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Final Report of the Romanian Research Team for the

“History of Social Work in Eastern Europe. 1900-1960” Project

Introductory remarks 1. Overview on the historical development of social work in Romania

1.1. The Institutional and Legislative Framework

1.2. Processes of Institutionalisation and Definitions of Social Work 1.2.1. General Definitions of Social Work: From Christian Charity and Social

Solidarism to “Scientific” Social Assistance

1.2.2. Gender Aspects in Definitions and Activities of Social Work

1.2.3. The Institutionalization of Social Work and Its Impact over Definitions of Social Assistance: “Social Protection” vs. “Social Assistance”

1.2.4. Rural Social Assistance - Urban Social Assistance

1.2.5. Eugenic Policies and Definitions of “Social Assistance” and “Social Protection”

1.2.6. Social Assistance as Scientific and Practical Field – the Differentiation between (Social) Medicine and Social Assistance

2. Case study: mothers and children’s welfare

2.1. Legal and institutional framework

2.1.1. Legal framework

2.1.2. Social assurance of maternity

2.1.3. Institutions for children’s assistance

2.2. Ideological framing of social policies for children

2.3. Methodological models and practical methodology.

3. Case study: development of professional training in social work

3.1. Schools for midwives and the special training of pedagogues of invalids

3.2. Institutes for protection nurses/“surori de ocrotire”

3.3. Superior School of Social Assistance “Principesa Ileana” (1929):

3.4. Different roles of professionals in social assistance field

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Introductory Remarks

In Romania research on the history of social work began only in the last few years1 yet many of its

themes need further research. The research work of our team brought to light an impressive amount

of writings on or connected to the development of social work, writings dating especially from the

interwar period (the period when state’s interest with the institutionalization and professionalization

of social assistance was most intense). The nature of these writings and documents was very

diverse, ranging from organizational reports and statistical data to specialist observations on the

adaptation of Western social work methodologies and theories to Romanian realities.

Many of these writings have been published by persons (that usually occupied top positions in

states institutions) and organizations actively involved with the professionalization and

institutionalization of social work. They usually contain historical incursions into the evolution of

Romanian social assistance starting with the medieval times in the attempt to base the legitimacy of

these activities on a constructed long and illustrious historical tradition of social assistance activities

in Romania. Equally important, these writings offer a detailed assessment of the establishment,

activity and progresses of the main institutions and organizations for social assistance (private and

state- funded) that functioned in the pre-communist period. Compared to this period, much less

specific information on social work was found for the 1950s and 1960s when, as argued further in

this report, the social need for social assistance was obscured from the public and professional

social work was gravely affected by the slow disintegration of its interwar institutional and

educational bases. Apart from uncovering important information on the institutional development of

social work, one of the principle aims of our research was to identify how social work/social

assistance was discursively defined and (de)legitimized as important for Romanian society during

this long period that knew the succession in power of various political regimes.

This final report consists of three main parts. A first part provides an overview on the development

of the institutional and legislative framework for social work activities. This overview is

11 See for example Livia Popescu, Structura sociala si societate civila în Romania interbelica (Social Structures and Civil Society in Interwar Romania) , Cluj-Napoca: Presa Universitara Clujeana, 1998 and Crina Diaconu, “Aspecte privind rolul femeilor în procesul de reformare si modernizare sociala in Romania interbelica. Activitatea si initiativele Asociatiei Cercurilor de Gospodine in domeniul ocrotirii si asistentei memei si copilului” (“Aspects of the Role of Women Played in Social Reforms and Modernization in the Interwar Romania. The Activity and Initiatives of the Housewives Circles Association in the Field of the Protection and Assistance of Mothers and Children”) and Ana-Maria Stan, “Contributii ale femeilor romane la activitatea de asistenta sociala in primii ani ai celui de-al doilea razboi mondial” (“Romanian Women’s Contributions to Social Assistance at the Beginning of the World War 2”) in Ghizela

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complemented by a discussion of the ways in which the difficult and sinuous institutionalization of

social work in Romania was reflected by the ways in which social work was defined and

delimitated as an independent field of social practice. The importance of this question resides in that

it complements the information on the institutionalization and professionalization of social work in

Romania and gives indications on the evolution of social work as a science and profession.

Furthermore, our research proved that for the whole period studied the social assistance of mothers

and children was the most important field of activity of state and private institutions of social work

in Romania. For that reason, a second part of this report is dedicated to the analysis of the

development of social work in this field. A third part deals with the results of our research

concerning the development of professional training in social work and focuses on the case study of

the first and most important school for social workers: the Superior School of Social Assistance

“Principesa Ileana” (1929).

1. Overview on the Historical Development of Social Work in Romania

1.1. The Institutional and Legislative Framework

The emergence and evolution of professional social work in Romania took place in intimate

connection with the slow process of building a welfare state and a rich tradition of charity and

philanthropic work. In Romania, the organization of a coherent system of state social welfare began

relatively late, at the beginning of the interwar period. Until then social assistance2 was mainly

undertaken by private organizations, initiated and led most often by women. From the mid-19th

century, the public assistance of the poor and children, especially orphan children, was, more in

theory (legislation) than in practice, the obligation of local governments. Thus, between 1831 and

Cosma, Virgiliu Tarau, eds., Conditia Femeii in Romania in secolul XX (The Woman’s Condition in XXth century Romania), Cluj-Napoca: Presa Universitara Clujeana, 2002, p. 11-38, 39-62. 2 The use of the term “social assistance” in the Romanian context and in the context of this final report needs some clarification, especially with regards to the term “social work”. It also involves the questioning of the appropriateness of the term “social work”, in its Western understandings, for what was named “social assistance” in Romania. “Social assistance” was a term taken by Romanian profesionals from French literature on social work and, especially in the interwar period, often used indiscriminately to cover manifestations of “pre-social work” activities in Romania – such as philanthropic or charity activities – and/or incipient social work activities. Until the end of the interwar period, provided the long and difficult processes of institutionalization of social work and of formulation of social welfare policies, there is a constant terminological confusion on the meanings and definitions of “social assistance”. In certain Romanian theoretical writings “social assistance” was a term defined more closely to “social work” in order to differentiate the activities covered by it from those of “social protection” (that in some writings appears as something pertaining to broader social welfare policies). But this was not a terminological ru le admitted by everybody. In the particular context of our research we use “social assistance” as equivalent for “social work” defined in a broader way that includes the idea of continuity between “pre-social work” manifestations of help and what is conventionally defined in history as modern “social work”.

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1920 public social assistance fell under the responsibility of local councils, town halls and

communes. Through the Ministry of Interior Affairs, the state was supposed only to control the

ways in which the budget was allocated to social assistance and was spent by the communal and

district governments. Many times the public assistance provided by communes consisted

exclusively of charity (material and financial support) for the poor and there were only a few public

institutions providing social assistance.

Contemporary writings present helping the poor, orphans, disabled and eradicating vagrancy and

beggary (especially among children) as the most important issues in undertaking social assistance.

In this scope private organizations undertaking social assistance activities have established asylums,

orphanages, hospitals, canteens, placement offices, workshops, etc. Legislation for public assistance

began also in 1831 through the Organic Regulations and only in 1881 was one service of social

assistance for abandoned children established by the Bucharest municipality. In 1864 the law for

communes and districts obliged communes/ municipalities to support financially and otherwise the

assistance of orphan and abandoned children, handicapped and poor people and instituted the

gratuity of assistance in cities and villages. In 1874 art 5. of the law concerning the regime of

prisons admitted the work of patronage societies in the moral reformation of condemned people.

However, there was no such institution in Romania at that time. Municipalities appear to have been

more concerned with taking care of orphan and abandoned children and finding ways to provide

them shelter and education.

Before 1918, the main initiatives in this area and in the field of public assistance were taken by the

municipality of the bigger cities and of the capital city. Between 1901-1910 the Bucharest

municipality organized 3 institutions to assist children (asylum for babies, orphanage and

kindergarten) and a service for nurses to work in these institutions. In the same period, it organized

a social service for beggars (night asylum, work colony and work placement bureau). In 1912 the

state began to organize a system of social insurance the legislation for which was regulated and

unified only in 19333. Beginning at the turn of the 20th century, there was an express concern from

3 See for example Gr. I. Dianu, Societatile de patronagiu (The Patronage Societies), Bucuresci: Institutul de Arte Grafice Carol Gobl, 1900, p. 1-24, Comandor Eugen Botez (Jean Bart), Asistenta sociala 1920-1930, extras din lucrarea <Zece ani de politica sociala in Romania> a Ministerului Muncii (The Social Assistance between 1920 and 1930. Extract from the Paper, <Ten Years of Social Politics in Romania> of the Labour Ministry), Bucuresti: Institutul de Arte Grafice “Eminescu” S.A., p. 4, 18-19, G. Banu, Sanatatea poporului roman, p. 323-325, Doctor G. Banu, Mari probleme de medicina sociala (Important Questions of Social Medicine), Bucuresti, 1938, p. 307-308, Ministerul Economiei Nationale. Institutul Central de Statistica. Institut Central de Statistique – Central Statistical Institute, Director: Dr. Sabin Manuila (The Ministry of National Economy. Central Statistical Institute. Director: Dr. Sabin Manuila), Institutiunile de Asistenta Sociala si de Ocrotire. Rezultatele recensamintului institutiunilor de asistenta sociala si de ocrotire din 1 Ianuarie 1936 (The Institutions of Social Assistance and Protection. The Results of the Census of Institutions for Social Assistance and Protection from January 1, 1936), Bucuresti: Editura Institutului

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various state bureaucrats, doctors or persons involved with social assistance for the creation of a

state bureaucratic apparatus and a more developed legislative framework for the identification and

control of “real dependants”. This concern, along with that for ensuring an efficient and effective

social policy, was one of the main reasons for calling for and later engaging in a deeper

involvement of the state in the institutionalization and control of public and private social

assistance4. Yet, it can be stated that until the end of World War I, there was no coherent national

social policy supported by the state and the social welfare was undertaken by Church, women’s

organizations, private associations and local governments.

After the First World War and the Versailles treaties the Old Kingdom of Romania incorporated

provinces previously belonging to the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Transylvania, Banat, Bukovina)

and Russian Empire (Bessarabia). These territorial changes determined efforts for the unification,

consolidation and modernization of the legal, political and economic structures of the new state. At

the same time, the situation of public and state assistance in the newly acquired provinces was

found to be very different than that in the Old Kingdom from the point of view of legislation and

development of public assistance. In Transylvania for example, the public assistance of children

was much more developed and the legislation concerning the assistance of disadvantaged children

much more evolved. To regulate this situation in a way that would respond to general post-1918

preoccupations with the modernization of state institutions and the unification of state structures,

the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Protection was established in 1922 by the state through a

special law. The Ministry had a special Direction for Social Work whose task was to create new

state institutions for social assistance and to coordinate the activity of the existent public and private

institutions and organizations for social assistance5. From that moment until 1944, the state invested

its efforts into ensuring a concerted social assistance activity through the (re)organization of various

states institutions, directions, services and through the elaboration of laws to control and supervise

the activities of private organizations and to help establish public institutions that would

complement the private ones. In a first stage the aim of the newly established system was to control

the activity of private organizations (through registration, control over state subventions, etc) and to

map the field of activities these organizations pursued to ensure that its endeavors would

Central de Statistica, 1938, p. 17-18, Florica Manoiu /Viorica Epureanu, Asistenta sociala in Romania. Seria I (The Social Assistance in Romania. Series I), Bucuresti: Editura Institutului biblic si de misiune al Bisericii ortodoxe Romane, 1992, p. 13-14. 4 See for example N. Baboeanu, Asistenta publica si privata in capitala. Studiu (The Public and Private Assistance in the Capital. Study), Bucuresti: Tipografia Cooperativa “Poporul”, 1910, p. 15, 84 and V. Sion, fost subdirector si director general al serviciului sanitar (former vice-director and general director of the sanitary services), Asistenta publica cu un proiect de lege si o expunere de motive (The Public Assistance with a Law Project and Presentation of Motives), Bucuresti, Tipografia “Cultura”, 1921, p. 43.

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complement those of private initiatives. At the same time, the state began to create its own services

and institutions for social assistance in a network that reached the peak of its development at the

end of the 1930s. Towards the end of the interwar period, the social assistance is envisioned as a

tool for creating a ‘healthy nation’ and was closely connected to eugenic policies. The welfare of

mother and child was considered a national priority and intimately connected to the welfare of

nation. Thus, in this period, the most developed field of private and public social assistance in

Romania was children’s welfare, a topic that will be discussed in the second part of this report.

In the 1930s, in Romania as in other European countries, private and public initiative began to

merge into a more or less coherent system of social support. Although late and with great

difficulties, the private initiatives were partly included in the state-run welfare system and support

from the state began to be inscribed in the legislation (the main provisions regulating state

involvement in social assistance were included in the 1930 Health Law modified in 1933). It can be

argued though that during the period preceding the communist take-over in 1948, the private

initiative predominated in the field of social assistance. Thus in 1924 from 692 social institutions

only 50 were state led, the rest being private or partly state funded. Towards the end of the interwar

period, the number of private institutions grew to 830 and of state institutions to 1216. Yet it should

be noted that, compared to state institutions, the private organizations had usually under their care a

smaller number of people7. Also, in providing social help in both public and private institutions the

emerging modern social assistance often co-existed with “pre-social” work forms such as charity

and philanthropy. The professionalization of social assistance was favored by the emergence, from

state and private initiatives, of various schools training personnel needed to engage with more than

social, educational and medical tasks in rural and urban media. Schools for “protection nurses”,

pedagogues for invalids or social assistants started to be created in the interwar period. These

schools and the overall question of the professionalization of social assistance will be discussed in

more detail in the third part of this report.

The end of the interwar period was characterized by the raise of extreme-right movements and a

royal dictatorship (1938-1940) was followed by the authoritarian regime of Marshal Antonescu

(1940-1944). In 1940 the geo-political configuration of the Romanian state changed again –

Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina were incorporated in the Soviet Union and after World War

5 See for example, Banu, Sanatatea poporului roman, p. 236, Manoiu and Epureanu, Asistenta sociala in Romania, p. 13, Botez, Asistenta sociala 1920-1930, p. 18-19. 6 Institutiunile de Asistenta Sociala si de Ocrotire, 1938, p. 23 7 See this observation in Institutiunile de Asistenta Sociala si de Ocrotire, 1938, 23. The observation is confirmed by Florica Manoiu si Viorica Epureanu, Asistenta sociala in Romania. Seria I (The Social Assistance in Romania. Series I), Bucuresti: Editura Institutului biblic si de misiune al Bisericii ortofoxe Romane, 1992, p. 13.

