools” (American, 1898b: 312).

As in the playground movement, Boston was the pioneer of

the vacation school movement. In 1885, Mrs. Quincy Shaw opened

the North Bennett Street Industrial School during mornings for

six weeks during July and August. Five hundred children between

the ages of three and eighteen were enrolled. Approximately 250

attended, on average, each day. The attendance varied from year

to year, and new classes were added to the original list.

18

Manual training was emphasized, including instructions in sloyd

(woodworking), leatherwork, typesetting, chair seating, basket

weaving, cooking, plain sewing, paper folding, drawing, and clay

modeling. By 1898, similar schools had been established in New

York, Chicago, Cambridge, Cleveland, Brooklyn, Philadelphia,

Indianapolis, and New Haven (American, 1898b).

The schools in Chicago were unique because of the

impressive credentials of the leaders gathered together to help

organize and supervise the schools. The movement started in

March, 1896, at a conference of the Associated Charities. After

a report on vacation schools, a committee was appointed to see

what might be done to establish them in Chicago. Through the

chairman, the matter was presented before the educational

committee of the Civic Federation, of which President Harper of

the University of Chicago was chairman, and Sadie American was a

member of the Executive Committee. This committee was asked to

conduct vacation schools, which it consented to do. Eight

hundred dollars was raised, and it was determined to open one

school that should be a model as so far as possible. The Joseph

Medill School was chosen, situated in a working class district,

and drawing from a mixed population (American, 1898b; Logan,

1912).

The course was arranged under the direction of President

Harper and Professor John Dewey at the University of Chicago;

19

Colonel Francis Parker of the Chicago Normal School; and

Professor Gabriel Bamberger of the Jewish Training School. No

textbooks were used. Manual training, including sloyd, paper

folding, drawing, clay modeling, and sewing was given to all

classes from the kindergarten up. Singing and gymnasium work

were important features. The key event, however, was a weekly

excursion to the country that was described as the “center

around which all study in the school revolved” (American, 1898b:

321-322). Three photos in the article record such field trips.

One shows students marching along the road to the farm, while

the other two show students – after having arrived at the farm –

singing and having lunch.

By 1897 the original sponsor was unable to participate in

financing the school. An alternate sponsor emerged when the

settlement at the University of Chicago agreed to underwrite the

expense. This time, only occasional excursions were taken, and

the trips were not to the country but to the stockyards

district. A direct result of this particular school was the

introduction of manual training into the regular school

curriculum. This was in response to a petition from the parents

in the districts, to whom the value of such training had been

demonstrated during the summer session (American, 1898b).

A vacation school committee of the Chicago Women’s Club, of

which Sadie American was chairman, was formed to raise funds for

20

the establishment of five more schools, and this task was

accomplished during 1898. A Board of Education was created to

oversee the educational side of the schools, a board that

included such founding luminaries as Colonel Parker and

Professor Bamberger, as well as Sadie American, Hull House

founder Jane Addams, and University of Chicago sociologist

Charles Zueblin (American, 1898b).

The visual sociology tradition that Ms. American helped to

initiate is somewhat modest by today’s standards (see for

example Jameson, 1991). It amounted to little more than

appending pictures with brief captions to the text of articles.

Yet, this was a revolutionary new beginning. The pictures gave

credibility to the text and encouragement to those outside

Chicago that playgrounds or vacation schools could be

established in their city, as well as a physical model for those

towns to follow. Ms. American’s work led, furthermore, to the

development of more progressive visual methods, such as the use

of tables and bar graphs to present data (MacLean, 1905). For

these reasons, her work was groundbreaking. Her work was also

important because it provided modeling and support to those

sociologists who used the visual medium for the next 18 years;

and particularly to those female sociologists who would submit

visual sociology manuscripts to AJS and have them published.

21

Ms. American lacked the academic credentials of better

known Chicago colleagues Jane Addams, Edith Abbott, and

Sophonisba Breckinridge. Addams graduated from Rockford Female

Seminary, while Abbott earned a Ph.D. in Political Economy from

the University of Chicago in 1905. Breckinridge earned two

Ph.D.’s from Chicago, in Political Science and Law (Deegan,

1991). Sadie American, in contrast, had no formal training

beyond high school. Her spirit and work ethic more than made up

for that lack of formal schooling; yet, some might question the

designation of Ms. American as a sociologist, given her sparse

credentials and relatively low scholarly output.

