Sadie Shapiro (1899-1967) was an American-Jewish medical social worker and activist who made pioneering contributions to the field of rehabilitation. For many years, she directed the Social Service Department of the Hospital for Joint Diseases in Manhattan(today, NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital). At the height of America’s involvement in World War Two, Shapiro helped develop a new type of service for wounded soldiers that integrated medical care, rehabilitation, and occupational re-training. The New York Post described the initiative as “one of the newest, most interesting and most worthwhile services going on in the city today.” Widely regarded by this time as the nation’s top expert in the field of medical social work, Shapiro was hired in 1946 by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to help Holocaust survivors in the DP camps in Europe, as the organization's medical service consultant. In the late 1950s, Sadie spearheaded an effort to establish an on-site retirement service for residents of Morningside Gardens, one of New York City's first racially integrated housing cooperatives for middle-income families. Designed to facilitate aging-in-place, the retirement service was incorporated as the "Morningside Retirement and Health Services" and operates to the present day.
Early Life and Education
The daughter of Jewish emigrants from Lithuania, Shapiro was born on January 17, 1899, in Boston, MA. She grew up in nearby Chelsea, at the time a major center of Jewish immigrant life. In high school, Sadie was active as a leader in local Zionist youth groups. She attended Boston University (class of ’23), where she was active in socialist politics on campus, at one point serving as the head of the Boston University chapter of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. After graduating, Shapiro attended Smith College, graduating in 1923 with an M.S.S. degree from the Smith College Training School for Social Work. Her thesis, "A Study of the Personality Traits of the Siblings of Ten Hebrew Dementia Praecox Patients", examined the personality traits of a group of Jewish patients suffering from a condition now classified as schizophrenia.
Career in Medical Social Work
After working in Boston for four years as a case worker for the Federation of Jewish Charities, Sadie moved to New York in 1927. She continued her education at the Rand School of Social Science, a workers’ educational institution founded in 1906 and closely affiliated with the Socialist Party of America. In 1931, Sadie was appointed director of the Social Service Department at the Neurological Institute of New York, a position she held for many years.
In January 1943, Sadie accepted a position at the Hospital for Joint Diseases and Medical Center in Manhattan, where she would spend the rest of her career. During World War II, Shapiro developed an interest in the nexus between social work and the process of rehabilitation. She soon garnered a reputation in social work circles as the nation's foremost expert on the subject. In 1943, Shapiro was brought into the activities of the National Council on Rehabilitation (NCR), a national agency formed to study and practice of the rehabilitation of individuals with disabilities.
At this time, Sadie developed an experimental plan for the HJD. Her idea was to create a program which would integrate medical services, rehabilitation, and occupational re-training, all under the same roof. By uniting medical treatment with rehabilitation and occupational re-training, Sadie wanted to increase the patient’s likelihood of future occupational success and stability, with a corresponding decrease in the chances of readmission to a hospital. Shapiro's plan was backed by Fredrick Elton, the New York City Director of the New York State Rehabilitation Service. In April 1944, Sadie’s blueprint for the plan was submitted to the Medical Board of the HJD, and by October 1944, the “Rehabilitation Service,” as the program was named, was up and running. Shortly before it was launched, the Rehabilitation Service was the subject of an article in the New York Post titled “New Hope for the Physically Disabled.” Mary Braggiotti, the Post reporter, noted that HJD “is the first in New York and possibly the country to offer this service.”
Work with Holocaust Survivors in the DP Camps
Shapiro spent the years 1946 to 1948 as a medical social worker in the Displaced Persons camps of postwar Europe. From June 1946 until August 1947, she was employed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee as the organization's medical social work consultant. From September 1947 until November 1948, Sadie worked in Europe under the auspices of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. Sadie was approached by the JDC in recognition of her expertise in the process of rehabilitation. At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the AJJDC, held in New York on April 24, 1946, the medical and health committee noted that Shapiro is “regarded as the dean in the field of medical social work in this country.”
