Clorinda Low Lucas: Hawaii’s Social Work Pioneer

Abstract

This article examines the professional life and work of Hawaiian social welfare pioneer Clorinda Low Lucas. Educated at Smith College and the New York School of Social Work, Lucas worked with several organizations, including the New York Young Women’s Christian Association, the Hawaiian Humane Society, and the Hawaiian public schools. Lucas’s career, which spanned more than 40 years from the early 1920s to her retirement in 1960, advanced the social work profession, often setting the tone for professional practice in Hawaii. Lucas’s life embodies a personal and professional struggle with cultural awareness and acceptance. As she engaged in the politics of social work and social welfare, Lucas alternately accepted and rejected her native Hawaiian cultural ways of being. As this article shows, Lucas’s ambivalence about her cultural heritage may well have been the motivating force behind her work.