Resurrecting Nannie Minor and Orie Hatcher

Abstract

In this article, we raise two feminists (Minor and Hatcher) from erasure by recognizing the importance of their roles in the development of professional social work education. First, we tell a story of how emerging semiprofessions were intertwined, only to become separate over time. Next we focus on the influence of two feminists who came from other semiprofessions than social work and were instrumental in cocreating a School of Social Work. Minor and Hatcher’s erasure in the formal histories of the School demonstrates the gendered nature of the professional education process.

Professionalism’s association with masculine, rational pursuits made social work’s claims difficult for many to accept, with its preponderance of women and assumptions of their emotional natures and inability to be scientists…The limits on the acceptance of women in the field and to women’s leadership positions were entrenched in the early century.

Cote, 2013, pp. 154–155

In this article, we focus on Nannie Minor and Orie Hatcher, two women who played important roles in the early development of what would become the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) School of Social Work (hereinafter referred to as “the School”). ¹ Through focusing on the contributions of Minor and Hatcher, we tell a story of how the gendered politics of professionalization and the role of interdisciplinary collaboration intersected to contribute to the education of social workers in one southern city. The story about Minor and Hatcher’s participation in the School’s early development is important and in need of being told because they are scarcely mentioned in the histories that have been written about the School, and yet they and the organizations they helped found were highly influential in the School’s development.

In focusing on Minor and Hatcher’s contributions, we reveal how two feminists who were not social workers were instrumental in the School’s creation. Their erasure in the School’s formal histories supports the gendered nature of the education process for professions and reinforces the call for “contemporary female social workers [to] reclaim their historic leadership role in the profession” (Jabour, 2012, p. 22). Minor, a nurse, and Hatcher, an educator, became advocates for social work education in an era when all three fields were seen as “less than” those professions dominated by men. It is our intent to recognize the important roles played by these two feminists in early professional social work education.

We begin by framing our article within the context of professionalization specific to the semiprofessions and move to what we have learned about Nannie Minor and Orie Hatcher within this early history. We draw from both primary and secondary sources, locating references to Minor and Hatcher in the works of feminist historians (Brinson, 1984; Green, 2005; Lebsock, 1987; Treadway, 1995) and in searching the collections and archives of the Richmond Valentine History Center, the Virginia Historical Society, and VCU libraries. Our focus is on parts of the story that have escaped the vetted histories of the VCU School of Social Work, revealing the important roles played by remarkable women who made a difference.

The Emergence of the Semiprofessions

During the Progressive Era in America (1890s–1920s), social work emerged as a profession. To some, it was viewed as a semiprofession in which “their training is shorter, their status is less legitimated, their right to privileged communication less established, there is less of a specialized body of knowledge, and they have less autonomy from supervision or social control than ‘the’ professions” (Etzioni, 1969, p. v.). In his sociological treatise on three semiprofessions (teachers, nurses, and social workers), Etzioni (1969) claims that this categorization was not intended to be derogatory because less acceptable terms such as subprofession or pseudo-profession were not used. He then discusses how these semiprofessions were composed largely of women.

In revisiting the concept of semiprofession, Witz (1992) contends that long after this concept went out of vogue, its shadow haunted professions having large numbers of women. “In short, because women are not men, ‘semi-professions’ are not professions” (Witz, 1992, p. 60). For Witz, it was the successes of men that defined professions in the first place. Her analysis of how professionalism and patriarchy are linked revealed the complicated, gendered nature of professionalization.

It was within this larger context of women’s professions being viewed as lesser than male-dominated professions that Nannie Minor and Orie Hatcher became engaged in the development of the School of Social Work. The literature on professions is particularly revealing as mostly male writers have defined what makes a profession viable (Austin, 1983; Fabricant, 1985; Flexner, 1915; Gustafson, 1982; Lubove, 1973; Sullivan, 2005). In efforts to define professionalism and professional education, women’s roles were often relegated to a “less than” status when they pursued professions such as social work.

