IN ADDITION to its involvement in health care, Hadassah was also engaged in a large number of projects to benefit children and teenagers, both during the Mandate period and after the State of Israel was established. These projects were consistent with the perception of appropriate realms of activity for women in the United States since the end of the nineteenth century—nursing (especially within the field of public health), social work, and education—and in this sense expressed Hadassah's identity as a women's organization more than its health and medical projects did. Hadassah's activity in this field also reflected the concerns of the time at which the organization was founded. No previous period in the history of the United States had been so focused on children as the Progressive era (1890–1920), during which many new movements emerged to benefit children and numerous new educational methods were developed. This focus on children and youth had considerable influence on the path that Hadassah took.

The need for these reforms arose as part of far wider social changes. These took place in the context of rapid expansion in industry and trade accompanied by large waves of immigration (including that of two and a half million Jews from eastern Europe—one-third of east European Jewry at the time and approximately 10 per cent of all immigrants to the United States between 1880 and 1914), and by enormous growth in the populations of the large cities.

Many of the Progressive activists—including well-educated, upper-middle-class urban women, who had the time and the resources to devote to charitable and volunteer organizations—placed the welfare of children at the top of their list of priorities. They invested great effort in public health and in improving living conditions in poor neighbourhoods, whose inhabitants they perceived as backward. This perception reflected the view held by the established American population of all immigrants arriving in the United States at that time, who differed from them not only in language but also, for the most part, in religion (the majority of the newcomers were Catholics and Jews) and in country of origin (most of the immigrants came from eastern and southern Europe, regions perceived by Americans as deprived).