Joanna Carver Colcord


Joanna Carver Colcord was pioneering social worker, and author. Born at sea, she was also notable for publishing texts on the language, work songs, and sea shanties of American seamen during the early 20th century.

Early life

Both of Colcord's parents, Jane French and Captain Lincoln Alden Colcord, came from Maine families with generations-long traditions of life on and around the sea. Lincoln Colcord delivered his daughter Joanna on board his sailing ship, the Charlotte A. Littlefield, in the southwest Pacific near New Caledonia. The ship left Newcastle, New South Wales and was sailing to Yokohama, Japan.
Aside from time spent on shore at Penobscot Bay or in Searsport, Maine, Joanna and her younger brother, Lincoln Ross Colcord, spent most of their childhood at sea.

Education and early career

Jane Colcord tutored her children at sea, and Joanna's high school education was by correspondence course. She also became adept at geography and mathematics through first-hand experience aboard the ship. She would recall later that in addition to these subjects, she also learned concepts such as racial equality, self-control, orderliness, and a sense of duty.
Beginning in 1902, Joanna studied at the University of Maine, receiving her B.S. in chemistry in 1906 and M.S. in biological chemistry in 1909.
Colcord was unsatisfied with the positions available to her in applied chemistry, and a former teacher suggested she consider social service. In 1910–1911, she studied social work at the New York School of Philanthropy, later known as the New York School of Social Work.

Career in social work

New York Charity Organization Society,
American Red Cross,
Minnesota Family Welfare Association,
Russel Sage Foundation

Late life

Health problems, including circulatory problems and diabetes, forced Colcord to retire in 1944. In November 1950, she married longtime friend and colleague Frank J. Bruno, a professor of applied sociology at Washington University in St. Louis who had become a widower several months before. After Bruno's death in 1955, Colcord moved to Lebanon, Indiana to live with her stepson. She died there in 1960 from a stroke.

Works

Colcord had a successful career as an author both on the subject of the culture of seafaring and social work. In 1924, she published a compilation of American sea songs, Roll and Go: Songs of American Sailormen. This publication was followed by Sea Language Comes Ashore and The American Neptune.

Social work

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