Enriched by Catastrophe

Focusing on the days and months following the Halifax explosion of 1917, this study takes a look at the role of social workers in the wake of the disaster, as well as the class relations of the time. Exhaustively researched, this history clearly identifies the direct correlation between many of today’s inherited social-work practices and attitudes with the social climate of that early relief effort. Marking the transition from charity work—where traditionally well-off volunteers passed judgment on their poorer neighbors—to professional social care, this analysis reflects on the lessons learned when newly arrived workers had to navigate the prevailing class structures while attempting to rebuild the lives of the Haligonians.