Maida Herman Solomon

Maida Herman Solomon (March 9, 1891 – January 25, 1988) was an American psychiatric social worker, college professor, writer, researcher, and advocate for sex education and community mental health services. She was a founder and first president of the American Association of Psychiatric Social Workers.

Herman was born in Boston, the daughter of Joseph Herman and Hannah Adler Herman. Her father was a shoe manufacturer.^[1] Her family was Jewish; her great-aunt was philanthropist Lina Frank Hecht. She attended Boston Girls' Latin School and graduated from Smith College in 1912. She completed a secretarial course at Simmons College in 1914.^[2][1]

In 1915, Solomon was secretary of Boston's Union Park Forum, and marched in a parade for women's suffrage.^[3][4] She was a psychiatric social worker at Boston Psychopathic Hospital beginning in 1916. She served on the board of Hecht House, a Jewish settlement house.^[1] In 1926 she was a founder and first president of the American Association of Psychiatric Social Workers.^[5]

From 1934 to 1957, Solomon was a professor of social economy at Simmons College.^[6] After she retired from Simmons, she became a consultant in Boston, and head of a research team in psychiatric social work. She was awarded the Smith College Medal in 1979.^[7]

Solomon was active in the Boston Community Fund, the American Red Cross, Beth Israel Hospital, the Massachusetts Conference of Social Workers, and many other organizations in Boston.^[4]

Solomon co-wrote several books; her articles appeared in scholarly journals including The American Journal of Psychiatry^[8][9][10] and The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology.^[5]

• The Field of Social Service (1915, co-editor)
• "The Family of the Neurosyphilitic" (1918, with Harry C. Solomon)^[11]
• Syphilis of the Innocent (1922, with Harry C. Solomon)^[12]
• "The Problem of the Supply of Psychiatric Social Workers for State Hospitals" (1928, with June F. Lyday)^[8]
• "Extramural Psychiatry and Affiliated Services" (1944, with George S. Stevenson, Mary E. Corcoran, and Beatrice D. Wade)^[9]
• "The Family as a Potential Resource for the Rehabilitation of the Chronic Schizophrenic Patient: A Study of 60 Patients and their Families" (1961, with Anne S. Evans and Dexter M. Bullard Jr.)^[13]
• The Prevention of Hospitalization: Treatment Without Admission for Psychiatric Patients (1963, with Milton Greenblatt, Robert F. Moore, and Robert S. Albert)^[14]
• Drug and social therapy in chronic schizophrenia (1965, with Milton Greenblatt, Betty Ann Glasser, Anne S. Evans, and G. W. Brooks)
• Adolescents in a Mental Hospital (1968, with Ernest Hartmann, Milton Greenblatt, and Daniel Levinson)^[15]
• "A 10-Year Follow-Up of 55 Hospitalized Adolescents" (1974, with Elizabeth G. Herrera, Betty Glasser Lifson, and Ernest Hartmann)^[10]

Maida Herman married psychiatrist Harry C. Solomon in 1916. They had four children, Peter, Joseph, Babette,^[16] and Eric. Her husband died in 1982, and she died in 1988, at the age of 96.^[4] Her papers are in the Schlesinger Library and the Simmons College Archives. In 2004, a collection of essays and documents, and her memoir, were published as Carrying a Banner for Psychiatric Social Work: Essays, Perspectives, and Maida Herman Solomon's Oral Memoir.^[17] Historian Barbara Miller Solomon was her daughter-in-law.^[18]