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Two they became part of the Soviet Republic of Moldavia and respectively the Soviet Republic of

Ukraine. During the war, in 1940, a new institution was established: the Council of Patronage for

Social Works. It was a separate institut ion from the social assistance direction of the Ministry but

had similar attributions: to establish and approve the program of activities of all institutions

undertaking social (assistance) activities. In 1941, during the military dictatorship of Marshal

Antonescu, the Council was transformed into a governmental institution coordinated by a central

committee made up by the Ministers of Labor, Health and Social Protection, of Education, of

Justice and of Finances together with 14 representatives of private and public social assistance

institutions. Its establishment is the result of both war conditions and of the increasing political

control of the regime exercised on all state institutions. During the war, the Council organized the

medical and social assistance of soldiers and activities at the national level for collecting money.

Most important, it organized a national system of reports that centralized the information on the

condition of soldiers and wounded in hospitals – social assistants were working with the wounded

in hospitals and transmitted news about them and the soldiers on the front to the families. The same

system has been later applied to other social categories that needed social assistance in the capital

city by the Bucharest municipal committee of the council with the scope of eliminating abuses and

inefficiency – e.g. an assisted person to benefit from more than one public or private institution8.

After the war, Romania entered under the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union. The

procommunist government of Dr. Petru Groza was established and in 1947 the king was forced to

abdicate. Romania became the Popular Republic of Romania. After the complete communist take

over of power in 1948, the Romanian state embarked on a Soviet-style nationalization and

collectivization of private institutions and property. Consecutive decree- laws changed the

institutional structure of the welfare system and this instability had negative consequences over the

functioning of social work. The welfare of populations fell under the responsibility of state

institutions and diverse ministries. Through a decree law in 1948 the Ministry of Labor and Social

Provisions takes on these responsibilities and only three years later, in 1951, another decree- law

states that welfare issues will be taken under the responsibility of other Ministries – Education,

Internal Affairs and the General Direction for Labor Force9. Compared to the period preceding 1948

8 See Consiliul de patronaj al operelor sociale. Dare de seama pe perioada 6 Septembrie 1941- 1 Aprilie 1942. Monitorul Oficial (The Council of Patronage for Social Works. Report on the Period September 6, 1941 – April 1 1942. The Official Bulletin [of the Parliament]”), Bucuresti: Imprimeria centrala; Ana-Maria Stan, “Contributii ale femeilor romane la activitatea de asistenta sociala in primii ani ai celui de-al doilea razboi mondial” (“Romanian Women’s Contributions to Social Assistance at the Beginning of the World War 2”) in Ghizela Cosma, Virgiliu Tarau, eds., Conditia Femeii in Romania in secolul XX (The Woman’s Condition in XXth century Romania), Cluj-Napoca: Presa Universitara Clujeana, 2002, p. 48-53; Manoiu and Epureanu, Asistenta sociala in Romania, 16-19 9 See Henri H. Stahl, Ioan I. Matei, Manual de prevederi si asistenta sociala. Teoria si tehnica prevederilor sociale (Textbook for Social Assistance and Provisions. The Theory and Methodology of Social Provision), Editura Medicala,

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the number of people with access to social welfare benefits (social insurance, pensions, invalidity,

injuries, sickness leave and insurance, etc) increased, yet social protection was conditioned by

individual’s employment in work for the state. Those people who were not employed by the state

did not benefit from assistance.

In this period the entire system of social assistance have been also changed: the state became the

only responsible body for the organization and functioning of social assistance and the private

institutions and organizations have been abolished. The various areas of concerns pertaining to the

field of social assistance that before were under the responsibility of a Direction of Social

Assistance were assumed by diverse ministries. For example, from 1951, the Ministry of Education

took in its responsibility foster houses and elementary schools for disabled children and the

Ministry of Interior Affairs the schools for the re-education of minor delinquents. Until 1968 the

areas of concern of social assistance were not only divided among diverse ministries but the main

state responsibility for social assistance also placed from one ministry to another (e.g. in 1968,

through decree law, from the Ministry of Health to the Ministry of Labor). The result of these

institutional changes did not increase the effectiveness of social assistance. On the contrary they

were the symptom of the diminished importance of social assistance for the state. This diminished

importance was commonly and ideologically justified with the idea that the existence and

functioning of socialist economy and politics automatically solved all individual problems. The

public discourse of the period praised the socialist state for responding to and solving all social

problems of the population and concealed the disfunctionalities and problems of the social

assistance system. At the same time, the interwar efforts for the institutionalization of social work

have been connected to national policies branded as ‘bourgeois’ or ‘fascist’. Thus, the social

assistance of precommunist period was a topic that could not be discussed outside the confines of a

discourse that vilified ‘capitalist’ welfare measures. To present differently the history of social

welfare systems in which ‘bourgeois’ initiatives have actually helped the poor or the workers was

almost impossible 10. In practice social assistance was reduced to providing institutional help to

disabled and chronically ill people, children in special social situations and elderly people (in 1951

a Geriatric Institute was established as one of the few institutions of social and medical assistance

Bucuresti, 1962, p. 90; Alexandru Pescaru, Ocrotirea sanatatii oamenilor muncii in RPR (23 august 1944 -23 august 1954) (The Protection of Working People’s Health in the P[opular] R[epublic] of R[omania] (1944, August 23 – 1954, August 23), Bucuresti: Editura Medicala, 1954, p. 28-29; Manoiu and Epureanu, Asistenta sociala in Romania, p. 19-23. 10 See for example Alexandru Pescaru, Ocrotirea sanatatii oamenilor muncii in RPR (23 august 1944 -23 august 1954) (The Protection of Working People’s Health in the P[opular] R[epublic] of R[omania] (1944, August 23 – 1954, August 23), Bucuresti, Editura Medicala, 1954; L’enfant dans la republique Populaire Roumaine (The Child in the Popular Republic of Romania) , Bucharest, 1948, Ocrotirea mamei si copilului, preocupare de frunte a regimului nostru

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whose high quality of services was always presented as an example of communist welfare). The

disappearance of a qualitative social assistance was also triggered by the slow disintegration of the

educational system for social workers. In 1952 the high level and in 1969 medium level educational

institutions for social workers were abolished. Thus, the profession almost disappeared. The number

of trained social assistants was very low (under 200) and their worked only in ministries or local

representative committees of the directions of social assistance in ministries11. Also, the previous

networks of local welfare institutions were destroyed and from lack of proper funding the new ones

were not able to provide a qualitative assistance. The cases needing social assistance were isolated

and treated in improper conditioned and without well- trained personnel. As a result, in the

communist period the social assistance was reduced considerably in its aims and structures and the

consequences of this situation are to be dealt with long after the fall of the regime. It was also

closed to public eye for ideological reasons and the existence of social problems was silenced.

1.2. Processes of Institutionalisation and Definitions of Social Work

1.2.1. General Definitions of Social Work: From Christian Charity and Social Solidarism to

“Scientific” Social Assistance

The definitions of social works present in early Romanian writings on social work, dating from the

period between 1900 and 1921, emphasized on social work’s roots in Christian principles and those

of social solidarism. Social work was defined as another type of Christian missionarism whose

broader social goal was to forge social solidarity among different social classes. The authors

considered that the need for social work emerged from the too big differences between the living

situations of different social classes. From this perspective, social work was defined as an important

factor in providing the social equilibrium necessary for well- functioning of the society and

preventing phenomena of social unrest12. This definition of social work was commonly found in

democratic popular (Protection of Mother and Child, Top Interest for Our Democratic Popular Regime), Bucharest, 1952, etc. 11 See Elena Zamfir, Catalin Zamfir, eds., Politici sociale. Romania in context european (Social Politics. Romania in European Context), Bucuresti, Editura Alternative, 1995, p. 63-66, Manoiu and Epureanu, Asistenta sociala in Romania, p. 20-22, 33-34. 12 See for example, Teodor Campianu, Roadele muncii crestine. Nou asezamint de indreptare morala (The Fruits of Christian Work. New Establishment for Moral Reformation), Nagyenyedi Konyvnyomda es Papirarugyar Reszvenytarsasag Nagyenyed, 1905, Bucur Constantinescu (licentiat in drept si absolvent in litere, portarel la Tribunalul Ilfov / with a diploma in law, graduate in literature, bailiff at the Ilfov Court), Citeva cuvinte asupra asistentei in Romania (A Few Words on Social Assistance in Romania) , Bucuresti: Tipografia Gutenberg, 1907, p. 8-9, N. Baboeanu, Asistenta publica si privata in capitala. Studiu (The Public and Private Assistance in the Capital. Study), Bucuresti, Tipografia Cooperativa “Poporul”, 1910, p. 3-4, V. Sion, fost subdirector si director general al serviciului sanitar (former sub-director and general director of the sanitary service), Asistenta publica cu un proiect de lege si o

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most Romanian writings issued throughout the whole period of institutionalization of social work.

But towards the end of the interwar period, when social work emerged as a better defined field of

practice, the idea of forging social solidarity through social assistance (sometimes saw as performed

by higher-class representatives towards lower classes13), lost most of its Christian or humanitarian

connotations. Then it was circumscribed to the idea of social work’s functions within an organic

process of nation-building defined in connection to the aims of the eugenic movement 14. The

difference between the situations of different social classes was seen as being not only social but

also coming from inequalities provoked by the existence of differences in biological (hereditary

factors), moral and cultural conditions 15. The importance of social assistance in preventing social

unrest was justified through the duty of the society and state to protect and control the socially

dependent categories of population. At the same time, social assistance’s role was to enrol in

actions for preventing “the decrease of the biological value of the nation and social

disintegration”16. Generally speaking, towards the end of the interwar period, social work was

defined as “the human activity that is conscious, rationalized, organized through which

contemporary societies offer help to dependent elements and thus fulfill their social interests in the

sense of pursuing a normal evolution”17.

As it can be expected, more emphasis on the religious roots of social assistance was found in the

Romanian writings treating the role of Orthodox Church in social assistance. From these writings

results that in general the role of the church in undertaking social work was somewhat limited to the

development of feelings of charity and Christian virtues in individuals and to promoting

Christianity and Christian undertakings. Although representatives of the Orthodox Church were in

the boards of quite a few social assistance societies18, the Orthodox Church as institution was much

expunere de motive (The Public Assistance with a Law Proposal and the Exposition of Its Motives) , Bucuresti, Tipografia “Cultura”, 1921, p. 31 13 See for example the account of the social work activities performed by the Christian Romanian Women’s Association in Povestea unui an de munca in mijlocul fetelor noastre. Asociata crestina a femeilor romane. 1922-1923 (The Story of One Year of Work Among Our girls. The Christian Associartion of Romanian Women. 1922-1923), [Bucuresti, 1923] or the rationale for the introduction of the 1938 law for the creation of the Social Service which obliged all young people, of both sexes, enrolled in higher education to fulfil a period of training in social work in order to obtain their diplomas 14 Doctor G. Banu, Mari probleme de medicina sociala (Important Questions of Social Medicine), Bucuresti, 1938, 295, Societatea Culturala “Astra” – Brasov. Grupul “Gind si Fapta” (The Cultural Society “astra”-Brasov. The Group “Thought and Action”), “Cum ar trebui facuta ocrotirea sociala?”. Comunicare facuta de d-l Dr. Nicolaie Caliman, presedintele “Astrei” Brasov in ziua de 25 ianuarie 1940 (“How Social Protection Should Be Pursued?”. Lecture Held by Mr. Dr. N. Caliman, President of “Astra” Brasov on January 25, 1940), Tipografia Astra, 1940, p. 4, 10. 15 Banu, Mari probleme de medicina sociala, p. 295. 16 Banu, Mari probleme de medicina sociala, p. 296. 17 Banu, Mari probleme de medicina sociala, p. 296. 18 For example, in the 1930s the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church was the president of the society “Cultul Eroilor” that was undertaking activities for helping the people affected by the First World War (see Generalul Alexandru Lupacu-Stejar, P.S.S. Patriarhul Miron Cristea si invalizii de razboi (P.S.S. Partiarch Miron Cristea and the

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less involved with developing its own social assistance institutions 19. For this reason, most of the

writings from the period before the Second World War promoted incessantly the necessity that the

Church would become much more involved with the development of social assistance20. Thus, the

1907 writing of a Romanian jurist interested in the development of social work made an appeal to

the Orthodox priests, as promoters of Christian charity, to participate in the organization of social

assistance. Considering that the priests were more in touch with needs of the poor and had more

chances to build closer ties with these people, he believed that they could become involved, with the

help of police, in making up the lists/registers of the poor and organizing help commissions together

with the other local officials 21. Other wrings from the end of the interwar period, also deplored that,

unlike other Christian Churches, the Orthodox Church, was more preoccupied with its dogmatic

character and paid very little attention to social assistance22. They advocated the involvement of the

Church with works of social prevention in the rural medium through parochial organizations that

could organize social assistance and social help through a combination of social work and Christian

propaganda23. It was also suggested that the Church could help the needy through the organization

of a system of social insurance for villagers (the Patriarchy could organize a "house for Christian

social insurance and assistance")24. The lack of social assistance personnel in the rural areas

