US History

The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930)

Women

This collection uses primary sources to explore settlement houses during the Progressive Era.

Teaching Guide: Exploring Settlement Houses in the Progressive Era

A photograph showing early leaders of the settlement house movement, ca. 1900s.

A map of ethnic groups in a Chicago neighborhood served by Hull House, 1895.

Excerpts from a weekly schedule of lectures, clubs, and classes at Hull House in Chicago, 1892.

Excerpts from *The City Wilderness: A Settlement Study*, written by “residents and associates” of South End House in Boston, 1898.

A fundraising brochure for the Los Angeles Settlement House, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Los Angeles, ca. 1910s.

Excerpts from the 1920 Annual Report of the Unity Settlement Association in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

A photograph of a group outside Palama Settlement in Honolulu, Hawaii, 1909.

A photograph by Lewis Hine of the singing class at Hull House in Chicago, 1910.

A photograph of a citizenship class held at Neighborhood House in Louisville, Kentucky, ca. 1930s.

A photograph of a group of girls in gym class at Settlement Home in Atlanta, Georgia, 1903.

A photograph of children reading in the Mulberry Settlement House library, New York City, 1920.

A page featuring photographs of the play facilities and children served by Social Settlement in Washington, DC, 1905.

A photograph of a settlement house kindergarten in Chicago, Illinois, 1901.

A photograph of a group of adults and children outside Brownson House in Los Angeles, California, 1919.

A photograph of the Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House football team, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1929.

Resources

1. [*Children in Progressive-Era America*](http://dp.la/exhibitions/exhibits/show/children-progressive-era) online exhibit, Digital Public Library of America.  
2. [Settlement House Movement](http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/settlement.html), *Aspiration, Acculturation, and Impact: Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930*, Harvard University Library Open Collections Program. 
3. [Jane Addams Hull-House Museum](http://www.hullhousemuseum.org/)
4. Stanton Coit, [Social Welfare History Project](https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/), Virginia Commonwealth Libraries. 

Overview

Between the 1880s and 1920s, hundreds of settlement houses were established in American cities in response to an influx of European immigrants as well as the urban poverty brought about by industrialization and exploitative labor practices. Settlement houses were organizations that provided support services to the urban poor and European immigrants, often including education, healthcare, childcare, and employment resources. Many settlement houses established during this period are still thriving today.

In 1886 Stanton Coit, American-born leader of the Ethical movement in England founded the Neighborhood Guild on New York’s Lower East Side. In May 1891, the guild was as the University Settlement Society with the aim “to bring men and women of education into closer relations with the laboring classes in this city, for their mutual benefit. The society shall establish and maintain in the tenement house districts places of residence for college men and others desirous of aiding in the work, with rooms where the people of the neighborhood may meet for social and educational purposes.”—Constitution.Incorporated March, 1892.

Co-founded by Jane Addams and Ellen Starr in 1889, The Hull House in Chicago quickly becomes most famous settlement house in U.S. and serves as a model for over 400 other settlements across the country. Significantly, many settlement houses were established, led, and staffed by women, often from middle and upper classes. Addams believed in the interdependence of social classes; rather than encourage charity towards the poor, she advocated the importance of working with and among working class communities. By 1893 Jane Addams begins referring to herself as “the grandmother of American settlements.”

Settlement houses reflected a broader commitment to social reform during the Progressive Era. Jane Addams and Lillian Wald, founder of New York’s Henry Street Settlement, for example, were also active in campaigns against child labor and for public health, sanitation, industrial workplace safety reform, and women’s suffrage. Programs for children and young people featured prominently among settlement houses’ services. Many offered kindergarten classes before kindergarten was offered in many public school districts. Settlement houses also provided classes, clubs, and social opportunities for children and teenagers.


English

Settlement Houses in the Progressive Era

settlement-houses-progressive-era_07_de7cf8dcff1e22b7bf6feff30d6b82c2.jpg

Courtesy of National Anthropological Archives via the Smithsonian Institution.

“Young Women in Costume and Group Outside Wood Frame House Used as Social Settlement 1909,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/de7cf8dcff1e22b7bf6feff30d6b82c2.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Hawaii had a diverse population of native Hawaiians, Puerto Rican migrants, and American and European missionaries and entrepreneurs. Palama Settlement in Honolulu, Hawaii was founded in 1896 and by the early 1900s was offering many of the same services offered by settlement houses in major American cities, including public health training, childcare, and American history and civics classes. Hawaii was not yet a state but had been annexed as a territory of the United States.

A photograph of a group outside Palama Settlement in Honolulu, Hawaii, 1909.

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Tips for Students

Item 7 of 15 in the Primary Source Set Settlement Houses in the Progressive Era