In addition, women who were educated in established professional fields could be suspect when they became champions of social work. For example, Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge, “the first woman to earn a doctor of jurisprudence degree from the University of Chicago” (Jabour, 2012, p. 25) was “the driving force behind the establishment of the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration (SSA),” yet until recently, scholars have neglected her career because it was seen to contradict “dominant interpretations of the social work profession” (Jabour, 2012, p. 23). Not only were semiprofessions subjugated to traditional male professions, but in the case of the School featured in this article, women’s early contributions have been lost. Like Breckinridge in Chicago, Minor and Hatcher were instrumental in advocating for the professionalization of women in Richmond. It is our intent that they be resurrected and remembered.

Nannie Minor and The Instructive Visiting Nurse Association (IVNA)

Nannie Minor (1871–1934) began her training as a nurse at Old Dominion Hospital Training School in Richmond, continuing her education at Johns Hopkins (“Who’s Who in the Nursing World,” 1925). She was the daughter of John B. Minor, one of Virginia’s most distinguished professors of law (Green, 2005, p. 281).

Historian Elna Green (2005, p. 284) described Minor as “perhaps the most tireless proponent of the establishment of the Richmond Nurses’ Settlement [and] an example of a generation of southern women who came of age in the Progressive Era and chose a professional career instead of a more traditional domestic role.” The Nurses’ Settlement was originally formed in 1900 when eight newly trained nurses from Old Dominion Hospital became concerned about premature discharges of patients and began to visit poor citizens needing skilled nursing care at home. As one of the eight founding nurses of the Settlement, Minor assumed the leadership position as Head Nurse. In this leadership position, Minor was reported to have given a talk on December 9, 1901 (Minor, 1901) to the Woman’s Club of Richmond that:

…stirred many hearts to action. With her heels nervously ‘rattling like castanets on the floor,’ Minor reviewed the settlement’s accomplishments and explained the dire need for funds to cover staff salaries, operating costs, and the purchase of supplies. Moved by Minor’s eye-opening presentation, Lila Valentine and several fellow club members joined other area women in 1902 in establishing and funding the Instructive Visiting Nurses Association, which carried forward and expanded the activities of the Nurses’ Settlement. (Treadway, 1995, p. 45)

From the beginning, the IVNA treated patients regardless of race or creed. In 1923, Minor insisted on hiring an African American nurse, obtained funding from the Council of Colored Women to pay her salary and thus began integrating her staff. Under Minor’s leadership, the IVNA “created a new professional opportunity for black women in Richmond” (Green, 2005, p. 298) and made that agency one of the only integrated social service agencies in the city. Although integrated early in its history, the leadership of the IVNA remained white for many years. Following her 20-year career with the IVNA, in 1921, Minor continued her distinguished career as “director of public health nursing in the Bureau of Child Welfare at the Virginia Health Department” (Green, 2005, p. 284).

Minor and IVNA Contribution to the School’s Development

Nursing as a profession was instrumental in the founding of Richmond’s, and the South’s, first formal social work education program. The identification by visiting nurses of needs beyond physical health revealed that certain problems required the skills of specially trained professional social workers able to address the social and psychological factors associated with poverty. In 1917, Minor and one of her nursing colleagues at the IVNA, Agnes Randolph, became two of the first faculty members of the School of Social Work. From its beginning in 1917, both visiting nurses and social workers were trained at the new Richmond School of Social Work, demonstrating a deep relationship between public health nursing and social work as young professions. At the School’s founding, the social work curriculum demonstrated acceptance of interdisciplinary work and preparation for two practice areas—social work and public health nursing (Nadler, 1951). The importance of fieldwork, the increasing ideology of professionalism, and continued training for social workers became staples in social work education. “In an effort to train both social workers and nurses for public health nursing, the [IVNA] sent its nurses to the School and accepted students from the School for field work placement” (Nadler, 1951, chap. VII, p. 5).

Historian Elna Green provides more information in her history of the IVNA:

The initial organization of the Nurses’ Settlement blended the functions of visiting nurse and social work, both fields that were then still in their infancy. The differences between the two fields would later cause problems for the settlement, both in function and identity. The public would remain confused about the organization for years; and even its workers themselves evinced some uncertainty about the functions. (2005, p. 289)

This confusion may have been exacerbated by the fact that the first training program for social work in the city had a combined curriculum of public health and social work, heavily influenced and even delivered in part by nurses from the IVNA.