War Invalids), Bucuresti, Imprimeriile Independenta, 1930, p. 3. Members of the clergy were honorary pres idents in the regional sections of the Society “Ocrotirea orfanilor de razboiu” (“The Protection of War Orphans”) (see Nicu Cotlarciuc (Dr. in Teologie si Filosofie, Prof. Universitar (Doctor in Theology and Philosophy), Ocrotirea Sociala si Biserica. Curs special tinut la Facultatea de Teologie pe linga Universitatea din Cernauti (Social Protection and the Church. Special Course Held at the Theological Faculty of Cernauti University), Cernauti, Institutul de Arte Grafice si Editura “Glasul Bucovinei”, 1921, p. 52) 19 For example the statutes of the social assistance association Ajutorul (The Aid) created by the Orthodox Church in 1877, mentioned the necessity to provide material help and moral counselling to the poor, contribute at the education of poor people and establish asylums and sanatoriums especially for children and the elderly but its actions were mainly concentrated towards the establishment of religious libraries and magazines, the organization of religious lectures or educational institutions. (see cap. II, art. 7 of Statutele Societatii Clerului Roman Ortodox “Ajutorul” cu modificarile introduse in anul 1940 (The Statutes of the Sociarety of Romanian Orthodox Clergy “The aid” with the Modifications Introduced in 1940), Bucuresti, Tipografia Cugetarea, p. 2-3. Nevertheless, the Church contributed to the establishment of schools and orphanages and collaborated especially with big women’s social assistance societies such as SONFR whose branches were organized according to the organization of parishes (see Regulament general al Societatii Ortodoxe Nationale a Femeilor Romane (General Regulations of the Orthodox National Society of Romanian Women), Bucuresti, Tipografia ziarului “Universul”, 1938. In late 1930s established charity institutions of Orthodox nuns, and some of them also prepared nuns for social work (see Prof. Univ. Dr. Gh. Popoviciu, Biserica si protectia familiei, mamei si copilului”. Extras din “Telegraful Roman”, anul XCI – 1943 (The Church and the Protection of Family, Mother and Child”. Extract from “Romanian Telegraph”, XCI- 1943) [no other publication references], p. 13-16. 20 Mihail Dumitru N. Israil (doctor dela Facultatea de Drept din Paris/ with a doctorate from the Law Faculty in Paris), Evolutia asistentei sociale sub influenta bisericii si a statului (The Evolution of Social Assistance Under the Influence of Church and State), Bucuresti, Cartea Romaneasca, 1939. 21 Constantinescu, Citeva cuvinte asupra asistentei in Romania, p. 14-23. 22 Stefan N. Tatarescu, Reforma ajutorului social cu colaborarea bisericii (The Reform of Social Aid with the Contribution of Church), Tipografia “Universul”, 1944; M. Serpoianu. Pretre de la paroisse “Podeanu” Bucarest, Organisation d’un centre d’assistance sociale dans les cadres de l’eglise. Extrait de <l’Assistance Sociale en Roumanie>, Bucarest, 1938, Popoviciu, Biserica si protectia familiei, mamei si copilului, p. 11 23 A singular example of such initiative was that of a parochial organization which in 10 years (between 1918 and 1938) became successful in promoting a modern type of social assistance in a suburb of Bucharest, provided the personal efforts of a priest. A detailed description of this case can be found in Serpoianu, Organisation d’un centre d’assistance sociale dans les cadres de l’eglise, passim. 24 Tatarescu, Reforma ajutorului social cu colaborarea bisericii.

12

determined calls for the involvement of priests in hygiene propaganda in villages and their

collaboration with the existent associations and societies for social assistance25.

As early as 1900, social assistance as a science was defined as belonging to modern social sciences.

Its practical utility resided in finding the modality through which every person could fulfil its duties

towards the general welfare and common interests. The various definitions of social assistance as a

science emerged from the need to delimitate it from public charity or other forms of philanthropy.

Although trying to distance social assistance from these other forms of social work, these

definitions pointed at the intimate link between the “new science” and the previous practices of

social work. Thus, social assistance was seen as performed by people possessing humanitarian and

philanthropic feelings, people frequently called in these writings as “apostles of humanitarianism”

or “fighters for the welfare of humanity”. In recognizing the link between charity, philanthropy and

the new type of social assistance, these writings exposed at the same time a vehement a rejection of

a “badly understood” or indiscriminate philanthropy or charity leading to abuses26. In comparison to

them, the modern and scientific character of social assistance consisted in implementing new

methods of helping and controlling the needy. Thus, the scope of social assistance was to amend

“the bad”, the “social non-values” or “elements of social desegregation” (such as vagabonds,

beggars). It had to stop these people to recidivate and integrate them in society through work. Its

more general scopes were to select the real needy people and categorize them in function of their

needs. In this respect it was considered that social assistance would be more efficient than charity or

philanthropy which performed only a superficial selection of socially dependent people 27.

Another difference between the “scientific” social assistance and “empirical” charity and

philanthropy work was to be given by the employment of new methods of dealing with the needy

that would prevent the clients from feeling humiliated or nurturing “hate towards society” but

25 Popoviciu, Biserica si protectia familiei, mamei si copilului, p. 19-20, G. Lungulescu, “Crucea Rosie” in lumina crestinismului. Conferinta popular-religioasa pentru lumea satelor (The “Red Cross” in the Light of Christianism. Popular- Religious Lecture for Villages), Bucharest, Tipografia “Jokey-Club”, 1926, and Cotlarciuc, Ocrotirea Sociala si Biserica. 26 Gr. I. Dianu, Societatile de patronagiu (The Patronage Societies) , Bucuresci, Institutul de Arte Grafice Carol Gobl, 1900, p. 3-7, Constantinescu, Citeva cuvinte asupra asistentei in Romania, 14, Baboeanu, Asistenta publica si privata in capitala, 5, Comandor Eugen Botez (Jean Bart), fost director general al Asistentei sociale (Former general director of Social Assistance), Asistenta sociala 1920-1930, extras din lucrarea <Zece ani de politica sociala in Romania> a Ministerului Muncii (The Social Assistance between 1920 and 1930. Extract from the Paper, <Ten Years of Social Politics in Romania> of the Labour Ministry), Bucuresti, Institutul de Arte Grafice “Eminescu” S.A., p. 3-4, p. 30-31, Dr. G. Banu, Sanatatea poporului roman (The Health of Romanian People) , Bucuresti, Fundatia pentru literatura si arta “Regele Carol II”, 1935, p. 322, 358, Banu, Mari probleme de medicina sociala, p. 296, 303, 417-418. 27 Dianu, Societatile de patronagiu, p. 3-7, Baboeanu, Asistenta publica si privata in capitala , p. 5, Banu, Sanatatea poporului roman, p. 322.

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would help at forging social solidarity28. Towards the end of the interwar period, the scientific

character of social work was defined in contrast to more traditional forms of offering help

legitimated by Christian principles or humanitarianism29. Thus it was argued that “charity provides

help following only the precepts of our Christian religion, without concentrating on the ensemble of

problems affecting an individual or a family. (…) Social Assistance as a science is not satisfied only

with the material or even moral help of our fellow people because a spontaneous and temporary

help would not change the state of social dependency of the individual even if it temporarily

ameliorates it. It aims with a special technique and perseverance to direct and recover the individual

that it assists”30.

In the same period, social assistance started to be categorized as an “applied science”, belonging to

the family of social sciences, an “interdisciplinary” field not very strictly defined, using knowledge

from biology, psychology, pedagogy, medicine, criminology, demography, statistics, eugenics and

social bio-policy. Its main object of activity was pertaining to the study and activities regarding

phenomena of “individual and social desegregation”, formulating a social diagnosis and prescribing

a treatment for rehabilitation. Its goals were the integration of deficient individuals into society and

the development of personal potentiality of normal people 31. For those reasons, social assistance

was considered the most powerful means of social help and of social progress32.

28 Constantinescu, Citeva cuvinte asupra asistentei in Romania, p. 5-6. 29 Consiliul de Patronaj al Operelor Sociale. Ministerul Sanatatii si Ocrotirilor Sociale, Ministerul Culturii Nationale (The Patronage Council of Social Works. The Ministry of Health and Social Protection, the Ministry of National Culture), Indrumator pentru munca sanitara si sociala la sate 1943 (Guide for Sanitary and Social Work in Villages 1943), Tipografia "Presa" D. Andreescu, p. 1. 30 Christina Galitzi Bratescu, Introducere in studiul asistentei si ocrotirii sociale pentru invatamintul liceelor teoretice. Extras din Buletinul Consiliului de Patronaj, nr. 8 – 1944 (Introduction in the Study of Social Assistance and Protection for Education in Theoretical High-Schools. Extract from the Bulletin of Patronage Council, no. 8 – 1944), [no other publication references], p. 11. Similar ideas in Manoiu and Epureanu, Asistenta sociala in Romania, p. 13. 31 Doctor A. Daniel, Asistenta sociala si medicina. Extras din “Romania medicala”, 1 Noembrie, 1930 (Social Assistance and Medicine. Extract from “Medical Romania”, November 1, 1930), Tipografia “Eminescu”, 1930, p. 5, 9, Banu, Mari probleme de medicina sociala , p. 295; Galitzi Bratescu, Introducere in studiul asistentei si ocrotirii sociale, p. 4-6, G. Zapan (conferentiar la Universitatea din Bucuresti/ professor at the Bucharest University), Psihologia si asistenta sociala. Expunere critica asupra metodelor de diagnoza psihica cu speciala privire si adaptare la asistenta sociala (Psychology and Social Assistance. Critical Expose on the Methods of Psychological Diagnozis with Special Regard and Adaptation to Social Assistance), Bucuresti, Tipografia si Legatoria de Carti a Penitenciarului “Vacaresti”, 1939, p. 3-4. 32 Daniel, Asistenta sociala si medicina, p. 17.

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1.2.2. Gender Aspects in Definitions and Activities of Social Work

The association of women and traditional female qualities with commitment to social assistance

activities was validated by the decades long involvement of Romanian women with charitable and

philanthropic activities. The ‘innate’ caring and nurturing qualities of women as mothers was

generally considered most appropriate to the social and moral range of these activities and women

were regarded as the most suited to undertake them. In the interwar period, these ideas triggered the

imposition in the public opinion of the belief that social assistance was a “feminine profession”. In

1930, one important Romanian medical doctor stated in one of his articles dealing with the

organization of social assistance in Romania that:

“World experience proved it more than once - and at present this idea is universally accepted – that

the only element capable of undertaking a productive work in the field of social assistance is the

woman, who is usually more free, more sensitive, with a caring feeling more developed, with a

vocation for social work, and moreover, endowed with the genius of charity or, using the expression

of a famous novelist, [she is] the [human] being capable of practicing the religion of human charity.

That is why all civilized countries that organized their social assistance paid special attention to the

establishment of special schools for the technical formation of feminine personnel, of social

assistants, social auxiliaries or social workers.”33

Women’s public activism was publicly recognized as fundamental in the development and progress

of social assistance together with women’s “natural” inclinations towards these activities. It is also

important to note that at the turn of the 20th century, the majority of private organizations

considered progressive for professing not only charity but also “assistance through work”

(professional counseling and work placement) were led by women and directed at helping poor

women. They helped women to find jobs, to develop “feminine industries and professions”,

attempted to provide education for women in lucrative professions (through schools and

workshops), to establish work placement bureaus, to offer juridical counseling and help, and to help

prostitutes to find work. Thus in the period, the social assistance of women by other women existed

also intertwined with projects for the practical emancipation of women34.

33 Doctor A. Daniel, Asistenta sociala si medicina. Extras din “Romania medicala”, 1 Noembrie, 1930 (Social Assistance and Medicine. Extract from “Medical Romania”, November 1, 1930), Tipografia “Eminescu”, 1930, p. 12. 34 Baboeanu, Asistenta publica si privata in capitala, p. 33-41.

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At the same time, the interwar Romanian feminists and feminist associations considered the social

assistance of women and children to be one of their most important preoccupations. In view of their

agenda of women’s emancipation and of its support for the modernizing trends existent in the

Romanian society, feminists’ involvement in social work was intended to change in certain aspects

the status quo of women’s condition in society. Their preoccupation with these activities was

manifested and put into practice not only to eradicate social troubles such as prostitution, infant

abandonment or lack of hygienic education but also to ensure and legitimize (middle-class)

women’s access to activities in the public sphere. It was also meant to provide women from lower

classes with the education and specialized help necessary to deal with problems brought on by

poverty and ignorance. In undertaking these activities the Romanian feminist discourses valorised

and instrumentalized women’s ‘innate’ feminine qualities to construct a female public sphere of

work and often put them into the service of their concern with the professionalization of women’s

social work. They linked the assurance of women’s access to and even monopoly over professions

involved directly or indirectly with social assistance with the promotion of equal political and civil

rights.

One of the most active organizations of the Romanian women’s movement in the development and

progress of social work activities was Consiliul National al Femeilor Române (CNFR, The National

Council of Romanian Women, 1921-1939), the representative organizational body of the

movement. Towards the beginning of the 1930s this federation of women’s organizations became

progressively dominated by Princess Alexandrina Cantacuzino and the organizations under her

leadership who considered the social assistance of women and children to be an essential part of

their feminist agenda. Cantacuzino and many of the board members of these organizations were

also extremely active in Societatea Ortodoxa Nationala a Femeilor Române (SONFR, The

Orthodox National Society of Romanian Women), probably the biggest women’s organizations

involved with charity and social assistance from the beginning of 20th century to the end of World

War II. In twenty years (from 1918 to 1938, when Cantacuzino was its president) SONFR founded

hundreds of education establishments, hospitals, workers’ and students’ restaurants, and organized

numerous public lectures aimed at educating people in a moral, national and religious spirit35.

35 See for example the manuscript of the report of the SONFR meeting from June 8, 1918 with the speeches of the participants (in ANICB, SONFR, dosar 25, f. 18-24); report of CNFR published in Fru Anna Backer. Honorary Corresponding Secretary, ed., International Council of Women. Combined First and Second Annual Report of the Seventh Quinquennial Period [1920-1922], ICW, 156-157, Alexandrina Cantacuzino, “Rapport sur l’activite des Societes d’Assistance Publique et Privee pour la Protection de l’Enfance en Roumanie” probably from August 1925 (in ANICB, C-AC, dosar 81, f. 16-17), [Alexandrina Cantacuzino], “Monografia institutiunilor SONFR infiintate de la intemeierea Societatii pina la anul 1927, sub prezidentia mea” (“The Monography of the SONFR Institutions Established from the Founding of the Society until 1927, under My Presidency”) in ANICB, C-AC, dosar 94, f. 3-5, manuscripts of the lectures held within a 1931 SONFR meeting in ANICB, C-AC, dosar 59, f. 154-169, 210-213 and

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Beginning with the 1920s, the feminist camp of the Romanian women’s movement became split on

ideological and personal differences that concerned also the connection between social assistance

and feminism into two rival feminist groups: “liberal progressives” and “nationalist reformists”.

