For more information on teaching Complex Cloth, please see Jane McPherson’s 2023 article, “Social work’s complex cloth: Teaching hard history in an antebellum cotton mill.”
UGA School of Social Work profiled Complex Cloth on their newsfeed in February 2024. In the article, Annabel Bunton assessed the impact of the project on herself and other students. “When we look at these histories of injustice, it’s easy to imagine that these problems were just in the past,” Bunton said. “Complex Cloth has helped me see how these ethical problems can repeat in the present. I’ve heard from other students as well that this project has helped us to look critically at social work practice today and to prepare us to prevent harm in the future.”
Telling Complicated Stories—or Why History Matters for Social Work
This 3-part lecture from September 2021 complicates the stories we tell about the social work profession while looking locally at the history of Athens, Georgia. These lectures are used alongside historical materials (many of them found on this website) in UGA Social Work’s MSW Capstone (SOWK 7500 and SOWK 7500e) courses.
In Part 1, Dr. McPherson discusses social work’s history of “facilitating injustice” (Yoosun Park’s term) and provides a few examples that reach beyond Georgia.
In Part 2, Dr. McPherson highlights the stories of pioneering Black social workers and social work institutions in Georgia, whose histories should be shared more widely.
In Part 3, Dr. McPherson delves into the history of the Athens Factory and explores links between social work’s beginnings here and a dominant white supremacist ideology.
During the U.S. “red scares”–under the guise of “protecting democracy”–organized political forces stifled and repressed progressive social policy, political activity, and democratic rights. Thousands of ordinary people–including social workers–were ostracized, facing material consequences including imprisonment, deportation, loss of employment, and organized violence.
Panelists for this April 19, 2023 webinar: Mimi Abramovitz, Hunter College; Laura Curran, University of Connecticut; Jessica Toft, University of Minnesota School of Social Work; Kit Ginzky, University of Chicago Jane McPherson, University of Georgia School of Social Work.
Many professors at the School of Social Work add a statement to their syllabi that speaks to our oppressive history and incorporates material from the Complex Cloth project. These statements encourage reflection on the past and the present.