Minor and her nursing colleagues based the IVNA on New York’s Henry Street Settlement, a unique blend of the social settlement house and community-based nursing (Green, 2005; Hill, 1962). As late as 1934, Lillian Wald, founder of the famous Henry Street Settlement in New York, wrote, “It is difficult to draw the line between social workers and nurses. They are integrated and inter-dependent, and no nurse is competent to serve in the public field unless she is also a social worker” (Wald, 1934, p. 743). Richmond visiting nurses’ involvement with and support of social work was reflective of the well-established relationship between Wald as a visiting nurse and prominent social workers in the field (Hill, 1962, p. 463). As the IVNA developed, social workers were viewed as an extension of nurses; being called upon when patients’ home and community problems were seen as needing attention, freeing nurses from this responsibility which is outside of their training. “The work grew steadily, and the nurses as they saw the need gradually developed the social service side…” (Minor, 1945, p. 8).

With social workers providing services, the lines between nursing and social work blurred, this being furthered because both nurses and social workers resided at the IVNA. As nurses observed the communal necessity for services, the social service aspect increased. Between 1913 and 1917, due to the demand for community services, some nurses were able to have options about which type of work they preferred: nursing or social work. Thus, by the late teens, social work became a major component of the agency.

In 1923, the IVNA spun off another professionalized (social work) agency, the William Byrd Community House. It appears the separation of nurses and social workers into two distinct settlement houses in 1923 symbolically spurred the process of differentiation between the two professions in Richmond. Renamed the School of Social Work and Public Health in 1918, the school did not drop public health from its name until 1940 when a separate School of Public Health Nursing emerged. The history of nursing and social work in Richmond were interconnected nearly a century ago, so much so that their differentiation took over 20 years.

Minor and IVNA Erasure from History

Green indicates that workers at the IVNA “were largely responsible for the creation of a school of social work in the South…[and] stood at the center of women’s progressive activism in Richmond, acting as an incubator of southern progressivism and social welfare reform” (2005, p. 278). In the first annual announcement of the School, it is noted that teachers for the program came from the IVNA staff and students performed required fieldwork under the direction of Nannie Minor (Richmond School of Social Economy, 1918). Yet, Green (2005) commented on the fact that the settlement had never been fully integrated into the histories of the period, which is certainly the case if one looks at the histories of the Richmond School of Social Work. Certainly, Nannie Minor and Agnes Randolph, two of the founders of the Nurses’ Settlement, were listed as lecturers in the early curriculum of the School, along with several other “distinguished community leaders,” including four men with doctoral degrees. There is no elaboration about who these two women were or any mention of the Nurses’ Settlement or IVNA in the school’s histories (Carlton, 1987; Hibbs, 1973) except for the following note: “Miss Randolph, who lectured on tuberculosis, was a direct descendant of President Thomas Jefferson and is now buried in the Jefferson family plot at Monticello” (Hibbs, 1973, p. 16). No description of Miss Minor is given.

Ironically, on the website of the School of Medicine at VCU, the historical section states: “In 1952, Randolph Minor Hall was completed, and eventually named for Agnes Dillon Randolph, the granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson, and Nannie Jacqueline Minor—both girls were students at the School of Nursing.” We were stunned in reading this statement that records for posterity the reference to these strong, capable women as “girls.” There is no mention about Nannie Minor moving on to become the Director of the State Board of Health, where she served with distinction, or any reference to her role at the IVNA or the School.