“Liberal progressive” feminists were active in organizations such as Asociatia pentru Emanciparea

Civila si Politica a Femeilor Romane (AECPFR, The Association for the Civil and Political

Emancipation of Romania Women, 1917-1939) and Liga pentru Drepturile si Datoriile Femeilor

Romane (LDDFR, The League for Women’s Rights and Duties, 1910-1939). They insisted on the

formulation of a women’s role in society that would transcend the traditional meanings of women’s

implication in charity and social assistance. The “liberal progressives” promoted a different type of

involvement of women in the public sphere that would surpass the traditional association of female

qualities with women’s roles in the private sphere. Although more keen on reasserting women’s

traditional roles, the “nationalist reformist” feminists led and inspired by Cantacuzino, believed that

women’s activities in the realm of social work and their preoccupation with the development of

professional social work as a female occupation, would also help the attainment of this feminist

ideal. They established a historical and ideological continuity between organized women’s

involvement with social assistance and feminist activism and promoted a maternalist feminism that

utilized those qualities associated with a traditional view of women and their functions in society in

order to enable women to occupy an important role in the public sphe re and even ensure a women’s

monopoly in certain areas of involvement with the public.

Although in the 1920s the development of women’s social work was not one of liberal

progressives’ main priorities, in the 1930s their organizations displayed a stronger concern with

these social work activities36. In that period AECPFR members, as municipal councilors, became

highly involved with the elaboration of legal and institutional regulations regarding social work

activities for women and children37. But even before this AECPFR strongly supported the activity

“Cuvintarea D-nei Prezidente Generale Alexandrina Cantacuzino la congresul SONFR, Sibiu, 20 iunie 1937” (“The Speech of Mrs. Alexandrina Cantacuzino, General President, at the SONFR Congress, Sibiu, June 20, 1937”) where Cantavuzino enumerated the institutions established by CNFR until that time (in ANICB, C-AC, dosar 346, f. 240-246) 36 For example, unlike in a previous period, Ziarul Nostru , the official newspaper of AECPFR, published after 1935 much more articles on women’s and feminist organizations’ involvement with social assistance. 37 See for example Maria Dimitriu-Castano, “Organizarea Asistentei Sociale” (“The Organization of Social Assistance”) in which the author supported the development of a professional social assistance, praised the important role women played in the development of a social assistance imbued with specific female values (female morals, maternity, honesty, more concentration on particularities and generalities, etc) and advocated the necessity of better collaboration between the public and private initiatives in the form of federations of organizations for social assistance (in Ziarul Nostru , VIII, no. 8-9/88-89 (September-October, 1934): 1 and “Plan de organizare al Asistentei Sociale la Municipiul Constanta” (“Plan for the Organization of Social Assistance at the Municipality of Constanta”) in Ziarul Nostru , VIII, no. 10-11/90-91 (November–December 1935), p. 1, “Proect de regulament pentru functionarea asistentei sociale la Municipiul Constanta propus de D-na Maria G.L. Dimitriu Castano consiliera comunala” (“Project for the Functioning of Social Assistance at the Constanta Municipality proposed by Mrs. Maria G.L. Dimitriu Castano, Municipal Councillor”) in Ziarul Nostru , IX, no. 4/95 (April 1935), p. 7, “Femeia in asistenta sociala, comunicare facuta in Congresul Feminist din 9 Septembrie de D-na Florica Georgescu, secretara generala a Asociatiei” (“The Woman in Social Assistance,

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of one of the most important social assistance associations of the interwar period, Cercurile de

gospodine (Housewives Circles) led by Simona Lahovary38. Established in 1920, this association

undertook “besides the moral, cultural and economic emancipation of Romanian women, a program

for the social-hygienic protection of maternity and childhood”39. The association started from

private initiative and until 1936 could establish 75 branches many located in Moldavia and

Muntenia. Although not benefiting from substantial state support, it could establish in rural areas

numerous centers of domestic industry, kindergartens and special health units where children were

treated and mothers instructed in hygienic matters. It was this association which introduced in

Moldovia ambulant dispensaries for children, a novelty at that time, and between 1922-1923 these

dispensaries functioned in several isolated rural areas of the country40.

At the beginning of the 1920s most feminist and women’s organizations supported state initiatives

for the creation of a centralized network of institutions of social work. For example, the

organizational principles of CNFR stated that through the establishment of CNFR’s specialized

commissions on various issues pertaining to women’s condition it was hoped that the federation

would establish an effective cooperation with state and local institutions for solving women’s

problems41. Collaboration with state institutions was regarded as an opportunity to transform

women’s work in this field from a voluntary endeavour into a professional occupation. At the same

time, the organization of CNFR into work commissions engaged in different issues was also meant

to coordinate the activities of those Romanian women’s organizations and societies preoccupied for

Lecture Held at the Feminist Congress from September 9 by Florica Geogescu, the secretary-general of the Association”) in Ziarul Nostru, XI, no. 1-2/112-113 (January-Fenbruary 1937), p. 1. 38 See for example letter from the Central Committee of AECPFR Iasi to CNFR from November 14, 1921 (ANICB, CEM-EM, dosar XI 39, f. 20); and AECPFR’s report to IWA in which it was mentioned that they established the organization, report published in The International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship, Report of the Tenth Congress. La Sorbonne, Paris, France, May 30 th to June 6 th, 1926 (London: The London Caledonian Press), p. 268. 39 Dr. G. Banu, Sanatatea poporului roman (The Health of Romanian People), Bucharest, Fundatia pentru literatura si arta “Regele Carol II”, 1935), p. 473. 40 See Banu, Sanatatea poporului roman, p. 473-474 and Calendarul Asistentei Sociale (The Calendar of Social Assistance), 2 (1923), p. 55. The first mobile dispensaries have been introduced in rural Transylvania in 1919 by Iuliu Moldovan, then General Secretary for Social Welfare under the Romanian Directing Council, the interim government in Transylvania. Their main task was to monitor the health of rural populations and deal with epidemic outbreaks. The personnel of the dispensaries were also trained to give advice to pregnant women on safe birth methods and infant care and occasionally helped with difficult births (see for more information Maria Bucur, Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002), p.27, 193). The association also established through its circles fixed dispensaries for children and, until 1940, 40 such dispensaries functioned. See also manuscript without date, probably from August, 1925: Alexandrina Cantacuzino, “Rapport sur l’activite des Societes d’Assistance Publique et Privee pour la Protection de l’Enfance en Roumanie” in which “Cercurile de Gospodine” was praised for establishing hundreds of kindergartens (ANICB, C-AC, dosar 81, f. 16-17) and Ministerul Sanatatii si Ocrotirilor Sociale. Directiunea generala a asistentei sociale, Situatia si activitatea asistentei sociale pe anii 1926 si 1927, (The Ministry of Health and Social Protection. The General Direction of Social Assistance, The Situation and Activity of Social Assistance in 1926 and 1927) (Institutul de Arte Grafice “Rasaritul”, 1927), 260 where Cercurile de Gospodine was considered one of the most important private associations in Romania. 41 See printed material from 1921, signed by E. Meissner and Maria I. Petrovici: “Notita explicativa asupra principiilor de organizare a Consiliului National al Femeilor Romane” (“Explicative Note on the Organizational Principles of the National Council of Romanian Women”) in ANICB, CEM -EM, dosar XI 39, f. 31-32.

18

a long time with charity or social work and affiliated to CNFR in a concerted manner that would

better respond to those in need42.

It is important to note here that beginning with 1919 until the end of the interwar period, the laws

that granted partial or full political rights to various categories of women have considered

involvement with social assistance as an important criteria in selecting the women who would

benefit from these rights. The Romanian political parties who supported the achievement of full

political and civil rights for women also used heavily in their argumentation women’s involvement

with social assistance. For this reason, after 1929, when women obtained local political rights, the

work of female municipal councilors took usually place in the social assistance committees of

municipalities. As municipal councilors, women supported the modernization of social assistance

(militated for the application of the principle of subsidiarity, for the encouragement of self-help),

demanded higher funds for social assistance, the eradication of political intrusion from

administration.

Concern with socially and legally disadvantaged categories of women and children and insistence

on the organization of social work fields that were underdeveloped at the time: the recognition the

change in the legal status of illegitimate children (introduction of paternity search in legislation), the

establishment of re-education institutes and workshops for underage “vagabonds” and the

renunciation punishments and repressive measures against this category of children (instead re-

education and work opportunities), campaigns for the abolition of prostitution doubled by demands

for the organization of shelters and organization that would help these women, the establishment of

a feminine police of vice or the introduction of women in the vice police (1926), health certificate

for both sexes. At the same time, in practice more they engaged more with preventive activities than

activities for the reintegration of prostitutes in society. The incorporation of a bourgeois code of

morality in their program of women’s emancipation determined a paradoxical approach to the

situation of prostitutes that were simultaneously seen as victims of a poverty and male gender order

and having a psychological propensity towards the vice of prostitution.

The concern of Romanian women’s organizations with the profesionalization of social work

manifested in their efforts to insure a better and more professional training for the personnel

42 See “Consiliul National al Femeilor Romane” (The National Council of Romanian Women”) in “Rubrica Feminista” (“The Feminist Column”) of the newspaper Lumea where it was announced that the CNFR was intended to be a federation of all women’s organizations dealing with the situation of women and children. For this reason these organizations were asked to affiliate with CNFR (ANICB, CEM -EM, dosar XI 39, f. 3). See also chart, printed material without date: “Programul Asociatiei pentru emanciparea civila si politica a femeilor romane” (”The Program of the Association for the Civil and Political Emancipation of Romanian Women”) in which it was mentioned that the organization, as one of the main initiators of CNFR, encouraged the organization in a federation of women’s societies for social assistance (ANICB, CEM-EM, dosar XI 48, f. 6).

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involved with social work activities. It is significant to mention that the first two schools for social

workers established in Romania were founded in 1929 by two Romanian women’s organizations:

the Superior School for Social Assistance “Principesa Ileana” by Asociatia Crestina a Femeilor din

Romania (The Christian Association of Women from Romania) and the “school of social

auxiliaries” by CNFR and affiliated to this representative body of the Romanian women’s

movement. The establishment and functioning of the schools will be discussed in more detail by the

third part of this report.

1.2.3. The Institutionalization of Social Work and Its Impact over Definitions of Social Assistance:

“Social Protection” vs. “Social Assistance”

Until the end of the interwar period, the more theoretical approaches towards social work present a

terminological confusion between “social assistance” and “social protection”43. This terminological

confusion was determined by the sinuous process of institutionalization of social work and by the

general evolution of the state welfare system (see report 2). Thus in one of his writings, Dr. G. Banu

saw social assistance as a predominantly state enterprise, intimately related to or even being the

same with the hygiene propaganda undertaken in the rural medium in the scope of fighting infant

mortality, epidemics, etc. He defined social assistance in the same way “social protection” was

defined in the period, as pertaining to more general welfare provisions in struggling with poverty,

prostitution, etc44. Another theoretician of social work, Dr. Daniel, on the contrary, promoted the

delimitation between the two fields. He insisted on the difference between public social assistance

(administrative, bureaucratic, anonymous but more powerful financially) and social assistance

(individualized, generous, moralizing, virtuous, empathic). In his view the two fields were

interdependent in that the new social assistance would easy the tasks of public social assistance

(welfare). But Daniel did not make the difference between “social protection” and “social

assistance” and considered both as being “social assistance”45. In 1936, Sabin Manuila, the director

of the Central Statistical Institute and one of the few who ventured into providing a clear image on

the development of social welfare and social assistance in interwar Romania, tried to disentangle

the meanings of “social assistance” and “social protection” (welfare) and clarify the terminological

43 Banu, Sanatatea poporului roman, p. 321. This terminological confusion was emphasized by Sabin Manuila in Ministerul Economiei Nationale. Institutul Central de Statistica. Institut Central de Statistique – Central Statistical Institute, Director: Dr. Sabin Manuila (The Ministry of National Economy. Central Statistical Institute. Director: Dr. Sabin Manuila), Institutiunile de Asistenta Sociala si de Ocrotire. Rezultatele recensamintului institutiunilor de asistenta sociala si de ocrotire din 1 Ianuarie 1936 (The Institutions of Social Assistance and Protection. The Results of the Census of Institutions for Social Assistance and Protection from January 1, 1936), Bucharest, Editura Institutului Central de Statistica, 1938, p. 4. 44 Dr. G. Banu, La politique medico-sociale dans la Roumanie rurale (Extrait de “La Vie rurale en Roumanie”), Bucarest, 1940.

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confusion between the two terms. He tried to delimitate “social assistance” from “social protection”

in the following terms.

“Social assistance” was generally described as “rational”, analytical, looking for the particular,

aiming at giving social diagnostics and prescribing a social therapy. It was defined as “the

therapeutic action for the recovering of abnormal [emphasized in original] individuals who cannot

support themselves in the life struggle or who ended up in an abnormal situation and cannot live

independently without someone else’s help such as the handicapped, the ill, the orphans, the

abandoned children, the delinquents, the alcoholics, the vagabonds, the beggars, etc.”. In general,

social assistance was seen as the work aimed at helping people and preventing their return into a

state of dependency46.

“Social Protection” was defined as “taking general preventive measures for a group of normal

[emphasized in original] people with the scope of promoting a good physical, moral and mental

conditions”47. It included medical prophylaxis, the organization of free time for youth and children,

distribution of milk in schools, the organization of sumer camps, of paid day-centers, dispensaries,

etc. “Social protection” was generally seen by the authors who tried to differentiate it from “social

assistance”, as a preventive work, different from the curative work undertaken by social

assistance48.

However, in practice this theoretical delimitation between the two fields of activity could not be

applied. Thus in 1946, the “social protection” for workers was seen to pertain to a larger field of

activity that included the promotion of “industrial hygiene”, work hygiene and work medicine with

the scope of “conserving and promoting the health and work capacity of all persons involved with

diverse occupations by being concerned with the damages brought by work conditions and the

social environment”. The “social assistance” undertaken by professionals trained in this field, was

to supplement “social protection” (offered by industrial doctors) through social services in factories,

and the establishment of kindergartens, creches, day centers for pre-school children49. In that way,

social assistance was not aimed at “abnormal” or socially dependent people but to developing

institutions for helping “normal” people.

