Bridget Moran fonds - 2008.3
Bridget Moran (née Drugan) (1923-1999) was a prominent social activist, social worker, writer and mentor who spent most of her adult life in British Columbia. In 1951 Moran immigrated from Ireland to British Columbia where she began a career as a social worker; first in welfare offices in Haney, Salmon Arm and Vernon, and then in 1954 in Prince George where she took a position as District Supervisor of Welfare Services for a large section of the Central Interior of BC. Moran worked as a social worker for 10 years based out of Prince George attending to the welfare service needs of BC’s Central Interior population. Her career with the public service came to a very public end when she was suspended from her position in 1964 after she wrote an open letter in a Vancouver newspaper criticizing Premier W.A.C. Bennett’s Social Credit government for what she saw as gross neglect in addressing the needs of child welfare in the province. Although Moran eventually won reinstatement after a two year battle, she was told there would be no work available for her in the BC Ministry of Social Services. She continued her career in social work; first, for the Prince George Regional Hospital, and later with the University of Victoria Social Work Department as a practicum instructor for social work students in Prince George. In 1977 she practiced social work with the PG School District, retiring in 1989.
Her work as a social worker is represented in the Career Related Materials Series. This series consists of annual reports, correspondence, newspaper clippings, records of employment, a retirement party guest book, business cards, invitations, speeches, appointment announcements, pamphlets, Bridget Moran’s “Oath of Allegiance; Office and Revenue to the Government of British Columbia”, social work reports, contracts, copies of Employee Earnings Statements, background material on the case Hale vs. Her Majesty the Queen, and social work notebooks all pertaining to Bridget's career as a social worker with the Province of British Columbia and the Prince George School District, and as a member of the College of New Caledonia (CNC) Board, the Legal Services Society of B.C. and People on Welfare. The series consists of 45.5cm textual records and 5 photographs.
Access Restrictions: Due to the personal nature of some of the information captured in her records pertaining to her career in Social Work, some of these files may be restricted. Please consult the "Restrictions on access" field in the archives database descriptions and an archivist for more information.
Images (top to bottom):
