WHAT IS A SETTLEMENT HOUSE? WHERE DID THE NAME COME FROM?

 

North East Neighborhood House, settlement house in Minneapolis, MN

Whenever I tell people that I grew up in a settlement house, the first question is, “But what is a settlement house? Why are they called settlement houses?”

I try to explain in my book Settlement House Girl, without going deeply into the history of the settlement house movement. But here, I think, is a better answer.

From the introduction of an article about the history of the National Federation of Settlements by John E. Hansan, Ph.D.:

In 1886, Stanton Coit founded America’s first settlement house, the Neighborhood Guild (later renamed University Settlement) on New York City’s Lower East Side. Over the next 15 years, settlement houses were established in cities as places where socially motivated middle-class men and women could live, or “settle,” among the poor.  Settlement house staff resided in the same buildings in which neighborhood residents participated in programs and activities. Living in close proximity, settlement staff regarded the people who used the settlement as “neighbors,” not “clients.”  Jane Addams founded Hull House in Chicago, Robert Archey Woods founded South End House in Boston, and other civic leaders, including Lillian Wald, John Lovejoy Elliott and Mary K. Simkhovitch, established settlement houses in New York City.

Many of these individuals had been influenced by the founders and staff of London’s Toynbee Hall and other British social activists who believed that students and people of wealth should “settle” in poverty-stricken neighborhoods both to provide services to help improve the daily quality of life, as well as to evaluate conditions and work for social reform. The settlements taught adult education and English language classes, provided schooling for immigrants’ children, organized job clubs, offered afterschool recreation, initiated public health services, and advocated for improved housing for the poor and working classes.