Evelyn Weeks Hersey was an American social worker. She served as an executive secretary of the YWCA International Institute of Philadelphia, service director of the American Committee for Christian Refugees in New York City, and social welfare attache in India.
Background
Evelyn Weeks Hersey was born on December 9, 1897 in New Bedford, Massachussets. She was the daughter of Charles Francis Hersey, a Congregational minister who was director of a settlement house, and of Sarah Dow Weeks. The settlement house where she grew up served immigrant groups who worked in the textile mills.
Education
Hersey attended the public schools of New Bedford through the tenth grade, then transferred to Northfield Seminary, graduating in 1915. She received the B. A. from Mount Holyoke College in 1919.
Upon graduation she entered the National Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) training school for a course in religious education.
In 1927, Hersey took a one-year course at the Pennsylvania School of Social Work in Philadelphia, receiving a certificate in 1928. During the 1930's she took additional courses at the Pennsylvania School and received the Master of Social Work degree in 1938.
Career
In Trenton, New Jersey (1919-1920), and Lowell, Massachussets (1920-1922), Hersey supervised club work. Her next job, as executive secretary of the International Institute of the Baltimore YWCA, focused upon helping first- and second-generation immigrant women solve problems of cultural adjustment.
Following receipt of her social work certificate in 1928, Hersey accepted a position as executive secretary of the YWCA International Institute of Philadelphia. For the next eleven years she supervised a bilingual staff engaged in casework and group work.
During the Great Depression she worked closely with other community agencies and with the Works Progress Administration and the National Youth Administration.
From 1939 to 1943 Hersey was service director of the American Committee for Christian Refugees in New York City. The committee assisted refugees from Germany and Italy, helping them to relocate and find employment in the United States. In 1943 Hersey was appointed special assistant to the United States commissioner of immigration and naturalization in Philadelphia. With a staff of 180, she was responsible for developing community services, such as health, education, and recreation, in the civilian internment camps established for enemy aliens.
After the war she assisted in deportation of internees. In 1947 Hersey was appointed a foreign service reserve officer, with the title social welfare attache, and was assigned to the American embassy at New Delhi, India, the following year. This position was abolished in 1952, but she was soon employed as social welfare adviser by the International Cooperation Administration. She worked in India until 1958, when she left to become a United Nations social welfare adviser in Turkey.
The position of social welfare attache was new, two such jobs having been set up by the Department of State to improve government knowledge of social conditions and problems and of progress in social welfare in relation to political and economic stability in foreign countries. Hersey was exceptionally well qualified for these duties in India. The core of the job, as she saw it, was to interpret Indian social conditions to the embassy and, when requested, to report to Indians about social problems and programs in the United States. To this end she traveled more than 700, 000 miles, visiting the villages as well as all the principal cities.
Although Hersey was a firm supporter of the American aid program, she consistently emphasized how hard the Indians were working to help themselves. In her work with the International Cooperation Administration, she contributed significantly to social-work education in India, both through professional guidance and by raising money. Never one to impose her ideas on others, however, she regarded social work in India as developing out of the country's own social and psychological heritage. Hersey's work in Turkey followed the same lines as in India, but her tour of duty was interrupted by a malignancy that required surgery.
Upon her return to the United States in 1960, she carried out a study for the National Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Houses, then worked for about a year as executive director of the San Francisco International Institute. Hersey died in Milton, Vermont. The Indian government sent its consul from New York to speak at her funeral.
Personality
Hersey was a person of tremendous energy, essentially optimistic, and a careful observer and reporter.