Thesettlement movement was areformist social movement that began in the 1880s and peaked around the 1920s in the United Kingdom and the United States. Its goal was to bring the rich and the poor of society together in both physical proximity and social connection. Its main object was the establishment of "settlement houses" in poor urban areas, in which volunteer middle-class "settlement workers" would live, hoping to share knowledge and culture with, andalleviate the poverty of, their low-income neighbors. The settlement houses provided services such as daycare, English classes, and healthcare to improve the lives of the poor in these areas.[1] The settlement movement also spawned educational/reform movements. Both in the United Kingdom and the United States, settlement workers worked to develop a unique activist form of sociology known as Settlement Sociology. This science of thesocial movement is neglected in the history of sociology in favor of a teaching-, theory- and research university–based model.[2]
The movement started in 1884 with the founding ofToynbee Hall inWhitechapel, in theEast End of London. These houses, radically different from those later examples in America, often offered food, shelter, and basic andhigher education, provided by virtue of charity on part of wealthy donors, the residents of the city, and (for education) scholars who volunteered their time.
Victorian Britain, increasingly concerned with poverty, gave rise to the movement whereby those connected to universities settled students in slum areas to live and work alongside local people. Through their efforts settlement houses were established for education, savings, sports, and arts. Such institutions were often praised by religious representatives concerned with the lives of the poor, and criticised as normative or moralistic by radical social movements.[citation needed]
There were basic commonalities in the movement. These institutions were more concerned with societal causes for poverty, especially the changes that came with industrialisation, rather than personal causes which their predecessors believed were the main reason for poverty. The settlement movement believed that social reform was best pursued and pushed for by private charities. The movement was oriented toward a more collectivist approach and was seen as a response to socialist challenges that confronted the British political economy and philanthropy.[3]
The British Association of Settlements and Social Action Centres is a network of such organisations.Other early examples includeBrowning Hall, formed inWalworth in 1895 byFrancis Herbert Stead, and Mansfield House Settlement, also in east London (seePercy Alden).Oxford House inBethnal Green was sponsored byHigh Church Anglicans associated withOxford University. West London saw its first settlement not until 1907. Dogged by overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and rank poverty, the new arrivals attracted by work inEdwardian Fulham elicited the concern of the late VictorianBishop of London,Mandell Creighton and his wife, Louise, lodged inFulham Palace. After his early death, his widow foundedBishop Creighton House Settlement inLillie Road,Fulham, in his memory.[4] InEdinburgh, theNew College Settlement was founded in 1893, followed by theEdinburgh University Settlement in 1905.[5][6] Bristol University Settlement was founded byMarian Pease andHilda Cashmore in 1911.[7]
There is also a global network, The International Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers (IFS).[8]
The movement gave rise to many social policy initiatives and innovative ways of working to improve the conditions of the most excluded members of society. The Poor Man's Lawyer service came about because a barrister volunteered his time and encouraged his friends to do the same. In general, the settlement movement, and settlement houses in particular, "have been a foundation for social work practice in this country".[9]
As higher education opened up to women, young female graduates came into the settlement movement. The Women's University Settlement (nowBlackfriars Settlement) was founded in 1887 "by women fromGirton andNewnham Colleges atCambridge University,Lady Margaret, andSomerville Colleges atOxford University andBedford andRoyal Holloway Universities".[10][11][12]
Australia's first settlement activity was begun by theUniversity of Sydney Women's Society. The Society was instigated byHelen Phillips when she was the first tutor of women students at the University of Sydney in 1891–1892. Before she took up that position, Phillips visited Cambridge and Oxford Universities in England to find out how they supported women students. She also visited her younger brother, William Inchbold Phillips, Priest in Charge,St John's College Mission (Lady Margaret Church)Walworth[13] where she learned more about the work of the college mission. The mission involved university students in charitable works and educating poorer people in the area in the settlement movement tradition.[14][15] She took the model back to Australia and formed the Women's Society which focused on visiting patients in hospitals and setting up night schools particularly a night school for girls at Millers Point, Sydney.[16][17][18] After Phillips left the university for missionary and education work in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) the founding principal of the newWomen's College,Louisa Macdonald developed settlement work further through the Women's Association. Over the years The Settlement gained the support of other partners and provided services for Aboriginal and migrant families and is now known asThe Settlement Neighbourhood Centre in Darlington, Sydney New South Wales.[19]
