more directly with the evolution of early social work. Tagged with a variety of names: State Board of Charities, Board of Public Charities, Board of Charities and Corrections; the state board movement sought, essentially, to bring some order to the management of state institutions (Davis, 1967). Many states, mostly Eastern, experienced an institutional building boom, erecting reformatories, prisons, mental asylums, poor-houses and orphanages.
However, it was soon seen that these institutions not only did not solve the problems that created them, but presented new problems in institutional management. Beginning in Massachusetts in 1863, states began appointing boards to oversee and manage the operations of their institutional structures. The idea quickly captured the imagination of early charity workers. In 1865, a convention to establish a national association was called. More than three hundred delegates attended (Davis, 1967).
Just as religious and biblical notions had driven and shaped the character
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