During the first two decades of the twentieth century in cities across America, both men and women struggled for urban reform but in distinctively different ways. Adhering to gender roles of the time, men working for independent research bureaus sought to apply scientific and business practices to corrupt city governments, while women in the settlement house movement labored to improve the lives of the urban poor by testing new services and then getting governments to adopt them. Although the two intertwined at first, the contributions of these "settlement women" to the development of the administrative state have been largely lost as the new field of public administration evolved from the research bureaus and diverged from social work. Camilla Stivers now shows how public administration came to be dominated not just by science and business but also by masculinity, calling into question much that is taken for granted about the profession and creating an alternative vision of public service.
Bureau Men Settlement Women
During the first two decades of the twentieth century in cities across America, both men and women struggled for urban reform but in distinctively different ways. Adhering to gender roles of the time, men working for independent research bureaus sought to apply scientific and business practices to corrupt city governments, while women in the settlement house movement labored to improve the lives of the urban poor by testing new services and then getting governments to adopt them. Although the two intertwined at first, the contributions of these “settlement women” to the development of the administrative state have been largely lost as the new field of public administration evolved from the research bureaus and diverged from social work. Camilla Stivers now shows how public administration came to be dominated not just by science and business but also by masculinity, calling into question much that is taken for granted about the profession and creating an alternative vision of public service.