The settlement movement model was introduced in the United States byJane Addams[20] after travelling to Europe and learning about the system in England.[21] It was Addams who became the leading figure of the settlement movement in the United States with the help of like-minded personalities such asMary Rozet Smith, Mary Keyser,Alice Hamilton,Julia Lathrop,Florence Kelley, andElla May Dunning Smith, among others.[21]
The settlement movement became popular due to the socio-economic situation in the United States between 1890 and 1910, when more than 12 million European people immigrated to the country. They came from Ireland, Russia, Italy and other European countries and provided cheap factory labor, a demand that was necessitated by the country'sexpansion into the west and rapid industrialization following theCivil War. Many immigrants lived in crowded and disease-ridden tenements, worked long hours, and lived in poverty. Children often worked to help support the family.Jacob Riis wroteHow the Other Half Lives in 1890 about the lives of immigrants on New York City'sLower East Side to bring greater awareness of the immigrant's living conditions.[22]
The most famous settlement house in the United States isChicago'sHull House, founded by Addams andEllen Gates Starr in 1889 after Addams visited Toynbee Hall within the previous two years. Hull House, unlike the charity and welfare efforts which preceded it, was not a religious-based organization. Instead of Christian ethic, Addams opted to ground her settlement on democratic ideals.[21] It focused on providing education and recreational facilities for European immigrant women and children.[23]
Katharine Coman,Vida Scudder, andKatharine Lee Bates were among a group of women who foundedDenison House in Boston in 1892.Union Settlement Association, founded in 1894,Whittier House, founded in 1894,Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, founded in 1894, Friendly Inn Settlement House, founded in 1894,Henry Street Settlement, founded in 1895,Hiram House, founded in 1896,Houchen House in El Paso Texas, founded in 1912 andUniversity Settlement House, founded in 1886 and the oldest in the United States, were, like Hull House, important institutions for social reform in America's teeming, immigrant-dominant urban communities. United Neighborhood Houses of New York is the federation of 38 settlement houses in New York City.[24] These and other settlement houses inspired the establishment ofsettlement schools to serve isolated rural communities inAppalachia, such as theHindman Settlement School in 1902 and thePine Mountain Settlement School in 1913.[citation needed]
A count of American settlements reported: 74 in 1897; 103 in 1900; 204 in 1905; and 413 by 1911 in 32 states.[25] By the 1920s, the number of settlement houses in the country peaked at almost 500.[23] The settlement house concept was continued byDorothy Day'sCatholic Worker "hospitality houses" in the 1930s. By 1993 the estimated number of houses dropped to 300 in 80 cities.[26] In 2012,Boulevard House was established in Southwest Detroit, Michigan.
The American settlement movement sprang out of the-then fashionable philosophy of "scientific philanthropy", a model of social reform that touted the transmission of "proper" [i.e.WASP) values, behavior, and morals to the working classes through charitable but also rigorously didactic programs as a cure to the cycle of poverty. Many settlement workers joined the movement out of a strong conviction that effective social welfare programs were the only thing that could prevent the pernicious development in the United States of a European-style entrenchedsocial class system.
The movement also spread to late imperial Russia, asStanislav Shatsky andAlexander Zelenko set up a network of educational and social institutions in northernMoscow in 1905, naming it "Settlement" ("Сетлемент", the English word transliterated to Russian). This network of institutions was closed down by the government in 1908, due to allegedsocialist activities.[27]
Today, settlements are still community-focused organizations, providing a range of services including early education, youth guidance and crime intervention, senior programs, and specialized programs for young people who have "aged out" of the foster care system. Since they are staffed by professional employees and students, they no longer require that employees live alongside those they serve.
Settlement houses influencedurban design andarchitecture in the twentieth century.For example,James Rossant of Conklin + Rossant agreed withRobert E. Simon's social vision and consciously sought to mix economic backgrounds when drawing up the master plan forReston, Virginia.[28] TheNew Monastic movement has a similar goal and model.
T.H. Green had [in the] 1870s acted as secretary to the Association for the Education of Women, as well as assisting the formation of the Society of Home Students ... [Green had used the model of] the late Victorian settlements which enabled university men and women to help the poor by living amongst them. The success of such ventures owed much to the general expansion of both philanthropy
