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Verl Lewis was a social work educator, welfare administrator, and historian of the social work profession. Lewis studied social work at the University of Chicago and at Case Western Reserve University. During his career he was a professor of social work at the University of Oregon (1949-1952), University of Connecticut (1955-1959), and University of Maryland (1959-1974). He also served as a public relief worker in South Dakota; public welfare administrator in Portland, Oregon; and staff member with the American Red Cross in California. Lewis was also a founding member of the Social Welfare History Group.

Verl Lewis was born in rural South Dakota in 1910 and received his undergraduate education at Huron College in South Dakota. He took social work courses for a brief period at the University of Minnesota before becoming a public assistance worker in South Dakota. Initially he was employed under the Federal Emergency Relief Act and assigned to survey the socioeconomic conditions on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in South Dakota. From 1937 to1939, he attended graduate school at the University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration.

After graduating with his master’s degree, Lewis moved to rural eastern Oregon where he was one of the first child welfare workers in the state under the newly organized public welfare commission. Lewis became the administrator of public welfare in Multnomah County (Portland) Oregon. During World War II, he was recruited into the American Red Cross, eventually moving to California with that organization. In 1947, he was fired after trying to organize the American Red Cross social workers into a unit of the UOPWA (United Office and Professional Workers of America). For two years after this event, he worked as a field instructor for the University of California at Berkeley.

Lewis served as an assistant professor of sociology (and eventually social work) at the University of Oregon in Eugene from 1949 to 1952. Although the University of Oregon had no social work program, Lewis’s appointment was intended to be the first step in that direction. He returned to graduate school at Western Reserve University (Cleveland, Ohio) in 1952, and received his D.S.W. in 1954 with a dissertation on the early development of charity organization societies in the United States.

From 1954 until1960, Lewis was a professor in the University of Connecticut School of Social Work, teaching research and casework courses. In 1960, he moved to the University of Maryland as the first Dean of the new School of Social Work. He remained in that position until health problems resulted in his return to the teaching faculty and retirement in 1974. Throughout this time, he taught courses in casework, social policy, administration and community organization, and supervised both masters and doctoral research projects.

Verl Lewis was also an active in a number of national and local organizations including the Board of Education in Glastonbury, Connecticut and the Unitarian Church. He was a founding member and first treasurer of the Social Welfare History Group.