Chapter 1: The Historical Context and Early Founders of Career Theory

The historical context of career counseling is powerful and filled with many devoted leaders and visionaries. There have been differences in ideas concerning the historical beginnings of career counseling. Various authors attribute the entirety of the foundation of career theory to one or two individuals and often do not recognize the diverse paths that led to what we now refer to as career counseling. Along the path of development of vocational guidance and career theory there were shared roots with social work and psychology. These fields have fed and nourished the ideas of our leaders and visionaries and have allowed career counseling to become the prevailing and influential field it is today. Vocational guidance led the charge and sounded the call for social justice and sister fields have joined in the mission (Baker, 2009). The purpose of this chapter is to review the early founders of career theory and what led to the maturity of career counseling in the schools and in higher education.