Alexander Johnson was an American social worker. He made a great contribution in the building of social forces in America.
Background
Johnson was born on January 2, 1847, in Ashton-under-Lyne, England, the youngest of four children (two boys and two girls) of John Johnson, a devout Baptist and a prosperous merchant tailor with Chartist sympathies, and Amelia (Hill) Johnson. The boy was named William Alexander, and his family usually called him "Will, " but he later dropped his first name.
Education
Although his formal education - in private schools, at the Mechanics' Institute, and at Owens (later Victoria) College, Manchester - included no training in welfare work, Johnson early had a taste of the philanthropic life.
Career
Johnson's parents made their home something of a relief agency, dispensing food and money to the striking cotton spinners and weavers in the 1850's and to those suffering from hunger during the "cotton famine" of the 1860's.
In 1869, partly because of these same economic conditions, Johnson immigrated to Canada and settled in Hamilton, where he worked in a tailoring factory. He lived with his employer, William Johnston, and, in 1872, married Johnston's daughter. Shortly after his marriage Johnson moved to Chicago and then, around 1877, to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he worked in the manufacturing department of a clothing firm. In 1882 he volunteered as a "friendly visitor" to the poor for the Cincinnati Associated Charities, one of the many newly established private agencies which sought to centralize charitable work and place it on a "scientific" basis. Two years later he was promoted to general secretary and was made a paid member of the staff, thus embarking upon a career as a professional social worker.
In keeping with the principles of the charity organization movement, Johnson persuaded a number of local charities to use his agency as a central investigating body before dispensing relief. He also established a wood yard, in which applicants for charity were given a work test, and developed fresh-air activities for mothers and children. In 1886 he was called to the Chicago Charity Organization Society, where he served for three years as general secretary.
Johnson moved into public welfare work in 1889 when he became secretary of the new Indiana State Board of Charities, established at a time when many states were bringing local public welfare activities under state control and were developing facilities for specialized needs. It was Johnson's responsibility to inspect state and county institutions. He devised a central registry for all institutional inmates and sought to have the mentally retarded, who comprised the largest group in almshouses, segregated by sex in asylums.
Growing interest in mental retardation led to his appointment in 1893 as superintendent of the Indiana State School for the Feeble-minded at Fort Wayne. Here he operated on the assumption that the retarded should receive both permanent institutional care and training in a useful occupation. Johnson, who had hired his wife as assistant superintendent, managed to survive a state senate investigation in 1896-1897 growing out of charges of nepotism, but he resigned in 1903, believing that his method of handling the retarded had lost the support of both the governor and the board of trustees.
Johnson moved in 1904 to New York City as associate director of the New York School of Philanthropy (later the Columbia University School of Social Work). Here he helped develop a curriculum for the study of social work and lectured on public institutions. Increasing commitments to the National Conference forced his resignation in 1906, though he continued to lecture there and at other schools of social work. A shrewd manager, Johnson placed the Conference on a secure financial footing, transformed it from a collection of individuals to a gathering of organizations, and helped arrange the program and speakers that brought it into the forefront of progressive social reform.
In 1912 Johnson moved to the Vineland (New Jersey) Training School - of which his brother-in-law Edward R. Johnstone was principal - as the director of its extension department. The school sought to promote occupational training for mental defectives, and the extension department had been recently founded to spread word of its work to groups in other parts of the country interested in establishing institutions similar to Vineland. When the department was moved to permanent headquarters in Philadelphia in 1915, Johnson took the post of field secretary.
From 1918 to 1922 Johnson worked for the American Red Cross, at first in the home service department dealing with the problems of soldiers and their families and later as a lecturer on the Red Cross in the Southern division. He retired in 1922, but for many years continued writing articles and serving as a consultant and an active member of the National Conference.
Johnson died at the home of his son Will in Aurora, Illinois, at the age of ninety-four, of myocardial degeneration. He was buried in Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Achievements
Connections
On June 6, 1872, Johnson married Eliza Ann Johnston. They had seven children: Kathrine Dulcie, Herbert Spencer, William Amyas, John Hill, George Alexander, Margaret Marion, and Enid.