On May 11, 1872, Louisa Lee Schuyler, great granddaughter of both Alexander Hamilton and Phillip Schuyler, founded the State Charities Aid Association (SCAA). Although Louisa’s family was well-known, her greatest legacy is separate and grounded in the social reform she both participated in, and made possible in the years after her death.
The original SCAA later became the State Communities Aid Association, and in 2000 was renamed the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy, in honor of its founder. Throughout the past 150 years, the organization has carried out Louisa’s legacy of advocacy rooted in compassion and a belief that government can and should take care of people in need.
This year we are celebrating SCAA’s 150th anniversary by recognizing our history and honoring the profound impact Louisa Lee had on our state and the country.
Advocacy from the Beginning
The Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy was founded as the State Charities Aid Association in the dining room of Schuyler’s mother’s house. The State Charities Aid Association worked to change the social programs for families, ill people, and anyone in need. The achievements of SCAA include founding a committee that removed children from poorhouses, educating the masses about tuberculosis, working in adoption and foster care, developing a training school for nurses, and changing the deplorable conditions in tenement houses. This advocacy continued throughout the 20th century, setting the stage for The Schuyler Center to become a powerful force in protecting families and children in New York State.
Louisa’s Life of Active Philanthropy
Louisa Lee Schuyler was born into a wealthy family in 1837 in New York City. At 24, she was given power in the Women’s Central Association of Relief, where she was tasked with overseeing all of the volunteers on the home front, including distributing supplies and providing training materials. With this experience, she founded the State Charities Aid Association, where she used the skills she developed during the Civil War to create visiting committees. She established these committees with volunteers with the intention to visit every institution in New York State to make the public aware of the deplorable conditions to make recommendations to the State Commissioners of Public Charities, later renamed The State Board of Charities. She leveraged her position in society by including her wealthy friends to join these visiting committees; using that social power to make recommendations and change. Initially, she visited Westchester County Poor House and Bellevue Hospital with volunteers and wrote a report to the State Board of Commissioners, which gave approval to inspect other charitable public institutions. This gave S.C.A.A. the ability to champion big changes, including removing children from poor houses and placing them in foster families (https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/organizations/state-institutions/schuyler-louisa-lee/). Other notable achievements of Louisa Lee in its early years were starting the first Training School for Nurses in 1873, passing of The State Care ACt, Chapter 126, Law of 1890, After Care of the Insane implemented in 1906, and organizing physicians and laymen for the Committee on the Prevention of Blindness. She was also appointed as one of the original Trustees of the Russell Sage Foundation, and in 1915, se received an honorary degree of laws (L.L.D.) from Columbia University.
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