Born June 29, 1858 (Rockford, Illinois)

Died April 15, 1932 (Rockford, Illinois)

Social worker

Julia Clifford Lathrop was an active member of Hull House, the settlement house founded in Chicago, Illinois, by Jane Addams (1860–1935; see entry) in 1889. Located in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods, Hull House was established to provide much-needed social services to Chicago's newly arrived immigrants. Lathrop was a key figure in its first forty years of existence, and her pioneering social work eventually took her to Washington, D.C. There she served as the first director of the newly created U.S. Children's Bureau from 1912 to 1921.

Vassar Graduate

Lathrop was born in June 1858, in Rockford, Illinois. Her maternal grandparents had been one of the first families to settle in the town. Her ancestry on her father's side stretched back to the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the early 1600s. Her father, William...