Fortunately, feminist historian Green does recognize Minor’s contributions and reports something that is not even alluded to in the School’s histories: “Although the [IVNA] never attempted to garner the credit for the school of social work, it is clear that the settlement workers, especially Nannie Minor, were integral in its founding” (Green, 2005, p. 300). Green (2005) cites renowned historian Douglas Southall Freeman who credited Minor as the brains behind the development of the first social work program in the South. We were able to locate the 1934 newspaper clipping in the IVNA archives (dated the year Nannie Minor died) in which Freeman referred to Minor’s role in the development of social work education:

…she remained her father’s daughter, an educator. Whenever some perplexing aspect of Richmond social work developed, Miss Minor’s plan was to call a conference and to bring to the city someone who would instruct her and her zealous young associates. It will be found, we believe, that the movement which led to the establishment of the Richmond School of Social Work, now merged with the extension division of William and Mary, had its origin in her keen brain. (Freeman, 1934, n.p.)

Freeman refers to the professionalization of social work in Richmond that appears to have been to a degree incubated in the IVNA (Green, 2005), and most important for this article is that he sees the origins of the School in Nannie Minor’s “keen brain.” Yet, there is no mention of Minor’s contribution (other than having been listed as a faculty member) or the school’s relationship with the IVNA in either of the written histories of the School (Carlton, 1987; Hibbs, 1973). Minor has been forgotten in the history of the School.

Nurses like Minor recognized the need to address social problems of their patients. They saw poverty and environmental issues needing responses that nurses were neither trained for, nor had time to enact. Neglecting Minor’s contributions means that the important influence of the IVNA, one of the first racially integrated agencies in the city’s history, has also been subjugated. Minor’s determination to serve community needs regardless of race and to hire African American nurses in highly segregated Richmond challenged prevailing practices. This radical departure from traditional norms is also reflected in Minor’s leadership in developing in-home services reaching out to all parts of the city while living in the settlement house with other single women. Being on the faculty of the School of Social Work and hosting field students from the school must have given her a platform to influence students in learning how to advocate and practice in challenging environments in which gender and racial roles were rigidly defined. Yet, there is no formal memory or recognition of her influence.

Orie Hatcher and The Virginia Bureau of Vocations for Women

Orie Latham Hatcher (1868–1946) was also instrumental in the establishment of the School of Social Work; yet, similar to Minor, she was scarcely mentioned in the School’s received histories. Also similar to Minor, Hatcher did not receive her formal training in social work. She was a teacher in another one of the so-called semiprofessions. Unlike Minor, however, Hatcher’s involvement in the establishment of the School was motivated less by efforts to professionalize social work, but, more broadly, to invest in the professionalization of women, particularly in the South.

Feminist historian Lebsock (1987) tells a story of Hatcher within the context of post–Civil War Richmond, the home of the Confederacy. In the quote that follows, Lebsock reveals how Hatcher was incubated within a family that buffered her from the dominant environment in which hostility between the northern and southern states was palpable and in which the higher education of women was highly threatening to many. As Hatcher grew up, her parents primed for a life devoted to women’s professional education.

For a young white woman of the genteel classes, going to college was an unconventional act, and it took very special circumstances to get her there. Orie Latham Hatcher, later the prime mover in the effort to create new career opportunities for southern women, got her chance when a friend of the family, a northerner, offered to send her to Vassar. This prompted yet another friend of the family (a Virginian) to sputter that he’d see his daughter in hell before he’d send her to a Yankee college. “Well,” Orie’s father replied, “you see yours in Hell, mine’s going to Vassar.” (p. 116)

Hatcher, the daughter of parents who valued higher education, so much so that both sat on the boards of academic institutions, did go to college (Brinson, 1984, p. 118–119). She studied education at Vassar College and later received a PhD in English literature from the University of Chicago. Prior to receiving her PhD, Hatcher returned to Richmond to assist with the transformation of the Richmond Female Institute into the Women’s College of Richmond, where she served as a professor.

Later, following her doctoral studies, Hatcher became a professor at Bryn Mawr, a women’s liberal arts college in Pennsylvania. Drawing on her personal experience in academia, as well as that of her students, both in the North and South, Hatcher began to notice a pattern in which Southern women were ostracized in the educational environment (Peavy & Smith, 1983). In 1914, Hatcher resigned her position at Bryn Mawr and returned to Virginia to lead the movement for southern women to achieve their educational potential (Lebsock, 1987, p. 125). In a letter to her mother dated November 1914, Hatcher revealed her decision to change course and the rationale behind it: “I wonder how much surprised you will be to have me tell you that at the end of the year I expect to give up teaching and go into what I suppose may be described as social work” (Johnson, 1992, p. 34).