45 Daniel, Asistenta sociala si medicina, p. 10. 46 Institutiunile de Asistenta Sociala si de Ocrotire, p. 4. 47 Institutiunile de Asistenta Sociala si de Ocrotire, p. 4. 48 Ibidem 49 Dr. Ulpiu Stefan (medicul sef al municipiului Brasov/ chief doctor of the Brasov municipality), Ocrotirea si asistenta muncitorilor (The Protection and Assistance of Working Class), Sibiu, Tipografia Oct. L. Vestemean, [1946], p. 3, 21-25.

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1.2.4. Rural Social Assistance - Urban Social Assistance

The ways in which the preoccupations of social work/social assistance and/or social protection were

defined varied also in function of the medium in which social welfare activities were pursued. The

big social and economic differences between the urban areas and the vast rural areas and the

insufficient involvement of state and private institutions of social assistance in the rural areas

determined different approaches to social work activities and projects. In the thirties, provided

eugenic concerns with the quality of the population, the social welfare activities in both media were

concentrated on ensuring conditions for the development of a healthy family.

In urban areas, the main concerns of social work were seen conditioned by the existence of ongoing

phenomena of urbanization, industrialization, migration from villages to cities that triggered change

in people’s working conditions and alimentation, the spread of contagious diseases in overpopulated

centers50. Especially in the thirties, when Romanian discourses on social work stressed on eugenic

concerns explained in the language of nationalism in the framework of social policy projects, these

conditions were blamed for “the decrease of the individual and collective biological standard”

provided a higher and more varied morbidity in the urban areas compared to the rural ones. In 1935,

Dr. G. Banu affirmed that “the great proportion of values with biological integrity, of elements

cumulating the native and unalterable characteristics of our race that we find in the villages

becomes smaller in the urban agglomerations”51. Therefore, from this perspective, state’s social

policies and social assistance had as main scope to decrease these trends through the insurance of

favorable living conditions in urban centers and concentrate on policies aimed at mothers and

children. Nevertheless, given nationalist discourses supporting the idea that the strength of the

Romanian nation resided in the protection and cultivation of the “healthy Romanian peasant family”

and the extremely weak involvement of private or state social assistance institutions in rural areas

(justified also with the belief that in rural areas people had less medical or social problems than in

urban areas), it was argued that eugenic social policies had to be directed more towards villages.

Thus, as late as 1943, it was maintained that social assistants had to work in the cities while

protection nurses undertaking hygiene education in the rural areas52.

50 Xenia Costa-Foru, Le service social a l’Hopital en Roumanie. Extrait de “L’Assistance Sociale en Roumanie”, Bucarest, 1938, p. 6. 51 Banu, Sanatatea poporului roman, p. 371. 52 Dr. I. Stoichita, “Ocrotirea familiei” (“The Protection of the Family”) and similar ideas in Galitzi Bratescu, “Comitetele locale ale Consiliului de Patronaj al Operelor Sociale si actiunea lor sociala la sate” in Indrumator pentru munca sanitara si sociala la sate 1943, p. 13, 100.

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In rural areas, the main concerns of social assistance and/or social protection revolved around

ensuring better health conditions and decreasing the high infant mortality rate through spreading

hygiene education, education in regards to medical help, convincing people to give up “old

empirical medicine” and to develop the sentiment of responsibility towards the individual and

general health53. Before the communist period, maybe the most significant problem of the

Romanian welfare sys tem was the absence of sufficient medical and social assistance institutions

and trained personnel in the rural areas. The main concerns of the state social policy in these areas

were related to the spread of social diseases and the high rate of infant mortality. In the countryside,

the medical help and “social protection” measures and institutions blended in many ways because of

lack of personnel and of the complex social problematic that required the necessity to solve more

than one problem. Important and interesting in this sense was the initiative of the Association of

Housewives Circles in 1922 to establish ambulant dispensaries that would travel in the rural areas.

Although the initiative could be put into practice only for a few years because of lack of sufficient

funding, these dispensaries were meant to offer social and medical assistance in order to fight off

social diseases and infant mortality. Apart from medical help and hygiene education, the personnel

of the ambulant dispensaries were undertaking social inquiries into the situation of the assisted

families. These inquiries were accomplished for social assistance reasons (to survey the situation of

the clients) but also in view of collecting information necessary in the elaboration of statistics that

would serve at devising better and larger social and medical assistance strategies by the Ministry of

Health. This initiative has been followed by similar endeavours only at the end of the 1930s.

Between 1934 and 1938, the so–called “royal student teams” made up of professionals coming from

a variety of disciplines (sociologists, doctors, historians, economists, etc) were sent to the country

side in order to gather data on the “peasant life” and help at the modernization of village life.

Although not a social assistance endeavour, the information gathered by these teams was intended,

among others, to help at the elaboration of better social policies for the peasants.

Furthermore, in the conditions of the lack of medical personnel or of personnel trained in social

assistance and of the weak involvement of state and private social assistance societies in rural areas,

it was considered that midwives, and later the “protection nurses”, represented the most important

actors and promoters of asocial assistance and/or protection. The necessity of professional

midwives and protection nurses who would undertook hygiene propaganda in the struggle against

infant mortality (considered the biggest problem in the rural medium) determined the establishment

53 Costa-Foru, Le service social a l’Hopital en Roumanie, p. 4; Eliza Bucsanu, “Tehnica vizitelor la domiciliu” (“The Technique of Visits at Residence”) in Indrumator pentru munca sanitara si sociala la sate 1943, p. 5, 23

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of institutions for training these personnel. However, towards the end of the interwar period, there

were still too few trained persons to undertake these activities in the rural areas54.

In 1943, another profession was to be developed on the line of protection nurses, that of hygiene

and housework educators to provide assistance for the war invalids, orphans and widows, initiate

activities for the preservation of national traditions, and make statistical registers to inscribe the

“ethno-biological [composition of the population]”55. Although social problems existed in rural

areas, until the Second World War there was no coherent social protection policy for rural areas and

the social assistance and/or protection activities were subordinated to actions meant to achieve a

“healthy nation”. According to a statistic from 1940, 90% from the handicapped people were living

in the rural area and 80% of the ill people or with infirmities. However, according to this statistic,

this percentage represented only 7,5% from the total rural population56. These problems were only

superficially dealt with. Thus, only in 1943, theoretical writings on social work showed an

increased preoccupation with the systematization of state social assistance and protection in rural

areas, the preparation of professional personnel along with help for invalids, war widows and

orphans57. There were plans for implementing a “scientific” social assistance in villages, on the

model of that initiated in cities, promoting social assistance at home or within institutions and the

creation of a system of fiches regarding the situation of the needy58.

1.2.5. Eugenic Policies and Definitions of “Social Assistance” and “Social Protection”

The increased concern with eugenism in the 1930s and 1940s corresponded with the period of the

professionalization of social work in Romania. As already seen above, the eugenic ideological

elements were common to the theoretical delimitation between “social assistance” and “social

54 Prof. Dr. Cristea Gheorghiu, Docent Dr. I.Voicu, Asistenta sociala la tara . Extras din Revista de Endocrinologie, Gynecologie, Obstetrica, nr. 6, 1936 (The Social Assistance in the Countryside. Extract from “Review for Endocrinology, Gynecology, Obstretics”, no. 6, 1936), (Cluj: Tipografia “Univerala” S.A., 1936), p. 5-9. 55 Dr. I. Stoichita, “Programul de activitate pe teren al invatatoarelor de igiena si gospodarie” (“The Program of Field Activity for Hygiene and Household Educators”) in Indrumator pentru munca sanitara si sociala la sate 1943, p. 40-42. 56Banu, La politique medico-sociale dans la Roumanie rurale, p. 36. 57 Dr. I. Stoichita, “Programul de Colaborare pentru munca sanitara si sociala la sate” (“The Program of Collaboration for the Sanitary and Social Work inVillages”), Cristina Galitzi Bratescu, “ Comitetele locale ale Consiliului de Patronaj al Operelor Sociale si actiunea lor sociala la sate” (“The Local Committees of the Patronage Council of Social Works and Their Social Activity in Villages”) and Lucia Nasta, “Norme practice pentru asistarea invalizilor, orfanilor si vaduvelor de razboi” (“Practical Norms for the Assistance of War Invalids, Orphans and Widows”) in Indrumator pentru munca sanitara si sociala la sate 1943 , p. 6-8, 102, 121-134 58 Galitzi Bratescu, “ Comitetele locale ale Consiliului de Patronaj al Operelor Sociale si actiunea lor sociala la sate”, Nasta, “Norme practice pentru asistarea invalizilor, orfanilor si vaduvelor de razboi” and Christina Galitzi Bratescu, “Cantina scolara” (“The School Cantine”) Indrumator pentru munca sanitara si sociala la sate 1943 , p. 102-103, 121-134, 135-137

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protection”. In the 1940s, this delimitation was still not very clear and in some theoretical works

appeared a differentiation between “preventive social assistance” (very similar in scope to “social

protection”) and “curative social assistance” (very similar to in scope with “social assistance”). The

“prevent ive social assistance” was considered more important than the “curative” one, since, it was

argued, it dealt with the majoritarian “normal population” while the social dependents made up only

10% of the entire population59. This argumentation was supported by the priority given to eugenic

concerns in social policies and work aimed at all categories of population. Everything was

summarized under the idea of a state social bio-policy aiming at “rescuing the human capital of the

Nation, the biological, physical, psychological and mental capital” through means that “would

prevent the outburst of desegregation phenomena hindering the adaptation of the individual to the

social environment”60.

In this context, “social assistance” was to respond not only to the preoccupation with the high rate

of infant mortality, common throughout the whole interwar period, but also to raising the quality

and quantity of population in general in view of strengthening the basis of a homogenous nation. In

this sense it was argued that “in our bourgeois, capitalist society, the social assistance is especially

preoccupied with the family – the nucleus for the perpetuation of the race – that is the

preoccupation of all work for the social progress”61. In 1946 the “social protection” of workers had

also as an important but the prevention of the physical, psychic and moral degradation of workers

according to the concept of “biopolitics”: marriages were encouraged, as well as the pre-nuptial

medical examination, better salaries, better housing conditions, hygienic buildings, factories62.

Nevertheless, the protection and perpetuation of the peasant family, seen as the genuine nucleus of

the Romanian nation, was that had ideological priority in formulations of social welfare policies:

“The healthy peasant family is the main source of biological national values; it is the sacred hearth

of Christian morality, of Romanian faith and traditions. It is deeply rooted in our ancestors’ land

and is the supreme guarantee of the unblemished perpetuation of [our] race, of [our] safe and

integral rule of the Romanian land. The protection of the family is a national duty! This protection

has to aim first of all at the reproductive family, at the healthy Romanian family! Unlike social

assistance, it has to have a national and Christian character, ensuring the preservation and growth of

59 Galitzi Bratescu, Introducere in studiul asistentei si ocrotirii sociale pentru invatamintul liceelor teoretice, p. 6-8. 60 This idea appears in a different form, having a less visible connection to eugenism but pointing at it, in a 1992 work of two graduates of the interwar superior school for social assistants. There it was argued that the assistance of family had a very important role because family “was the most propitious environment for the development of the new generation, guaranteeing the transmission of [Romanian] traditions and moral principles” (see Manoiu and Epureanu, Asistenta sociala in Romania, p. 16). 61 Daniel, Asistenta sociala si medicina, p. 13 62 Stefan, Ocrotirea si asistenta muncitorilor, p. 3-4, 6-9.

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the Romanian biological and spiritual patrimony. Unlike in the previous periods [when] the spirit of

individualism [dominated], everything that is done in the framework of State policy has to aim first

of all at the welfare of the family and through it at the welfare of the nation!”63. From 1930s on, all

social policy seemed to be circumscribed to the creation of a eugenic state. Thus, in 1944, even the

help for people affected by war was done in the name of “raising the moral and biological potential

of the nation”64. The eugenic nationalist discourses were also commonly found in the textbooks and

curricula of schools for social workers. Thus, in 1943, in the curricula of schools that prepared

social assistants one could find courses on “social assistance as the social bio-policy of the modern

state” and “the difference between Christian philanthropy and social assistance as a science”65.

1.2.6. Social Assistance as Scientific and Practical Field – the Differentiation between (Social)

Medicine and Social Assistance

In the interwar period, some theoretical works argued that the emergence of “scientific” social

assistance” was favoured by the development of social medicine. In 1930, some theoreticians

maintained even that “the genesis and development of social assistance is essentially [pertaining to]

medicine”66. This argumentation was supported by the fact that in the interwar period, the higher

preoccupation with social diseases and epidemic diseases determined hospitals to play both a social

and medical role. They took care of ill people but also helped those who did not have means to pay

for their medical treatment. Also, hospitals made visible the existence of social dependency cases

and collaborated at times with social assistance societies. The separation between the hospital as

unit of medical assistance and the hospital as unit of social and the creation of special social

assistance institutions that would take care of the social issues with which the ill people were

struggling was argued throughout the whole interwar period. At the same time, the necessity that

doctors would be involved with organizations of public or private social assistance, and the two

types of institutions would collaborate was also supported Nevertheless, this separation was not

63 Stoichita, “Ocrotirea familiei” in Indrumator pentru munca sanitara si sociala la sate 1943, 10-11 64 Dr. I. Stroia, “Din activitatea de ocrotire si asistenta a Consiliului de Patronaj local din comuna Codlea – Caminul de zi”, Extras din Ardealul Medical, Anul IV- 1944, nr. 2, p. 97-98 (“From the Activity of Protection and Assistance of the Local Patronage Council of Codlea - Commune – The Day Care Center”, Extract from the Medical Ardeal, IV-1944, no. 2, p. 97-98), [no other publication references], 1 65 Ministerul Culturii Nationale si al Cultelor. Subsecretariatul de stat al scoalelor (The Ministry of National Culture. The State Subsecretariat of Schools), Norme pentru pregatirea Elevelor din Scolile Normale pentru functiunile de Infirmiere, Transmisioniste, Ocrotire si Asistenta Sociala (Norms for the Preparation of Women Students of High Schools for the Functions of Nurses, Transmisionists and in Social Protection and Assistence), Bucharest, Institutul de Arte Grafice “Tiparul Romanesc”, 1943, p. 21. 66 Daniel, Asistenta sociala si medicina , p. 3. That there was a an intimate relationship between the methodology and evolution of social assistance and medicine was also an argument of Christina Galitzi Bratescu in Introducere in studiul asistentei si ocrotirii sociale pentru invatamintul liceelor teoretice, p. 6.

