On 20 October 1939, Maud Morlock, specialist on illegitimacy for the US Children's Bureau, addressed the trends in work with unmarried mothers at the Maine State Conference of Social Welfare in Bangor, Maine. Gertrude Atwood, Superintendent of the Good Samaritan Home, expressed her excitement at the opportunity to hear the latest in the care for unwed mothers and urged all the Good Samaritan Board members to attend. To her surprise and disappointment, Morlock spoke disparagingly of Maine's efforts. In her public address, Morlock pointed out that Maine had one of the highest illegitimacy rates in the country and suggested that the Good Samaritan Home had outlived its need.

For two decades Atwood had enthusiastically promoted cooperation with national social-work organizations. From 1918 on, she regularly announced in her annual reports that the Good Samaritan's cooperation with such agencies was a cause for pride. In the Annual Report for 1939, however, following on the heels of Morlock's criticism, she raised a note of caution. There was a tension, Atwood suggested in her report, between keeping what was good of the old and accepting the new. Drawing explicit comparison with Morlock's assertion that it was time to get on with the new, Atwood pointed out that techniques and methods had been changing so rapidly it was hard to keep up with them.