She qualifies as a sociologist in several ways. Her

publications in AJS were definitely benchmarks, for women in

sociology and for visual sociology. AJS was the premier

sociological journal at the time, and Ms. American is one of the

few non-degreed people to ever publish in the journal. Second,

in the dual-track world of sociology in Chicago at the time,

women were relegated to “applied” sociology, working in the

social settlements, while men gained footholds in academic

departments of sociology, pursuing both theoretical and research

interests. Thus, Ms. American was doing the kind of sociology

that was considered “appropriate” for her gender at that

particular point in history (Deegan, 1990). Further, being a

sociologist is often more a frame of mind than a series of

22

scholarly “outputs.” As C. Wright Mills (1959) wrote, sociology

is about helping people to better understand their society and

to assist them with this task. A talent that he called the

“sociological imagination” is possessed by those who are able to

connect people to their social structure and to the times in

which they live; and by those who help others to transform their

private problems into public concerns. By this latter standard

especially, Sadie American displayed a huge measure of such

imagination during the course of her work. She successfully

transformed the private troubles of immigrant youth into public

issues. Accordingly, she was not only a groundbreaking

sociologist but also a prolific one at that, considering the

full range of her civic involvements as well as her scholarly

contributions to the field.

Sadie American’s lack of academic credentials in the form

of formal higher education was a personal deficit in at least

two important ways. She was unable to connect the work she was

doing to a larger body of ideas. For example, the relationship

she had discovered between idleness and delinquency would have

been of interest to the burgeoning field of criminology (see

Gillin, 1926), and was a precursor to Hirschi’s (1969) work on

delinquency, in which he noted that delinquency occurs when the

individual’s bond to society is weak or broken. Second, she had

no research agenda that would have had the result of heightening

23

her academic visibility. Though she was very much involved with

the Chicago settlement movement, she apparently lacked a

scholarly collegial relationship with Jane Addams and others

(Linn, 2000; Wise, 1935; Addams, 1961; Davis and McCree, 1969).

This hurt, because academic criminology would later draw upon

some of the research being done in the settlements (e.g.,

Breckinridge and Abbott, 1912) but bypassed some of the

important practical, organizational, “applied” work Sadie

American was doing.

After the brief appearances in AJS , Sadie American did not

publish again in any major sociology journal. Her written work

was confined, for the most part, to a series of reports and

papers that she wrote during the course of her service on

various committees. These included the reports of the Council of

Jewish Women, especially the Committee on Immigrant Aid; and

reports of the vacation school and playground committee of the

Chicago Woman’s Club, 1897-1899 (Logan, 1912). Ms. American also

published in journals such as American Hebrew and Jewish

Encyclopedia ; these articles were related to her work as

Secretary of the NCJW (Elwell, 1982). Her physical condition

following her accident appears to have played a role in her

limited publications after AJS .

Male sociologists at the University of Chicago preempted

Sadie American’s work in AJS , and this was a factor that further

24

limited her influence upon academic sociology. In the pages

immediately preceding her first article in AJS , Charles Zueblin

of the sociology faculty at the University of Chicago authored

an article called “Municipal Playgrounds in Chicago” (Zueblin,

1898). The piece documents the effort of the city of Chicago to

enhance its system of municipal playgrounds, and reviews the

difficulties, successes, and future prospects for such parks.

With 14 photos and one diagram, this work is more visually

sophisticated than Ms. American’s. In two footnotes there is

token acknowledgement of Sadie American’s work in creating the

movement for playgrounds. The editor’s decision to place Zueblin

right before Sadie American softened the academic impact of her

work. Even historians of women in sociology credit Zueblin as

the academic expert on playgrounds in Chicago, and not Sadie

American (Deegan, 1990).

Nearly identical circumstances occurred when Ms. American

published her second article in AJS . This time, Zueblin’s

colleague O.J. Milliken wrote an in-depth analysis of the

vacation schools in Chicago of which Sadie American was a

driving force. This time there is no acknowledgement of Ms.

American’s work. Milliken (1898) makes more impressive use of

the visual method, utilizing 16 photos and 1 table.