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produced and many times doctors performed both social and medical functions 67. Only between

1933 and 1935 social services were created as experimental centers for studies and work in social

assistance within a few big hospitals in Bucharest. There social assistants got the necessary practical

training and helped hospitals with making up a system of fiches, assisting “abandoned” women,

illegitimate children, controlling requests for free treatment, making social inquiries into the

families of the ill, etc68.

The influence of medicine and its representatives in the emergence of social assistance as a

scientific field can be traced through the widespread use of a medical terminology in the language

of social work– the use of terms such as social diagnostic, social treatment, social simptomatology

(for social investigation), etc. Also the methodology used in professional social work was similar to

the medical examinations. Social assistants had to perform a social investigation (social

symptomatology) of the environment with the scope of giving a social diagnosis (necessary to the

classification and analysis of social symptoms) and prescribe a social treatment (with the but of the

re-adaptation, rehabilitation of the dependent and his/her family in their previous situation of

independence)69.

67 Sion, Asistenta publica cu un proiect de lege si o expunere de motive, p. 33-35, 39, Banu, Mari probleme de medicina sociala, p. 299, 418, Consiliul de Patronaj al Operelor Sociale. Activitatea spitaliceasca (The Patronage Council of Social Works. Hospital Activity), Lamuriri privitoare la Organizarea activitatii spitalicesti a Consiliului de Patronaj al Operelor Sociale (Explanations on the Organization of the Hospital Activity of the Patronage Council of Social Works), [no publication references, from 1943], p. 3-4; Stoichita, “Programul de Colaborare pentru munca sanitara si sociala la sate” in Indrumator pentru munca sanitara si sociala la sate 1943, p. 5 68 Costa-Foru, Le service social a l’Hopital en Roumanie, p. 6-12. 69 Daniel, Asistenta sociala si medicina, p. 16-17.

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2. Case study: mothers and children’s welfare

Mothers and children’s welfare were without any doubt, in the period of our interest, the main

concern of social work legislation, institutions and policies. Official discourse on children’s welfare

explained the interest demonstrated by the state to this field of social protection. Most of the

theoretical and practical works published especially in inter-war period, argued for the connection

between children’s welfare and the “health of the nation”, as “mother and child” were perceived as

symbols of the nation. They were the target group of the most important social protection

legislation. It does not come as a surprise, therefore, that protecting mothers and children was

considered a “duty”, meant to “secure the normal development of the nation”70 Moreover,

especially in the interwar period, this came in the context of a high child mortality combined with

the customary demographic policy of the time, which encouraged natality. Also, the problem of

mother and child was most of the time discussed as a commune issue, as one of the theoreticians of

the time claimed: “the problem of children’s protection is inseparable from the problem of pregnant

women’s protection and today one can speak only about the organization of maternal- infantile

protection and assistance.”71

2.1. Legal and institutional framework:

2.1.1. Legal framework

Even if in 1921 the “Law aimed at ceasing vagary, beggary and protecting children” was issued, the

“Sanitary and Protection Law” from 14th of July 1930 represents the starting point for an organized

and state controlled social assistance for children. In this law, the difference between socia l

protection and social assistance is emphasized in a general way, but at the same time the example is

provided from the children welfare area. As we mentioned before, 1930 is the moment when social

assistance is institutionalised and centralized in Romania, due to the fact that all the institutions and

services of social protection and assistance where put under the control of Ministry of Health and

Social Protection.

70 The phrase was often used in writings on the child’s social protection of the time. See for instance Gh. Popoviciu, Principii de lege ale ocrotirii si asistentei familiei, mamei si copilului (Principles for the Protection and Assistance of the family, Mother, and Child Act), in “Revista de pediatrie, puericultura si nipologie” (Pediatrics, Infant Care, and Nipology), V-VI, nr. 1-12, p. 1-39. 71 Dr. D. Savulescu, Propuneri de organizare pe teren a ocrotirii si asistentei materno-infantile (Proposal for the field organization of the maternal-infantile protection and assistance), extract from “Revista de Obstetrica, Ginecologie si puericultura” (“Journal of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Infant Rearing”). Nr. 2, April-June 1939, Bucharest, p. 1.

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According to the “Regulation for the protection of mothers and children” from 1938, the Ministry of

Work, Health and Social Protection had the duty72 to take all the necessary measures for the

protection of mother and child. The aim of the normal development of the nation is emphasized

once more in this regulation. 73 As a development from the 1930’s law where general assessments

concerning the children welfare were stipulated, this regulation points clearly the instruments which

were supposed to ensure social assistance of mother and child. This clarification demonstrates the

increased interest of the state in the development of a coherent policy of children welfare:

• Pre-birth consultations;

• Maternities;

• Shelters for poor mothers;

• Small children dispensaries;

• Itinerant dispensaries for the rural areas;

• Day shelters for poor children;

• Nurseries;

• Orphanages;

• Special children sections in hospitals and hospitals for children;

• Summer colonies;

• Prophylactic sanatoriums (preventorii)74.

The regulation included a special section dedicated to child protection which determined the legal

principles not only for several general problems of ordinary children (breast feeding, dispensaries

72 my italics. Apud Dr. Marius Georgescu, Protectia medico-sociala a maternitatii-Comentarii, studii comparative, propuneri de organizare (The socio-medical protection of maternity – comments, comparative studies, proposals for its organization), Bucuresti, 1937, p. 7. 73 Ministerul Muncii, Sanatatii si Ocrotirilor Sociale (Ministry of Work, Health and Social Protections), Regulament pentru ocrotirea mamei si copilului (Regulation for the Protection of Mother and Children), art. 1, Monitorul Oficial (Official Monitory), Bucharest, 1938, p. 3. 74 Ibidem.

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for children, kindergartens) but also for the depended children75 (juridical procedures for the

declaration of dependency; centres for child protection; colonies, placement in families, etc.)76

Also, the 1938 regulation mentions that all these institutions listed above were supposed to be

doubled by a social service, leaded by social workers or protection nurses.77

2.1.2. Social assurance of maternity:

As early as 1912 Romania adopted a law for the social assurance of maternity (along with disease,

death, invalidity and work accidents), being the eighth country in the world which introduced such a

legislative measure. The “Law for the organizations of jobs, credits and ‘working’ assurances”

stipulated three groups of risks. Maternity was included in the first category of risks, along with

disease and death. The new law was issued on 8th of April 1933 and aimed to unify the systems

which had already existed in Greater Romania –Transylvania, Bukovina, Bessarabia and the Old

Kingdom.

After these legal measures, in 1938 the condition for a workingwoman to receive a social maternal

assurance was that she should have paid the assurance at least twenty-six weeks of the year before

the birth. Her facilities in this situation were the following:

• Special care from the doctor, assistant as well as medication;

• A special aid in money for pregnancy and confinement for twelve weeks, from which

at leas six weeks before the birth.

• Aid for breast- feeding for six weeks;

• Maternity hospitalization (while hospitalized the woman receives 50% from the aid

in money if she has a family).78

75 See more details in Grigore L. Tranco-Iassy, A. Situation et protection en Roumanie de l’enfant illegitime et de l’enfance abandonne. B. Protection de la mere et son enfant. C. Enposition internationale de l’enfant, (A. Situation and Protection in Romania of the Illegitime and Abbandoned Child; B. Protection of Mother and Her Child; C. International Child Exibition) Bucharest, 1932, passim. 76 Gheorghe Popoviciu, Principii de lege ale ocrotirii si asistentei familiei, mamei si copilului (Legal Principles for the Protection and Assistance of the Family, Mother and Child), Revista de Pediatrie, Puericultura si Nipologie, anul V/VI, nr. 1-2, p. 24-28. 77 Art. 25, Regulament pentru ocrotirea mamei si copilului (Regulation for the Protection of Mother and Children), p. 39. 78 “Asigurarile sociale în România” (“Social Assurances in Romania”) in Enciclopedia de Istorie a României (Encyclopaedia for History of Romania), Bucharest, 1938, p. 549-550.

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From this list of facilities, one can noticed once again the interest and encouragement of the state on

the birth rate. In other fields of social protection it was frequently met the idea that special aids in

money are not encouraged, while in the direction of maternity there were the main facilities.

2.1.3. Institutions for children’s assistance

A statistics provided for the year 194879 after almost two decades of state-controlled social

assistance of the children informs us that in Romania functioned as state institutions:

• 1739 pre-births and puericulture dispensaries belonging to the Ministry of Health;

• 516 maternities and small maternities.

• 52 hospitals with special sections for children which included 2 678 beds;

• 10 children hospitals with 980 beds;

• 4 prophylactic sanatoriums for children;

• 8 tuberculosis sanatoriums for children with 1888 beds;

• 11 centers for protection with 1 270 children;

• 3 500 centers for milk distributions.

The data shown above demonstrates once more the level of underdevelopment of state controlled

welfare versus private institutions. One example in this direction is represented by the centers for

protection of children compared to private orphanages. As the most specific state institution of the

time, in the following paragraphs details will be provided about those centres.

Centers for children’s protection were state-controlled institutions created for the orphans. A center

for children’s protection included a central asylum (where children up to 2 benefited of special care)

and rural/urban colonies (children over 2 where given to parents who had to pay a tax). In these

centers where accepted children up to 16.80

79 L’enfant dans la Republique Populaire Roumaine (The Child in the Popular Republic of Romania), Bucharest, 1948, p. 16 80 I. Ettinger, Dare de seama a activitatii serviciului asistentei infantile in capitala (Report of the Activity of the Service of Infantile Assistance in the Capital), Bucharest. 1922, p. 15.

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A detailed statistics of state centers for protection of children in inter-war period was found in a

work of Dr. Ioan Nemoianu, director of the Center for Protection, Timisoara.81 Upon the royal

decree from 22.08.1936 in Romania were planed to function, for the children under 16, a total

number of 13 centers for protection. From this total, 6 had been already established in 1902 (Cluj,

Targu Mures, Oradea, Arad, Timisoara). The oldest center was created in 1898 in Bucharest as a

private institution, St. Caterina Nursery, and later entered under the control of the Institute for Infant

Rearing (Puericultura). From this list it can be noticed that Transylvania was much more developed.

Three other centers where in 1938 under construction in Craiova, Cernauti and Galati and for the

rest of three (Iasi, Brasov and Constantza) the construction was conditioned by the lack of money.

Still, the private sector was much more developed if one compares just the number of around 90

private orphanages in 1938 to only 10 state centres for protection. One more category of institutions

was active in inter-war period: institutions belonging to I.O.V- the National Office for Disabled,

Orphans and War Widows founded in 1920.82

2.2. Ideological framing of social policies for children

In the field of assistance for children, according to the law mentioned above, the Ministry of Health

and Social Protection is seen as responsible for the protection of the family with a special focus on

mother, child and youth. The result of an efficient family protection is considered the “normal

development of the nation”. This is an idea very frequently met in the writings from the inter-war

period concerning mother and child and this assertion that connected their protection to the health

of the nation was one important justification for the focus on children as the main beneficiaries of a

coherent social work system. Provided the preoccupation with the growth of the Romanian national

body as a way of legitimising state’s power, the protection of children was considered an important

investment into the future of the nation and became a priority for state welfare policies. This

preoccupation of the state came from the concern with an extremely high rate of infant mortality (in

1932 Romania was the country with the second highest rate of infant mortality in Europe)83 and

with increasing the growth of Romanian population in multi-ethnic regions such as Transylvania

81 Dr. Ioan Nemoianu, Les centers de protection pour les enfants en Roumanie (Centers for Children’s Protection in Romania), extras from “L’Assistance Sociale en Romanie” (“Social Assistance in Romania”), Bucharest, 1938, p. 3-4. 82 Apud “Asistenta sociala în Romania” (Social Assistance in Romania) in Enciclopedia de Istorie a României (Encyclopaedia for History of Romania), Bucharest, 1938, p. 526-527. 83 Apud L’Enfant dans la République Populaire Roumaine (The Child in the Popular Republic of Romania), Bucharest, 1948, p. 7.

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and Banat. Although ethnic minorities were not excluded from programs of child welfare, the

insistence on the importance of the growth in the Romanian national body determined the state to

give priority to programs aimed at increasing the quality and quantity of the Romanian population.

There were frequent debates on the necessity of complex medico-social assistance instead of a pure

medical assistance. The mixture between social assistance and medical assistance in programs for

children welfare is not surprising if one takes into consideration the high mortality rate which still

existed in 1939 (17,8 %). In this context were identified the methods which were supposed to

determine the decreasing of the mortality rate: permanent and efficient control done by specialized

personnel in the field; increasing the number of specialised, well paid, healthy auxiliary personnel;

strict control of hygiene; avoidance of over-population in collectivity; the practice of therapy

through vaccines; more and biger hospitals.84 As mentioned before, the situation was still critical in

1948, consequently the plan was still far from success.

The wars determined an increasing number of invalid orphans and consequently a strong

collaboration between the medical and social assistance was needed. This debate on medical-social

assistance was connected with the interest of the nation, as one can notice from the quotation

bellow, which we met under different formulations in several booklets dedicated to the finding

solutions for an efficient mother and child assistance: “from the moment when maternal protection

is transferred beyond individual interest towards permanent interests of the collectivity, nation, from

that moment it can’t be discussed anymore about pure medical protection.”85.

All these definitions made clear that, the social dimension of state assistance, especially in what

concerned children and mothers, was to be subordinated to the interests of community (the national

body) which had preeminence over the individual interests of their beneficiaries.

84 Dr. Axente Iancu, Asistenta copilului în colectivitate (Child Assistance in Collectivity), extras from “Vestul Medical” (“Medical West”), nr. 11, November 1938, Oradea, p. 7. 85 Marius Georgescu, Protectia medico-sociala a maternitatii-Comentarii, studii comparative, propuneri de organizare (The socio-medical protection of maternity – comments, comparative studies, proposals for its organization), Bucuresti, 1937, p. 9.

