ABSTRACT
Women have always been and remain overrepresented among the recipients of poor relief and welfare. Modern social-service professions and systems in many Western societies have largely been influenced by women's movements and concepts of female emancipation. The development of social work as women's work in Germany can be understood adequately only within a broader context of late-nineteenth-century social reform. Middle-class social reformers were troubled by their increasing perception of the division of contemporary society into antagonistic classes. Bourgeois social reformers put their theories to the test in many of Germany's major urban centers. The scientific character of social reform formed a new source of legitimacy which set it apart not only from traditional, religiously motivated philanthropy, but also from the outdated, repressive concept of public relief. Bourgeois social reformers' understanding of "science" had several dimensions. The concept of the scientific understanding of public hygiene ran along different lines.