In her dissertation, historian Betsy Brinson (1984) confirms Hatcher’s important role in the development of professional education in Richmond. Upon her return to Richmond, Hatcher launched the Virginia Bureau of Vocations for Women in 1914 and is listed as a founder of the Richmond School of Social Economy in 1917 (The Atlas, 1934). The Virginia Bureau of Vocations for Women provided support for women to become professionals in male-dominated professions and also supported professions that were just beginning to develop, such as social work (Peavy & Smith, 1983). In 1921, in response to a plethora of requests for assistance coming from all across the South, the Virginia Bureau of Vocations for Women became the Southern Women’s Educational Alliance (SWEA). SWEA maintained a primary focus on the educational, vocational, and economic status of southern women, which would in itself bring about “collective and social change” (Brinson, 1984, p. 118).

Hatcher and the Bureau Contribution to the School’s Development

As efforts were being made to professionalize social work, Hatcher became involved in the development of the Richmond School of Social Work (Peavy & Smith, 1983). In 1917, Hatcher introduced Margaret Byington, an employee of the Russell Sage Foundation in New York, to the Board of Trustees of the School to discuss with them the necessity of professionalizing social workers in Richmond by focusing on how the lack of trained social workers in the city was a disservice to the community (Richmond Professional Institute, Board of Directors, 1917). For the next several years, Hatcher and Byington through their work with The Bureau facilitated the development of strong alliances between the School and organizations in the Richmond community. Hatcher continued to maintain connections with professional alliances in the north and was able to use her networks in the development of the School.

As instrumental as she was in the establishment of the School, Orie Latham Hatcher is not mentioned in the Carlton (1987) history of the School; however, one paragraph in the Hibbs’ history mentions her as a leading member of the board (Hibbs, 1973, p. 19). Other than to list Hatcher as a board member of the School’s foundation from 1918 to 1925 and 1928 to 1947 (a total of 26 years; Hibbs, 1973, p. 145), there is no other mention of Hatcher in the School’s written history. Despite her contributions toward the development of the School, important enough for her to be offered a leadership position in the School as early as 1917, Hatcher’s influence and role have been ignored (Scherer, 1916–1925; Hatcher, O. to Scherer J.J., March 20, 1917).

It is noteworthy that the Virginia Bureau of Vocations for Women established by Hatcher in 1914 had strong ties with social work. In 1918, when the newly formed School of Social Work and Public Health reported on the shortage of doctors in the state in a study entitled “The War and the Health and Welfare of the People of Virginia” (Brinson, 1984, p. 125), the Bureau responded by offering a series of lectures on attracting women to medicine. Ida Maude Cannon, Chief of Social Service at Massachusetts General Hospital and one of social work’s pioneers legendary for spearheading the medical social service movement, was invited to be the keynote speaker. Brinson (1984, pp. 125–126) remarks, “Not surprisingly, it was in part the influence of the School of Social Work and Public Health, founded earlier by the Bureau, which helped to open up the Medical College”. Note that Brinson credits the Bureau with founding the School.

Hatcher and the Bureau Erasure From History

No mention of the Bureau or the appearance of Ida M. Cannon in Richmond is found in either of the School’s histories, nor is the connection between social work and medicine (Carlton, 1987; Hibbs, 1973). The work of the Bureau to promote women’s professionalization has been left out of the School’s history.

Hatcher’s “feminist ideology had compelled her to take her expertise back home and to work for improving women’s work conditions within her own region, thus giving up her academic career to advocate for women’s professional advancement” (Brinson, 1984, p. 119). Yet, the importance of this remarkable woman who served from the beginning on the board of the School appears to have been downplayed. This is troubling, as Hatcher was known locally and nationally as a leader in advocating for women’s formal professional education through the Virginia Bureau of Vocations for Women (Brinson, 1984).