33

2.3. Methodological models and practical methodology.

Studying different publications from the period 1900-1960 it was noticed the successions of diverse

external methodological models in the organization of the assistance. If in the period before 1950’s

the eyes were turned to the Western Europe-the most frequent model mentioned was France

followed by Germany, after the Second World War the example came from the East, Soviet Union.

If for inter-war period the models selected were justified through the long experience on the field

gathered by France or Germany, after 1950’s the model to follow in social work slowly became an

element of propaganda.

There are two principles visible in theoretical works published on the topic in inter-war Romania.

First principle appearing in both official publications and writings of people involved with child

welfare as doctors, social workers, activists, etc was the necessity that social assistance would

follow the evolutional pattern of children’s growth from the pre-birth period until maturity. The

second principle was the necessity to combine the social with the medical protection as a mandatory

method for children’s assistance. According to these two main principles, social and medical work

and assistance for the mother and child was concentrated on the following directions:

§ Protection and assistance for poor pregnant and confined women through free of charge

medical consultations, maternal shelters, pre-births health units and maternities.

§ Protection of the normal but poor children up to 18 done through dispensaries and canteens

from schools, opened air schools, sanatoriums and summer colonies.

§ Assistance for the depended children through the centers for children’s protection, summer

colonies and special educational institutions and repartitions to families (under the control of

other state institutions).

§ Special assistance for the minor delinquents up to 19.

§ Protection and assistance of invalid, mental disabled blind and deaf-mute children in special

state controlled institutions.

According to an assessment realized in 1936 by the Central Institute for Statistics (Institutul Central

de Statistica) and as a demonstration of the idea that protection of children was the field the most

developed, it should be mentioned that in inter-war period from a total of 1101 charities, 248

34

activated on children’s assistance and 341 on family assistance. Also, there were 22 institutions

under the control of National Office for Disabled, Orphans and War Widows.86

In order to understand the level of development of the children welfare in Romania, we had selected

a special category of children to which we looked more closely. Consequently we observed that

another conceptualisation of the social dimension of state assistance for children was related to the

necessity of formulating social integration measures aimed at a special category of children

recruited from the illegitimate, abandoned children and the juvenile delinquents. In this sense it was

generally argued that social assistance for children in special protection centres had as the main aim

to transform them in useful members of the society. 87

The often assimilation of abandoned and illegitimate children to minor delinquents was motivated

with arguments pointing at the higher probability that these children to be involved in criminal

actions due to their social environment and upbringing. It is significant in this sense that many times

the measures aimed at illegitimate and abandoned children were in some writings defined as

“prophylactic actions for criminality” and emphasized on the control dimension of social assistance.

Nevertheless, this was one of the most underdeveloped areas of children welfare. Before 1920 there

were only two state-sponsored correction schools for juvenile delinquents in Transylvania and none

in the Old Kingdom. Before 1930s, most of the institutions and organizations concerned with

juvenile delinquency were private and their preoccupation with vagabond children or minor

delinquents emerged relatively early, around 1900. The first writing supporting the creation of a

patronage society for these children on a Western model was published in 1900 and in 1907 a law

stipulated the establishment of two such institutions in the Old Kingdom. In the 1930s the state

established a few re-education schools and colonies for minor delinquents and the methods used for

their societal integration were circumscribed to ideas on the power of education and work in

“correcting” their character and insuring their means of living. After a period of “re-education”,

they were placed in vocational schools and workshops to learn a craft and to support themselves in

the future. Further on, a part of the existent private organizations were co-opted as annexes to the

trial courts where they could act offering their support and guidance for the school or work

placement of minor delinquents.

86 Enciclopedia Romaniei, Bucharest, 1939, p. 526. 87 upon Dr. Ioan Nemoianu, director of the Center for Protection, Timisoara, in Les centers de protection pour les enfants en Roumanie (Centres for the Children’s Protection in Romania), Bucharest, 1938, p.9.

35

In the New Penal Code from 1936, the articles 138-154 concern the delinquency of minors and the

measures which determine the correction and education of their behaviour and art. 567, 571 –

institutionalise for the first time special courts for children in which representatives of social

assistance institutions could provide juridical and social assistance to the minor and influence the

decisions of the court.

The 1937 penal law stated the possibility for these children to be placed under the surveillance and

care of a patronage society instead of being enrolled in a correction school. This more liberal law

prompted some members of patronage societies to insist on the necessity to devise better strategies

for the “correction” of these children than the usual ones such as those based on inquiries into the

social medium of the abandoned children and minor delinquents who were not enrolled into

institutions of re-education. They promoted the idea of insur ing to these children individual care,

advise and surveillance from members of patronage societies as better means to influence them in

forming their character and pursuing “an honest career”. 88

3. Case study: development of professional training in social work

The development of a coherent state controlled social protection and social work was one of the

main concerns of the Romanian state in the field of social work89. As ideas and institutions were

much easier to create, the main challenge proved to be the lack of professionals to coordinate and

develop appropriate social assistance. Given these conditions, the state invested vastly in the

establishment of educational institutions which should provide the necessary body for an efficient

social assistance.

The first schools with this specific purpose were the institutes for protection nurses which were

gradually opened in the three centres of the main Romanian provinces: Cluj (Transylvania), Iasi

(Moldova) and Bucharest (Wallachia). The investments in the schools for midwives and

pedagogues of invalids can also be considered in this context as signs of a state interest on the field

88 see Ioan I. Predoviciu, In Serviciul social (In the Social Service,) Biblioteca Patronajului, no. 1-2, Imprimeria Fondului cartilor funduare Cluj, 1937, p. 15-30. 89 In 1937, Dr. Marius Georgescu, in the introduction to his work devoted to social medical protection of maternity, argued that “today, once the advance taken by the social hygienic science, together with the practical appliances of this discipline, the assistance of the profound categories of the population has overcome the level of the philanthropic works, in order to achieve the character of a state action, well-coordinated and becomes a duty of the leaders.” Marius Georgescu, ”Protectia medico-sociala a maternitatii-Constatari, studii comparative, propuneri de organizare (Medical-Social Protection of Maternity-Observations, Comparative Studies, Proposals for Organizations), Bucharest, 1937, p. 7.

36

of social work. Nevertheless, the establishment of the Superior School for Social Assistance in

Bucharest in 1929 created the opportunity to train several generations of social workers who were

well prepared both theoretically and practically.

In the following paragraphs I will discuss some of the achievements and failures of these

institutions and consequently of the state policy towards them90.

Before both the schools for protection nurses and the school for social assistance will be presented,

some information about those institutions which educated midwives and pedagogues will be given.

3.1. Schools for midwives and the special training of pedagogues of invalids

Up to 1937 there were an important number of schools for midwives organised by universities and

the main maternities, but in that year several schools for midwives were established under the

control of the Ministry of Health and Social Protection. Taking into consideration their role from

the social work perspective, midwives were viewed as the most important factor of social assistance

in rural areas, due to the major lack of physicians in the villages. They were supposed to promote

hygiene in order to reduce the infantile mortality91. The number of the midwives in rural areas was

estimated to 7,000 for 193692 while the necessity was around 8,00093. In the rural areas worked

many midwives who did not have professiona l training, and consequently the replacement of the

trained by experience midwives by midwives with diploma was viewed as one of the solutions for

the development of social assistance in rural areas, together of course with a better remuneration94.

Due to this situation the state opened new schools specialized in the education of midwives in 1937.

90The well-known Encyclopaedia of History published in 1938 with the support of the Royal House, in the chapter dedicated to social assistance in Romania, the sub-chapter entitled „Schools of Assistance” lists the following institutions as welfare institutions: schools for protection nurses, courses of hygiene for primary school teachers, schools for midwives, pedagogues of invalids as well as the “Princess Ileana” Superior School. I will respect in my article this classification of the time, in order to understand and also to emphasize the state policy of the period. See “Asistenta sociala în România” (Social Assistance in Romania), in: Enciclopedia de Istorie a României (Encyclopaedia for History of Romania), Bucharest, 1938, p. 532. 91 In 1932 Romania was the country with the second highest rate of infant mortality in Europe. The high mortality rate still existed in 1939 (17,8 %). Apud L’Enfant dans la République Populaire Roumaine (The Child in the Popular Republic of Romania), Bucarest, 1948, p. 7. 92 Apud Cristea Gheorghiu/Ion Voicu, Asistenta sociala la tara (Social Assistance in the Rural Area), in: “Revista de Endocrinologie, Ginecologie si Obstetrica” („Review of Endocrinology, Gynaecology and Obstetrics”), nr. 6, 1936, p.6. 93 “Asistenta sociala în România” („Social Assistance in Romania”), in: Enciclopedia de Istorie a României (Encyclopaedia for History of Romania), Bucharest, 1938, p. 533. 94 Apud Cristea Gheorghiu/Ion Voicu, Asistenta sociala la tara (Social Assistance in the Rural Area) in “Revista de Endocrinologie, Ginecologie si Obstetrica” („Review of Endocrinology, Gynaecology and Obstetrics”), nr. 6, 1936, p. 7.

37

In the 1930’s there was an institution in Cluj Napoca for pedagogues for invalids, where primary

school teachers were educated. The school was closed after a few years because it was considered

that the necessary number of pedagogues was achieved. Due to the growing number of necessary

specialized personnel, in 1939 it was re-opened, but this time in Bucharest95.

3.2. Institutes for protection nurses/“surori de ocrotire”

The fact that the Ministry of Health and Social Protection established the institutes for protection

nurses is generally considered as the first manifestation of the state interest in the training of

professional social workers. In interwar Romania operated four state controlled schools: two in

Bucharest (one together with the Rockefeller Foundation), one in Cluj and one in Iasi. The

institutions beneficiated from their beginnings from a long term plan, as after three years of courses,

protection nurses were supposed to work together with the circumscription physicians with the main

aim

“to spread the knowledge of hygiene among the large masses of population.”96

The first school, The Institute of Protection Nurses was founded in Cluj, in 1919, by Dr. Iuliu

Moldovan97. Among the four state institutions which operated up to the Second World War, the

Cluj school was the most successful in terms of graduates, as for the period 1919-1936 was a total

of 303 female graduates98, which means an average of 20 graduates each year. In comparison the

Institute for Protection Nurses from Iasi had for the period 1929-1936 only 60 graduates, which

means, given three years of training, an average of 15 graduates per year.

95 Ibidem. 96 cap. “Asistenta sociala în România” (Social Assistance in Romania), in: Enciclopedia de Istorie a României (Encyclopaedia for History of Romania), Bucharest, 1938, p. 532. All the translations into English of the quotations from Romanian interwar writings belong to the author of the present contribution. 97 Dr. Iuliu Moldovan is considered as the „de facto leader of the Romanian eugenic movement”. He was president of the „Astra” Association (Transylvanian Association for the Literature and Culture of the Romanian People) in the 1930s, the director of the Institute for Hygiene and general secretary in the Ministry of Health and Social Protection. For details on his opinions and activities both in the field of social work and eugenics, see Maria Bucur, „Miscarea eugenista si rolurile de gen” (“The Eugenic Movement and Gender Roles”), in: Patriarhat si emancipare în istoria gândirii politice românesti (Patriarchate and Emancipation in the History of the Romanian Political Thinking), ed. by Maria Bucur /Mihaela Miroiu, Bucuresti, 2002, p. 107-147 and Maria Bucur, Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002, passim. 98 Apud Cristea Gheorghiu /Ion Voicu, Asistenta sociala la tara (Social Assistance in the Rural Area), in: “Revista de Endocrinologie, Ginecologie si Obstetrica” (Review of Endocrinology, Gynaecology and Obstetrics), nr. 6, 1936, p. 5.

38

In Bucharest protection nurses were trained at the School for Charity Nurses “Queen Maria”, but for

a period of three years, 1933-1936, from the later one, only ten graduated. In addition another

institution was designed to train protection nurses, the Rockefeller school99.

Due to the rather low output of the trained personnel at the end of the 1930’s the total of protection

nurses was not more than 500100, far from the necessities of the country, estimated for 1936 to

3,000-4,000 nurses101.

Even if all these theoretical principles on the functioning of the institutions were properly presented,

the system was not a very successful one.

As I previously mentioned, the number of graduates at the end of the 1930’s was far inferior to the

estimated necessity and in this context is not surprising that even the founder of the first school, Dr.

Iuliu Moldovan, in 1943 took a very critical attitude towards this system. In his perspective, 24

years after the opening of the first school, the system was not well institutionalised.

He underlined two factors as responsible for this failure: the lack of support from the local

authorities as well as from the physicians, both groups not being very receptive to the

innovations102. Still with its problems, the importance of the institutes for protection nurses in the

development of a more coherent social welfare should not be diminished and neglected. The five

hundred nurses were active in rural areas and it can be argued that their activity determined the

improvement of the conditions in villages, even if not on a very large scale.

99 Rokefeller school was opened in 1939 and was a joined initiative of the Ministry of Health and Social Protection and the American foundation Rokefeler. The foundation financially supported the school. 100 In 1944 the total of protection nurses in Romania was claimed to be 520, wh ich was still under the necessities. Apud Christina Galitzi Bratescu, Introducere in studiul asistentei sociale si ocrotirii sociale pentru învatamântul liceelor teoretice (Introduction in the Study of Social Assistance and Protection for the theoretical high schools), in: extras from „Buletinul Consiliului de Patronaj” („The Bulletin of the Patronage Council”), nr. 8, Bucharest, 1944, p. 18. 101 Apud Cristea Gheorghiu,, /Ion Voicu, Asistenta sociala la tara (Social Assistance in the Rural Area) in: “Revista de Endocrinologie, Ginecologie si Obstetrica” (Review of Endocrinology, Gynaecology and Obstetrics), nr. 6, 1936, p. 5, and “Asistenta sociala în România” (Social Assistance in Romania), in: Enciclopedia de Istorie a României (Encyclopaedia for History of Romania), Bucharest, 1938, p. 532. 102 Prof. Iuliu Moldovan, Organizarea sanitara si de ocrotire (Sanitary and Protection Organization), in: extras from „Buletinul eugenic si biopolitic” (“Eugenic and Bio political Bulletin”), vol. XIV, nr. 3-4, 1943, Sibiu, p. 11.

