Rapoport, Lydia (1923–1971)

Austrian-born American social-work educator who was the first UN inter-regional adviser on family welfare and family planning. Name variations: Lydia Rappoport. Born in Vienna, Austria, on March 8, 1923; died in New York City on September 6, 1971; daughter of Eugenia (Margulies) Rappoport and Samuel Rappoport (a businessman and later a translator); attended public schools; Hunter College, B.A., 1943; Smith College School for Social Work, M.S.W., 1944; received certificate in child therapy from the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis; studied at the London School of Economics; studied at the Harvard School of Public Health (1959–60).

The younger of two children born to Eugenia Margulies Rappoport and Samuel Rappoport in Vienna, Austria, Lydia Rapoport (who later changed the spelling of her last name) moved with most of her family to the United States in 1932, where her father, who had studied law in Vienna and worked in the grain-trading business, had immigrated in 1928. He worked as a translator in New York City, where the family settled and Lydia attended public schools. After graduating from high school, she went on to earn a bachelor's degree in 1943 as a Phi Beta Kappa sociology major at Hunter College. She then enrolled in an accelerated graduate course at Smith College School for Social Work, and was only 21 when she received a master's degree in 1944. Moving to Chicago, she studied for a certificate in child therapy from the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis and worked in several jobs in the field of child guidance. Rapoport made a specialty of diagnosing and treating children with emotional problems while a counselor at the Institute for Juvenile Research, as an intake supervisor at the University of Chicago's Child Guidance Clinic, and then as a supervisor at the Jewish Children's Bureau and the Michael Reese Hospital.

Having won a Fulbright fellowship, Rapoport went to study at the London School of Economics in 1952. While in England, she became friends with Dame Eileen Younghusband , an influential scholar of social work and educator, and Richard Titmuss, one of the creators of England's National Health Service. Rapoport returned to the United States in 1954, settling in California to be near her brother and his family, and supervised students from the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley, who worked at the California State Mental Hygiene Clinic. The following year, she became an assistant professor at the School of Social Welfare, teaching social casework. She studied with Erich Lindemann at the Harvard School of Public Health during 1959–60, and in 1963 was a visiting professor at the Baerwald School of Social Work of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. There she helped to establish standards for undergraduate curricula in social-work programs, and, although being Jewish had never played a large part in her identity, she was deeply impressed with the people and country.

After her return to Berkeley, Rapoport was named a full professor in 1969. During summer breaks, she also taught at her alma mater, Smith College, and at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. The founder of the Community Mental Health Program at Berkeley, an advanced program for graduate social workers, Rapoport specialized in consultation, supervision, and crisis theory, and it was in these areas that she did her major research and writing. Her most important contribution was her articulation of a theoretical framework for "crisis-oriented brief treatment," which she helped to create as a social-casework specialty. She also helped to define the distinct functions of consultation and supervision within social work, and to establish rules for both supervisors and students.

In January 1971, Rapoport became the first United Nations inter-regional adviser on family welfare and family planning, and moved to New York City. Half a year later, while gearing up to begin a study on social workers' potential usefulness in assisting family planning programs in Israel, she underwent emergency intestinal surgery in New York. She died of acute bacterial endocarditis less than two months later, on September 6, 1971. In tribute, friends set up the Lydia Rapoport Distinguished Visiting Professorship, supported by the Lydia Rapoport Endowment Fund, at Smith College School for Social Work.

sources:

Sicherman, Barbara, and Carol Hurd Green, eds. Notable American Women: The Modern Period. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1980.

Jo Anne Meginnes , freelance writer, Brookfield, Vermont