Bertha Capen Reynolds

Bertha Capen Reynolds, Class of 1914 (1885–1978), was a social worker who pioneered various theories and methodologies, including strength-based practice, radical social work, and critical social work. After completing her undergraduate education at Smith College, she enrolled in the Boston School for Social Workers, now known as the Simmons School of Social Work. Reynolds was especially devoted to marginalized populations, namely the Black community and the indigent. In 1925, she became the Associate Director of the Smith College School of Social Work, where she supervised students’ field placements and taught summer courses.

Reynolds was a prolific scholar who published six books, most famously Learning and Teaching in the Practice of Social Work (1942). As she wrote in her introduction to this book, “Learning an art, which is knowledge applied to doing something in which the whole person participates, cannot be carried on solely as an intellectual process, no matter how clearly and attractively subject matter is presented with the aim of insuring that the conscious attention of the learner shall not flag. As progressive educators have pointed out, unless there is opportunity to practice its use, there is invariably a gap between knowing a thing and being able to do something with it.” The Special Collections at Smith College Libraries houses Reynolds’ archived papers.

Photograph courtesy of the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College.