What is the Blue Ridge Institute?

"Peopleizing" Services a la Blue Ridge
by Harold J. Weekley, 1914-98

Beginnings

1927 was the beginning...

While Charles A. Lindbergh was making his famous non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic in May 1927, there was another pioneer in Richmond, Virginia, who was putting final touches on arrangements for the first meeting of Blue Ridge. I refer to Arthur Alden Guild, a social engineer who had come to Richmond two years earlier as Director of the Richmond Community Fund. He believed the South needed the Institute in order that voluntarily-supported and public-supported agencies in the health, welfare and youth-serving fields could benefit by having their executives meet for discussion of topics which affected their daily work. He wanted to improve existing leadership and create a desire in communities for better trained people.

First Session-Like School

Opportunities for health and social work training were quite limited in 1927. Nevertheless, many community-service executives were most eager to improve their knowledge and techniques. Arthur Guild, our founder and honorary chairman until his death in 1955, discussed the Institute idea with a few friends in Richmond. The first session was planned as an ambitious effort to cover all aspects of Community Organization. Letters were exchanged with potential Blue Ridgers in other southern cities, with each state having at least one person on the first program. Several national agencies agreed to send representatives to the Institute. The national association of Community Chests and Councils agreed to assist with conducting the new program. Little did that group of pioneers realize that the organization they were forming would help so much to shape social work in the South, and assist materially in the development of community planning councils and other fine programs that were designed for human enrichment. Yes, social engineering was conceived in the South by some mighty wonderful parents who left us a rich heritage to follow.

The first institute was promoted to "A Vacation Institute for Southern Social Work Executives" and included five courses which related to organizing the Social Forces of a community to care for the Social Problems of a community. It was held for two weeks. August 1-12, when 56 brave social workers from 33 cities and 15 states arrived at Blue Ridge for school-and it was pretty much a school setting in Lee Hall for the first week. However, the chill was taken off the group during the second week when a sincere effort was made to promote fellowship. The enthusiasm of the first session assured the Institute as a continuing operation, with each succeeding meeting following the pattern of a balanced program of work and fellowship. The first and second Institutes were held for two weeks each, but all succeeding sessions have been for only one week.

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