NASW Pioneers Biography Index


The National Association of Social Workers Foundation is pleased to present the NASW Social Work Pioneers®. NASW Pioneers are social workers who have explored new territories and built outposts for human services on many frontiers. Some are well known, while others are less famous outside their immediate colleagues, and the region where they live and work. But each one has made an important contribution to the social work profession, and to social policies through service, teaching, writing, research, program development, administration, or legislation.

The NASW Pioneers have paved the way for thousands of other social workers to contribute to the betterment of the human condition; and they are are role models for future generations of social workers. The NASW Foundation has made every effort to provide accurate Pioneer biographies.  Please contact us at naswfoundation@socialworkers.org to provide missing information, or to correct inaccurate information. It is very important to us to correctly tell these important stories and preserve our history.  

Please note, an asterisk attached to a name reflects Pioneers who have passed away. All NASW Social Work Pioneers® Bios are Copyright © 2021 National Association of Social Workers Foundation. All Rights Reserved.

    
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Ida Maud Cannon Photo
Ida Maud Cannon* (1877-1960)

In 1905, Ida Maud Cannon went to work for Dr. Richard Cabot at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Having graduated from the Boston School for Social Work, Cannon came to "make medical care effective" and "cure consumption." In 1907, Cannon was named Head Worker and, in 1915, Chief of Social Service, establishing the first organized social work department in a hospital. She retired from the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1945.

Begun in the outpatient clinics, Social Services focused on patients with tuberculosis (the scourge of the era), neurological problems, venereal disease, unmarried pregnant girls, and children with orthopaedic problems. Travelling extensively, Cannon brought her ideas to hospitals throughout the United States. She helped develop a standardized program for training medical social workers. In 1918 Cannon founded the American Association of Hospital Social Workers.

Trained in nursing and social work, Cannon insisted that social workers needed specialized medical knowledge along with firm grounding in casework. She struggled with what to measure - the right to document social work activity in the patient's medical chart, how to collaborate with physicians and nurses, while insisting that the affluent suburbs not dump their sickest, neediest patients on the inner city hospitals. She studied the effects of occupation on disease and worried that in the immensity of individual needs, there would be insufficient time and energy for social action.

"The medical Social Service movement", she said in a 1930 address, "recognizes that there should be within the hospital ... someone definitely assigned to represent the patient's point of view ... and to work out with the physician, an adaptation of the medical treatment in the light of the patient's social condition." On Ida Maud Cannon's desk stood a picture of the dodo bird from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with the quotation, "the best way to explain it is to do it!"




Newly Inducted NASW Social Work Pioneer Hortense McClinton 2015

Nominate A New NASW Pioneer

Please note, Pioneer nominations made between today’s date through March 31, 2023, will not be reviewed until spring 2023.

Completed NASW Pioneer nominations can be submitted throughout the year and are reviewed at the June Pioneer Steering Committee Meeting. To be considered at the June meeting, submit your nomination package by March 31. To learn more, visit our Pioneer nomination guidelines.


New Pioneers 

Congratulations newly elected Pioneers!  Pioneers will be inducted at the 2023  Annual Program and Luncheon. Full biographies and event details coming soon.

2023