Shapiro was instrumental in creating a rehabilitation program for Jews in the DP camps. This was a major initiative, with the backing from the Jewish Agency, JDC, and the World ORT. By the end of January 1948, the "Rehabilitation Bureau for Jews in Germany and Austria" was operational, with central offices in Munich. In a report to Dr. Neuwirth of the JDC, dated January 30, 1948, Shapiro defined the Bureau’s goal as “‘the restoration of the disabled to the fullest physical, social and mental usefulness of which they are capable.’” According to historian Ada Schein, the primary motivation underlying the Rehabilitation Bureau was absorption challenges in Palestine, where “the heads of the medical and social establishment of the Yishuv” were unable to cope with the many disabled Jewish emigrants entering the country. The problem could be mitigated by starting the process of rehabilitation in Europe. Schein also notes that the Rehabilitation Bureau “was planned by the JDC social-medical consultant Sadie Shapiro.”
Involvement with Social Work in Israel: 1949-1950
In late 1949, the JDC established an agency in Israel called Malben (Hebrew acronym of Mosedot, le-Tippul be-OlimNeḥshalim). The program, which was co-run by the JDC, Jewish Agency, and the Israeli government, was created to assist the new Israeli government in caring for the thousands of Jews who had emigrated to the country with physical or mental disabilities. Sadie played a role in the social-service aspects of the Malben initiative. In December 1949, the JDC invited Shapiro “to come to Israel to work for the new organization as Medical Welfare Director. We have not as yet had a reply from her as to whether she is willing to accept the position, but most likely she will, as she is very interested in working in Israel.” Though she turned down the offer, from September to December 1950, Shapiro participated in the work of the Recruitment Committee for Social Workers in Israel.
Morningside Retirement and Health Services
In the late 1950s, Shapiro spearheaded an effort to establish a retirement service for residents of Morningside Gardens, one of New York’s first racially integrated housing cooperatives for middle-income families. Shapiro was among the first tenants of the Upper West Side housing cooperative, which opened in 1957. In 1959, about a dozen Morningside residents met in Shapiro's apartment to discuss the details for the retirement service project. During the meeting, over which Sadie presided, a name for the organization was selected: Morningside Retirement and Health Services. According to Morningside Gardens resident Muriel Cohn, who took minutes of the meeting, Shapiro “declined any outward leadership of the new group. She voiced, it would be more effective to have a man lead it.” Instead, Morningside resident Donald Lowrie, a physician at St. Luke’s Hospital, was selected to direct Morningside Retirement and Health Services. MRHS was incorporated in the summer of 1966,
Shapiro and the other co-founders of Morningside Retirement and Health Services were motivated to establish MRHS out of recognition that a large portion of Morningside residents were nearing retirement. The core value underlying MRHS was community mutual aid by and for retirees and the promotion of aging in place. Retired residents would know that there was an address to which they could turn for information and resources regarding health care, as well as attend cultural events with fellow Morningside residents. The service would help circumvent the need for retired residents to relocate to nursing homes or other long-term care facilities. Shapiro and the other co-founders of MRHS anticipated the naturally occurring retirement community, or NORC, which are government-recognized communities eligible for federal and state funding. Morningside Gardens was among the first in New York to receive the designation as a NORC, and MRHS continues to operate as one of the city’s oldest and most successful NORCs.
Death
Sadie died on May 1, 1967, at the age of 68. On May 3, 1967, an obituary was published in the New York Times. “The staff of the Social Service Department of the Hospital for Joint Diseases and Medical Center records with deep sorrow the passing on May 1, 1967, of Miss Sadie Shapiro, who served with singular distinction as the department’s director until her retirement in March, 1966 and who pioneered in developing services for the physically handicapped.”
Teaching and Publications
Between 1943-1946, Sadie guest lectured at Columbia University as a special lecturer in courses on rehabilitation. In the postwar years, Sadie served on the editorial board of The Jewish Social Service Quarterly (JSSQ). Her publications include: “Hospitals’ Place In Community Organization,” Hospitals, 12-48-50, February, 1938; “Use of the Social Service Exchange by Medical and Psychiatric Social Workers” (1944). [With Theodate Soule], “Medical Social Service for Selectees,” The Family, July, 1942.