Sarah Campbell Webb (1916- ) served as the District Community Consultant for southeast Wisconsin of the Division of Family Services, Wisconsin Department of Health and Social Services (formerly the Department of Public Welfare) from 1957 to 1969. The daughter of Thomas Luther and Charlese Reid Alexander Campbell, she received a M.A. in Adult Education from the University of Chicago in 1957. In her role as consultant, Sarah Campbell worked with a number of organizations, most of which were concerned with family life. Her particular concern was family life education, for which she compiled a large resources file.
She helped to found and/or acted in an official position in the organizations represented in her papers. Two of these groups comprised primarily of professionals interested in family life: counselors, educators, social workers, physical and mental health workers, and the clergy. The Dane County Council on Family Living (DCCFL) grew out of luncheon discussions of such professionals under the aegis of the Dane County Mental Health Association and the citizens' committee on Family Life Education of the Madison Juvenile Delinquency Prevention study. The Council sponsored group programs and workshops; its purpose was to promote and coordinate family life education in Dane County. This purpose, but on a larger less grassroots scale, was shared by the Wisconsin Family Life Association (WFLA) now known as the Wisconsin Council on Family Relations, an affiliate of the National Council on Family Relations. Further, the WFLA monitored state legislation and worked to coordinate the activities of its agency members. Campbell was also a founder of the Adult Education Association of Wisconsin, an organization of adult educators, founded in 1966. Brief histories of all these organizations are included among their founding documents. Campbell's interests and her work as state contact, resource person and coordinator of groups within her district led to involvement with several other organizations, both state and national. She attended conferences and collected literature of other groups which often inspired similar activity in Wisconsin, such as a conference on “Communication to Build the Future Environment” which led to the formation of the Wisconsin Communication Coalition.
Sarah Campbell married William Webb in 1968 and retired in the early 1970s, but continued her interest and participation in groups concerned with family life education into her retirement. She moved to Dodgeville, Wisconsin, after 1976.
Biographical information on Campbell is also found in Personnel Records of the Department of Public Welfare and Department of Health and Social Services; and in autobiographical notes by Mrs. Webb in Box 1, Folder 1 of this collection.
