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Definition: settlement house from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary

(1907) : an institution providing various community services esp. to large city populations

settlement house

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
neighborhood welfare institution generally in an urban slum area, where trained workers endeavor to improve social conditions, particularly by providing community services and promoting neighborly cooperation. The idea was developed in mid-19th-century England when such social thinkers as Thomas Hill Green , John Ruskin , and Arnold Toynbee (1852–83) urged university students to settle in poor neighborhoods, where they could study and work to better local conditions. The pioneer establishment was Toynbee Hall, founded in 1884 in London under the leadership of Samuel Augustus Barnett . Before long, similar houses were founded in many cities of Great Britain, the United States, and continental Europe. Some of the more famous settlement houses in the United States have been Hull House and Chicago Commons, Chicago; South End House, Boston; and the University Settlement, Henry Street Settlement, and Greenwich House, New York City. Settlements serve as community, education, and recreation…
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Full text Article settlement house

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
neighborhood welfare institution generally in an urban slum area, where trained workers endeavor to improve social conditions, particularly by providing community services and promoting neighborly cooperation. The idea was developed in mid-19th-century England when such social thinkers as Thomas…
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Full text Article settlement house movement

From Encyclopedia of Women and American Politics
The settlement house movement originated in England in the early 19th century as a religious response to industrial poverty. The movement spread to the United States in the late 19th century and lasted through the Great Depression. Settlement houses were usually residential buildings that were…
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Full text Article Settlement House Movement

From Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
Jane Addams, pictured here, was a middle-class...
The Settlement House Movement, which emerged in U.S. cities during the late nineteenth century, represented a significant departure from traditional charitable efforts of the era, in which upper and middle class donors dispensed aid to the impoverished from a comfortable distance or placed them in…
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Full text Article settlement house

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Neighbourhood social-welfare agency. The staff of a settlement house may sponsor clubs, classes, athletic teams, and interest groups; they may employ such specialists as vocational counselors and caseworkers. The settlement movement began with the founding of Toynbee Hall in London in 1884 by Samuel…
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Full text Article settlement house

From Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary
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Full text Article The Settlement Movement

From The American Women's Almanac: 500 Years of Making History Full text Article Activists for Social Change
Founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates...
The settlement movement, the precursor of the profession of social work, derived its name from the poor and immigrant workers who “settled” in the tenement slums of urban neighborhoods. The movement began in London with the founding of Toynbee Hall in 1884 by Church of England cleric Samuel Barnett…
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Full text Article McDowell, Mary

From American Biographies: American Social Leaders and Activists
In 1890 Mary McDowell began her career as an...
(b. 1854–d. 1936) immigrant advocate, health reformer Mary Eliza McDowell was the director of a Chicago settlement house and crusader for public health reform in that city's Packingtown district. She was born on November 30, 1854, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Malcolm McDowell and Jane Welch Gordon…
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Full text Article Taylor, Graham

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
US Protestant clergyman and civic reformer. Eager to adapt Christianity to urban problems and involve students, he saw the creation of a settlement house as a means of accomplishing both goals. He and his family and four students were the first inhabitants of Chicago Commons (1894), which eventually…
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Full text Article Hull House

From World of Sociology, Gale
Hull House was the earliest and most well-known...
Hull House was the earliest and most well-known of the American settlement houses. Jane Addams , the well-educated founder and first director of the House, was from an elite New England family. Forced to give up on her plans for medical school by chronic back pain, Addams spent her early twenties…
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Full text Article Riis, Jacob

From Encyclopedia of American Literature Full text Article Volume 2
(b. 1849–d. 1914) Danish-born American journalist, reformer Born in Denmark, Jacob Riis came to the United States in 1870 and settled in New York City, where he took a job as a police reporter. His experiences while covering this beat for various newspapers led him to become one of the most…
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