25

Legacy of Sadie American’s Work

The use of visuals in social research, begun by Sadie

American and others at the end of the 19 th century, is now a

significant trend in contemporary qualitative sociology. After

the initial visual pieces appeared in AJS , the tradition was

carried on when an important sociology textbook utilized the

visual method (Hayes and Shannon, 1935). The next significant

release of books about visual sociology occurred in the 1970s

and 1980s, when sociologists were beginning to use visual aids

to enhance classroom lectures (Curry, 1978; Hill, 1984;

Boonzajer Flaes and Harper, 1993). The 1990s witnessed a strong

comeback and virtual explosion of interest in visual sociology.

In these recent publications sociologists have used photo

documentation as a tool in studying a wide range of topics, such

as Israeli immigrants in Los Angeles; traveling ministers in

Columbus, Ohio; family life in central Maine; health care in

Colorado; and farming practices in rural New York (Gold, 1994;

Neal and Phillips, 1982; Gardner, 1990; Magilvy, Congdon,

Nelson, and Craig, 1992; Harper, 1997). Video cameras have been

used to study verbal and nonverbal behavior of children, and the

progression of dementia in the elderly. (Gormly, Chapman, Foot

and Sweeney, 1982; Newman and Ward, 1992; see also Albrecht,

1985). Recently social theorists have also developed an interest

in visuals. Postmodernism, for instance, is concerned with

26

(among other things) “techno culture,” that is, the degree to

which a high-tech, visually driven society is dependent upon the

cultural images that it produces and consumes (Chaplin, 1994;

Robins, 1996). The visual society is dominated by image,

simulation, and illusion, where the identity of what is “real”

or not is culturally contested (Baudrillard, 1995, 1994, 1993,

2002).

Unfortunately, despite postmodern denial of the primacy of

“maleness,” Ms. American continues to be denied her place in

history as a founder of visual sociology. The male dominated

publication Visual Studies , published by the International

Visual Sociology Association, fails to recognize Ms. American as

an important contributor to the discipline.

Concluding Remarks

Ms. American was particularly proud of founding the

vacation schools and playgrounds in Chicago, and fortunately we

have the visual sociology of her efforts in behalf of the city’s

young immigrant populations. Colonel Parker of the Chicago

Normal School stated that these projects could hardly have gone

forward without her; that the method and conduct was so unique

he considered it epoch making in education. The vacation

schools, conducted under a Board of Education of the best

educators and social service workers of that city, were later

incorporated into the Chicago school system. Today, summer

27

schools and playgrounds are so common as to be taken for

granted, but when Ms. American started this work in 1896, there

were virtually no literature on the subject and few in other

cities that knew much about it (Logan, 1912). Ms. American

sought those individuals out, and thus her work became the focal

point of a pioneering national movement. The use of visuals to

support this work gave encouragement and physical examples of

the kind of work that could be done.

Historian Ellen Elwell (1982) doubted that the NCJW – or

any other organization that Sadie American helped to establish –

would ever have been founded or survived without her single-

minded determination. It is an understatement to say that the

varied and important character of Ms. American’s scholarly and

philanthropic work has not received, thus far, the appreciation

that it deserves. Many who have studied Sadie American would

concur with Mrs. John Logan, who observed of Ms. American in

1912: “In future generations, hundreds of thousands will enjoy

the benefits of work of which she has been the initial spirit,

and which never could have been brought to realization without

her energy and ability” (Logan, 1912: 646.)

Sadie American’s ability to work with people and to

organize and motive them toward a goal, and to help them

transform their private troubles into public issues was one of

her strongest skills. It was what solidified her as a

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sociologist and exemplar of the sociological imagination. Her

rousing speech on the final day of the Jewish Women’s Congress

in 1893 literally gave birth to the National Council of Jewish

Women; the business meeting to formally ratify the council

proceeded immediately after Sadie American’s speech. With great

conviction, Ms. American plead to the assembly:

Not again may we have together so many women from all parts of our country, drawn hither for the purpose of representing Judaism at its best. Let us form an organization whose subject shall be spreading the understanding of a devotion to the highest type of Judaism, in whose service shall be put every faculty of our being (Meites, 1990: 180). References

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