Emma Octavia Lundberg
Emma Octavia Lundberg (October 8, 1881 – November 17, 1954) was a Swedish-American child welfare leader and the first Director of the Social Services Division of the United States Children's Bureau.[1] She was born in 1881 in Västergötland, Sweden. In 1884, Lundberg emigrated with her parents to the United States and settled in Rockford, Illinois. She received her bachelor's and master's degree from University of Wisconsin.[1] In 1914 she became the first Director of the Social Services Division of the United States Children's Bureau, where she directed studies on illegitimacy, juvenile delinquency, state child welfare laws, and the care of children considered mentally deficient.[1] In 1925 she resigned her Director post in favor of joining the Child Welfare League of America, where she worked as Director of the Department of Institutional Care, and later as Director of Studies and Surveys.[1] In the beginning of the Great Depression she was made Director of Research and Statistics at the New York Temporary Emergency Relief Administration under then-Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt.[1] In 1935 she went back to the United States Children's Bureau when Chief of the Bureau Katherine Lenroot asked her to; Lenroot had been the Assistant Director of the Social Services Division of the Bureau when she was Director there.[1] Lenroot had also been her assistant at the Wisconsin Industrial Commission in 1913.[1] Lundberg worked as the Assistant Director of the Child Welfare Division from 1935 until 1942, and from 1942 to 1945 she worked as a consultant in social services for children.[1] She helped form children welfare provisions under the Social Security Act 1938.[1] In 1940 she was the Assistant Secretary to the 1940 White House Conference on Children in a Democracy.[1] She retired in 1945 for health reasons.[1] Lundberg lived with Lenroot in Hartsdale, New York from 1951 (when Lenroot retired) until her own death in 1954.[1]
Lundberg wrote and co-wrote many publications about child welfare.[2]
The Emma Octavia Lundberg papers, circa 1909-1954, are held at Columbia University.[3]