Reformer, Educator, Social Worker

Grace was born into a family of activists. Her mother was an abolitionist and suffragist and her older sister, Edith, worked to address a variety of social issues of the day. Grace would follow in these footsteps becoming one of the most influential women in the United States of America in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1907 she began attending the University of Chicago with the intention of studying law. She soon developed a passion for social work, earning a Master of Philosophy. She took particular interest in the challenges facing immigrants in Chicago. In 1917 she began working for the U.S. Children’s Bureau as the director of the child labor division. In 1921 she was appointed as the director of the whole U.S. Children’s Bureau a position she would hold until 1934.  Making her the highest ranking woman in the United States government for over a decade. She was also the first American sent to the League of Nations to represent the United States serving on their advisory committees on trafficking of women and on child welfare. And the first woman to be nominated for a Presidential cabinet position—Secretary of Labor in the Herbert Hoover administration. Throughout all this, she conducted numerous social research studies including Maternal Mortality in 15 States, Children in Agriculture and Illegally Employed Minors and Workmen’s Compensation. Until her passing in 1939 she was the editor of the Social Service Review.