Gertrude Vaile papers, 1892-1954

Gertrude Vaile (January 20, 1878 – October 15, 1954): Social Worker, Public Welfare Administrator, Reformer and Pioneer in Social Work Education

Vaile was born in Kokomo, Indiana the daughter of Joel Frederick and Charlotte White Vaile. When Vaile was about five her family moved to Denver where her father was appointed the general counsel for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. She attended public schools in Denver, graduated from Vassar College in 1900, and then went on to the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy. While in Chicago, she was a resident at Chicago Commons, the settlement house founded by Graham Taylor. Shortly after graduating, she became a caseworker for United Charities in Chicago.

In 1913, Vaile was asked by the Mayor of Denver to take a position on the City Board of Charities and Corrections. She accepted the offer and within a year she became the executive director of the board. She applied the casework principles of the charity organization society movement (casework, case conferences, friendly visitors) to a publicly administered agency. Vaile also introduced the use of interagency case conferences at which representatives of all public and private social agencies met to marshal community resources for clients. Through Vaile's efforts the Denver Board of Charities and Corrections evolved into the nation's first legitimate public social service agency.

Vaile also was affiliated with the Red Cross as the Director of Civilian Relief for the Mountain Division from 1917 to 1919. She was on the field staff of the Family Service Association of America from 1919 to 1923, covering the area west of the Mississippi. She left this position to become the executive director of the Colorado State Department of Charities and Corrections. In 1926, Vaile was elected president of the National Conference of Social Work.

In 1930 she took up academic life at the University of Minnesota, where she was an associate professor of sociology and the associate director of the Training Course for Social and Civic Work (later the School of Social Work) until her retirement in 1946. At Minnesota, she worked to strengthen the Association of Schools of Social Work that became the Council of Social Work Education (CSWE).

In her retirement, Vaile returned to Denver. She died in 1954.