Mary Ellen Richmond

Born in Belleville, Illinois, on August 5, 1861, Mary Ellen Richmond lost her parents and siblings at a young age and was raised in Baltimore by her grandmother and aunts. She later joined the Baltimore Charity Organization Society, where she began the work that would make her one of the key architects of modern social work.

Richmond became known for developing social casework as a disciplined method rather than simply an act of goodwill. She argued that helping people effectively required understanding the full context of their lives, and she set out those ideas most famously in Social Diagnosis (1917), a book often treated as a landmark in the field.

She also worked with major reform organizations in Philadelphia and New York, including the Russell Sage Foundation, and played an important part in promoting training for social workers. When she died in 1928, she had already helped define social work as a profession grounded in observation, evidence, and practical compassion.