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.

Early life and education Herman was born in Boston, the daughter of Joseph Herman and Hannah Adler Herman. Her father was a shoe manufacturer. 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. 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.

From 1934 to 1957, Solomon was a professor of social economy at Simmons College. 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.

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. and The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. Syphilis of the Innocent (1922, with Harry C. Solomon) "The Problem of the Supply of Psychiatric Social Workers for State Hospitals" (1928, with June F. Lyday) The Prevention of Hospitalization: Treatment Without Admission for Psychiatric Patients (1963, with Milton Greenblatt, Robert F. Moore, and Robert S. Albert) 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) "A 10-Year Follow-Up of 55 Hospitalized Adolescents" (1974, with Elizabeth G. Herrera, Betty Glasser Lifson, and Ernest Hartmann) and Eric. Her husband died in 1982, and she died in 1988, at the age of 96. Historian Barbara Miller Solomon was her daughter-in-law.