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3.3. Superior School of Social Assistance “Principesa Ileana” (1929):

The idea to found a superior school originated both from the necessity to have professionals in the

field and from foreign experience of some people involved in social assistance. The Christian

Association of Women from Romania emphasized from 1925 the necessity of the creation of such a

school and finally took the initiative. As mentioned before, the main problem concerning the

organization of such institutionswas the lack of professionals who could teach.

Due to the growing interest in the field, to the initiative of Dr. Iuliu Moldovan and also to the

financial support of the Rockefeler Foundation, several people were sent to study abroad.

The first director of the Superior School, up to 1935, selected by the Christian Association of

Women from Romania, Veturia Manuila, was such an example: she attended in the United States

the classes of the Social Work Department of the “John Hopkins” University in Baltimore, where

she wrote a PhD thesis, too103. Her theoretical experience was supplemented by practical know-

how, as during her stay in the USA she visited several social work associations and studied their

scheme of operation. Her experience in the field proved to be the driving force for the success of the

school in the first years of its existence. An important role along with Veturia Manuila had her

husband, Sabin Manuila, an important personality in interwar Romania, the founder of the

Romanian School of Statistics, himself a student of Dr. Iuliu Moldovan.

The second director of the School was Xenia Costa-Foru, graduated of law and psychology, doctor

in sociology and with specialization in social assistance done at the Universities of Chicago and

New York.

Opened in 1929, it was the most important institution which trained professional social assistants up

to the communist period since 1952. It was organized as an alternative to the university level studies

with three-year courses. Except theoretical classes, the school included a centre for family

assistance where students could train their skills for questioning and counselling and an organised

103 For details on her activity and personality see Maria Bucur, „Miscarea eugenista si rolurile de gen” (“The Eugenic Movement and Gender Roles”), in: Patriarhat si emancipare în istoria gândirii politice românesti (Patriarchate and Emancipation in the History of the Romanian Political Thinking), ed. by Maria Bucur, /Mihaela Miroiu, Bucuresti, 2002, p. 107-147 and Maria Bucur, Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002, passim as well as her own writings on the problem such as Veturia Manuila, „Evolutia ideii de asistenta sociala” (“The Evolution of the Idea of Social Assistance, in: Buletin eugenic si biopolitic (Eugenic and Bio political Bulletin), vol. I, nr. 7-8 (July-August 1927), p. 242-252 or Idem, Le Role de l’Ecole superieure d’assistance sociale dans le movement d’assistance sociale roumaine (The Role of Superior School of Social Assistance in the Romanian Social

40

program for “family reconstruction”104. During the II World War the School functioned to a reduce

efficiency due to the conditions, but in 1948 the Superior School was transformed to the Institute

for Social Assistance and three years later to the Institute for Social Provisions. The school was

closed in 1952.

The curriculum included subjects such as: introduction and popularisation of the new principles and

technical methods of social assistance; psychology, sociology and social pathology; individual

social assistance techniques, social hygiene, social statistics, public and private law, criminology,

both theoretical and practical classes being followed by practical work in the field.

It is important to mention that the school beneficiated from very good professors, the most

important contemporary Romanian specialists of subjects like sociology, psychology, statistics,

civil and private law, etc taught in and offered a special prestige to the institution. For example, the

director, Veturia Manuila was teaching “the evolution of social assistance”, her husband, Sabin

Manuila, director of the Central Institute of Statistics, “social statistics”, or Constantin Stanescu,

director of the Social Assistance and Protection Directorate within the Work, Health and Social

Protection Ministry, “the organization of social assistance in Romania”.

For the practical work, mostly coordinated by Xenia Costa-Foru, several aspects were trained:-

individual assistance techniques: students worked with a selected family in order to collect

information about their social situation.

-collective assistance technique: students worked at the Women Christian Association;

-social service in hospitals: service created with the aim to establish a connection between the

patient, doctor and social assistant and to gradually investigate the causes which determined the

illness105;

-children assistance: a practical exercise in order to identify children with social problems and place

them into fosters;

Assistance Movement), in: extras from „L’Assistance Sociale en Roumanie” (“Social Assistance in Romania”), Bucharest, 1938, p. 3-72. 104 Details about curricula and professors can be found in Asistenta sociala (Social Assistance), nr. 1/1929 as well as Maria Bucur, „Miscarea eugenista si rolurile de gen” (“The Eugenic Movement and Gender Roles”) in: Patriarhat si emancipare în istoria gândirii politice românesti (Patriarchate and Emancipation in the History of the Romanian Political Thinking), ed. by Maria Bucur/Mihaela Miroiu, Bucharest, 2002, p. 130, Idem, Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002, p. 177-178, Florica Manoiu/Viorica Epureanu, Asistenta sociala în România (Social Assistance in Romania), seria I, Bucharest, 1992, p. 27-33. 105 Xenia Costa-Foru, professor at the Superior School and the responsible one for this service, mentions that the service was created in 1930 at Coltea Hospital due to both „the interest of the School to train its students, the interest of the Civil Hospitals Directorate for a better administration and the desire of some doctors to see the social efficacy of their treatments”. Xenia C. Costa-Foru,, Le service social a l’Hopital en Roumanie (The Social Service at the Hospital in Romania), in: extras from „L’assistance sociale en Roumanie” (‘Social Assistance in Romania”), Bucharest, 1938, p. 6.

41

-internships to psychiatric institutes and clinics: to become accustomed with this special category of

patients;

-industrial assistance: in order to familiarize with the industrial environment106.

Very important for the future assistants was the social service in hospitals. First initiatives were in

Bucharest, through the introduction of social services in 1930 at Coltea Hospital, followed in 1933

by one at Brancovenesc Hospital and one more also at Coltea Hospital-especially created for the

neuropsychiatric section, another at the Central Hospital for Mental and Psychiatric Diseases and

one at the Maternal Institute “Queen Elisabeta” with the special role of surveillance of mothers and

children. More were opened in the following years in order to cover as much specialties as possible:

for example Central Hospital for Mental and Psychiatric Diseases in Bucharest organised in 1934 a

social service for all sections, one more established in the tuberculosis section of the “Prof. Dr.

Cantacuzino” in Sinaia107. We listed all these hospitals which hosted social services just to prove

that it was not just an isolated initiative. The person in charge for this project at the Superior School

had good contacts in the main hospitals of the capital, which once again demonstrated the prestige

already gained by the school in 1934 after just five years of existence. These social services were

viewed as help to the needs of the hospitals at the betterment of their administration, as

experimental centres for studies in social assistance and last but not least as pedagogical function

for the students108.

The training took three years, and the students were supposed to pay a yearly fee of 5,000 lei. Few

scholarships were awarded, still only women were accepted at the School.

In the years before the Second World War, the Superior School of Social Assistance gained very

much credibility, as it was the only institution for superior studies in the field. I found in a number

of publications where the importance of these professional trained assistants was very much

emphasized. In addition, welfare institutions were strongly encouraged to employ just graduates

from this school and to recommend the appointment for other institutions as well109.

It is interesting to see that the prestige of the school crossed decades and political regimes. Two

graduates of the school, Florica Manoiu and Viorica Epureanu, writing in 1992 a short history of the

106 Asistenta sociala (Social Assistance), nr. 1/1929, Bucharest, p. 25-27. 107 Xenia C. Costa-Foru, Le service social a l’Hopital en Roumanie (The Social Service at the Hospital in Romania), in: extras from „L’assistance sociale en Roumanie” (“Social Assistance in Romania”), Bucharest, 1938, p. 6-7. 108 Ibidem, p. 8. 109 See for example the pleading of the chief-physician of Brasov in his article regarding the social protection of the workers. He argues for the necessity of the organisation of an industrial social service which would need a social assistant graduate of the Superior School as director. Dr. Ulpiu Stefan, Ocrotirea si asistenta muncitorilor (Protection and Assistance of the Workers), Sibiu, 1946, p. 21.

42

Romanian social work in the context of the development of the new social work system in post-

communist Romania, felt the necessity to emphasise the tradition of the Superior School and the

heritage left by it:

“We110 especially appreciate the way the analytical curriculum was created at the opening of the

Superior School for Social Assistance “Princess Ileana” and we consider that even today sections

of special psycho-pedagogy and social assistance, opened since the academic year 1990-1991, as

well as colleges of social assistance and medico-social assistance, have to pay special attention to

the analytical curriculum adopted in 1929 by the first school of superior studies for the training of

specialists in the field.”111

3.4. The different roles of professionals in social assistance field

As mentioned before, in interwar period were done important efforts to professionalise the field of

social assistance. In this perspective were created schools for three different categories of workers:

midwives, protection nurses and social assistants. We found several theoretical works which had the

main aim to clarify the difference between those three categories and to determine their role in the

field of social assistance.

Both midwives and protection nurses were considered as the most important agents in the rural area.

Midwives were viewed as the principal instruments in preventing maternal and infant mortality, the

major problem in the rural areas during the whole relevant period. The schools for midwives

preferred students originating from the rural areas, as was considered that they collaborator

“knew better the peasant mentality and consequently their work could be more efficient.”112

Midwives were supposed to work together with the protection nurses and sanitary agents.

There is an interesting definition of the difference between a social assistant and a protection nurse

found in the publications of the time:

“Different from the social assistant who has an activity almost exclusively rational, of detailed

analysis of social realities, in order to reach the conclusion of accepted social therapeutics (…), a

protection nurse works mainly in rural conditions, much more difficult, and faces a difficult human

110 The two authors, Florica Manoiu and Viorica Epureanu. 111 Florica Manoiu /Viorica Epureanu, Asistenta sociala în România (Social Assistance in Romania), seria I, Bucharest, 1992, p.35.

43

material: our female peasant, whose trust and devoted collaboration can not be attracted by

arguments, smart discussions and surveys, and through the controlled behaviour, but through a

vivid sensitivity to her needs and spiritual situation, which often can not be covered by words.

Through a deep communication and understanding of the soul of our peasants, realized not only

through rational way or patient observations, but also through instinct and intuition determined by

the honest and understanding love for our peasants, and especially towards mother and child.”113

Consequently, the training of a protection nurse was seen as more complex because the theoretical

training had to be followed by the development of their sensitivity. In contrast, social assistants

were designed for towns,

“where the activity of protection and social assistance was divided into specific problems in

contrast with the protection nurse who will work in the rural area with the main aim to protect the

healthy family.”114

Another aspect for the preference of the urban area for the social assistants was, according to Iuliu

Moldovan,

“that they work mainly in the municipal administration where their knowledge is necessary due to

the conditions where lack of competence determined the waste of energy and money”.115

According to the theoreticians of the period, social assistants were asked to fulfil the fo llowing

requirements:

“-to treat people tactful and understandingly according to the specificity of each case.

-be able to correct their defects or deficiencies, through advices, special care or a longer process of

education.

112Cristea Gheorghiu /Ion Voicu, Asistenta sociala la tara (Social Assistance in the Rural Area) in: “Revista de Endocrinologie, Ginecologie si Obstetrica” (Review of Endocrinology, Gynaecology and Obstetrics), nr. 6, 1936, p.9. 113 Prof. Iuliu Moldovan, Organizarea sanitara si de octrotire (The Sanitary and Protective Organisation), in: “Buletin Eugenic si Biopolitic (Eugenic and Biopolitic Bulletin)”, vol. XIV, nr. 3-4, 1943, p. 12. 114 Dr. Ion Stoichita, “Ocrotirea familiei” (Protection of the family), in: Consiliul de Patronaj al Operelor Sociale. Ministerul Sanatatii si Ocrotirilor Sociale, Ministerul Culturii Nationale (The Council for the Patronage of Social Activities. Ministry of Health and Social Protection, Ministry of Culture), Indrumator pentru munca sanitara si sociala la sate 1943 (Guidebook for the Sanitary and Social Work in the Villages, 1943) , Bucuresti, p. 13) 115 Prof. Iuliu Moldovan, Organizarea sanitara si de octrotire (The Sanitary and Protective Organisation), in: “Buletin Eugenic si Biopolitic (Eugenic and Biopolitic Bulletin)”, vol. XIV, nr. 3-4, 1943, p. 10.

44

-be capable to guide subjects to the activity and the right place in society and to help them up to the

moment when they reach the full development of their personality, and will be able to adapt to

social environment”116.

More, a social assistant should have ideally possessed a complete range of natural attributes which

in theoreticians’ of the time perspective were characteristic to women. Consequently, a perfect

social assistant had to correspond the following portrait:

“severe but still friendly attitude, ability and kindness in communication and the capacity to gain

trust and friendship.”117

It is obvious that both protection nurses and social assistants had to be good experts on human

nature and spirit. As protection nurses were encouraged to work in the rural areas, social assistants,

due to their advanced training, were considered capable to work wherever a process of social

disorganisation took place118.

The process of professionalisation of social work was in the two decades between the world wars

had an ascending tendency. Even if the graduates of these state institutions opened in the 1920’s did

still not cover the necessity in 1940, it managed to educate an important number of professional

social workers. Through schools for midwives, protection nurses and social assistants, the

development of the whole process of social work in Romania beneficiated by a serious support and

offered the opportunity to understand the necessity of state investment the field.

116 G. Zapan, Psihologia si asistenta sociala. Expunere critica asupra metodelor de diagnoza psihica, cu speciala privire si adaptare la asistenta sociala (Psychology and social assistance. Critical presentation on the methods of psychical diagnosis, with a special regard and adaptation to social assistance), Bucharest, 1939, p.3. 117 Dr. A. Daniel, Asistenta sociala si medicina (Social Assistance and Medicine), extras from „România medicala” (“Medical Romania”), November 1, 1930, Bucharest, p.13-14. Interesting information about the role of the social assistant trained at the Superior School can be found in Veturia Manuila, Le Role de l’Ecole superieure d’assistance sociale dans le movement d’assistance sociale roumaine (The Role of Superior School of Social Assistance in the Romanian Social Assistance Movement), in: extras from „L’Assistance Sociale en Roumanie” („Social Assistance in Romania”), Bucharest, 1938, p. 3-72. 118 An interesting discussion about the different roles of protection nurse and social assistance is done by Natalie Popovic, (social assistant, director of the Bureau of Protection, Cluj), in Natalie Popovic, Collaboration des infirmieres visiteuses avec les assistentes sociales (Collanboration Between Visiting Nurses and Social Assistance), in: extras from „L’Assis tence Sociale en Roumanie” (‘Social Assistance in Romania”), Bucharest, 1938, p. 3-15.