Educators like Hatcher encouraged the professionalization of women, including women in social work, by advocating for them to enter the formal educational system. Hatcher was the author of a groundbreaking book on woman’s occupations (inclusive of social work; Hatcher, 1927) that contained the results of a study conducted for the Southern Woman’s Educational Alliance. Her work ties social work to a much larger cause—that of recruiting women to many professions beyond those seen to be appropriate for women. Hatcher’s early feminist influence on the School has nonetheless been overlooked.

Conclusion

In looking at the history of the School, we were surprised to find the coming together of two female-based professions, nursing and education, in recognizing the need for the then new profession of social work as well as in the creation of the first social work education program in the South. Today, professional and disciplinary schools within universities are often referred to or criticized as separate silos requiring better integration. However, it can be argued that in order to create distinctive professional identities, programs socialize students to a set of core values, a code of ethics, and to practices within their defined domains in order to then be effectively involved in the cross fertilization of multidisciplinary work. Ironically, it appears that in the development of one southern School of Social Work, interdisciplinary collaboration and support existed prior to the emergence of distinctive silos. Minor and Hatcher, educated in other semiprofessions, were influential in this school’s founding and respected the role social work could play in their communities as semi- or full-fledged professionals.

In focusing on Hatcher and Minor, we also found how history underplayed social work’s interdisciplinary roots. Our findings revealed a genesis story in which public health nursing and social work were almost interchangeable professions, reminding us of what Lillian Wald had to say many decades ago—that a good nurse had to be a good social worker (Wald, 1934). In Richmond, nursing had a training school first. When social work training began, primarily nurses trained social workers, many of whom formerly worked as nurses. It appears that early on, the two professions were almost transdisciplinary before they differentiated.

The semiprofessions of teachers, nurses, and social workers were composed largely of women. It is in the politics of gender that a curious aspect of our story is told. The received histories of this particular School of Social Work appear to have subjugated some of the women who were instrumental in the School’s genesis, women who were not social workers but who strongly believed in and advocated for professionally educated women.

Both Minor and Hatcher collaborated with other women to found organizations particularly relevant to women’s needs. Both assumed leadership roles within these organizations, neither of which are mentioned in the history of the founding of the School, even though contemporary feminist historians (not social workers) make it very clear that they were part of the School’s founding. Particularly relevant are the capabilities of these two strong women who advocated for unpopular causes and worked against traditional norms within a context described by Hatcher (1918, p. 650) as “Nowhere else in the South except in Charleston, after all a small world to itself, has a certain conception of what a woman should be and do persisted so fervently as in Virginia.”

We began our article with a brief overview of how scholars have examined the professionalization process and the characteristics of professions. Almost a century ago, Minor and Hatcher played key leadership roles in paving the way for others to perform professional roles within a gendered context. In her study of professions and patriarchy, Witz explains this context:

…. the relationship between gender and professionalization is a neglected one…One of the reasons for this neglect has to do with the fact that the generic notion of profession is also a gendered notion. This is because it takes what are in fact the successful professional projects of class-privileged male actors at a particular point in history and in particular societies to be the paradigmatic case of profession. (1992, p. 39)

Thus, it can be said that Minor and Hatcher were seen as members of semiprofessions and their professionalization processes were viewed as subordinate to the professional roles dominated by men. If the yardstick by which their value could be measured was based on the established paradigm, then their work would not be privileged. The roles they played were simply not recorded in the history of professional social work’s educational development in Richmond.

We are reminded of Lengermann and Neibrugge’s (1998) work in which they discuss the difference between invisibility and erasure. Invisibility occurs when women are not recognized. Erasure occurs when women have been visible during their lifetimes only to be forgotten to history. The historical influence of Minor and Hatcher was subjugated to that of men in the development of a school that targeted female students. They have been effectively neglected in the formal histories of the School. It is our contention that this is unacceptable and that faculty and students today need to know about their interdisciplinary roots and the contribution of women to the founding and development of the School.

Orie Hatcher (an educator) and Nannie Minor (a nurse) were significant participants in the earliest development of social work education in Richmond and the south. They were interdisciplinary in every aspect of their work. As advocates for the professionalization of women and activists for social work education, they deserve recognition and are worthy of note and respect.