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Settlements derived their name from the fact that the resident workers “settled” in the poor neighborhoods they sought to serve, living there as friends and neighbors. This exciting new form of service was modeled after Toynbee Hall, established in London in 1884 by Canon Samuel Barnett.

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MetroFocus
Scattered across the five boroughs of New York City are vibrant organizations serving children and adults of all ages and from every walk of life. These are the settlement houses: centers that provide help and new opportunity to our urban population. The new documentary Treasures of New York: Settlement Houses, airs 11/17 at 8pm on WLIW, explores the 130-year old settlement house movement

Aired: 11/17/16

Rating: NR

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MetroFocus | Treasures of New York: Settlement Houses

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MetroFocus Scattered across the five boroughs of New York City are vibrant organizations serving children and adults of all ages and from every walk of life. These are the settlement houses: centers that provide help and new opportunity to our urban population.

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Settlement houses were run largely by middle-class, college educated women and provided educational, cultural and social services.
Many settlement workers lived on-site so that they could learn firsthand about the problems caused by urbanization and help create solutions.
Settlement houses would provide classes in English, health and painting, and offered college extension courses.
Visiting nurses were sent into the rooms of the sick and provided whatever aid was necessary.
Settlement houses sought political solutions by lobbying state and local governments to resolve social and economic problems. By 1910 about 400 settlement houses operated across the country.
Settlement housers helped cultivate a sense of social responsibility toward the urban poor.

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In 1890 Janie Porter established the Locust Street Social Settlement in Hampton, Virginia--the first settlement house for African Americans.

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Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr would found Chicago's Hull House in 1889.

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Situated at the corner of Eldridge and Rivington Streets stands University Settlement, a non-profit social justice organization that has a deeply-rooted place in Lower East Side history. While a familiar institution to neighborhood residents today, it would have been just as familiar to the families whose stories we tell at 97 and 103 Orchard. A mere two blocks away from their homes, University Settlement easily could have been an integral part of their lives.

University Settlement began in 1886 as the Neighborhood Guild, and was the first settlement house created in the United States. Founded by reformers Stanton Coit and Charles B. Stover, University Settlement was started to provide resources for the predominantly immigrant residents on the Lower East Side. Settlement houses were named as such because the aim was that their staff and volunteers would 'settle' in the community as neighbors.

The hope was that these institutions would foster an exchange of learning rather than of "mission-izing": that settlement workers could teach valuable things to neighborhood residents, but that those residents had important lessons to teach staff as well. William English Walling, a socialist writer and one of the white founding members of the NAACP, worked at University Settlement at the turn of the 20th century, and offered some advice to his colleagues: "[M]ake friends with these settlement people and listen, listen all the time. They've got a lot to teach us boys, so for the love [of] Jesus Christ don't let's be uplifters here."

The staff and volunteers at University Settlement often came from wealthier families, and many were recent college graduates. While the majority of the early workers were men, more and more women soon found work and leadership positions there as well, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, who taught dance, and Rose Pastor Stokes, a social activist and political writer.

By 1898, the organization moved from the basement it started in on Forsyth S treet, into its newly constructed home at 184 Eldridge Street, where it still stands today.

From its inception, U niversity Settlement offered a variety of services to the surrounding community, including r ecreational camps and classes for children, resources for residents to advocate for neighborhood issues such as housing or street sanitation , and classes about obtaining U.S. citizenship . B y 1911, University Settlement hosted 142 different clubs with over 3000 members, and regularly rented out its spaces for union s and reform groups to hold meetings .

Its legacy continues today, serving over 40,000 New Yorkers of all ages every year, across 30 different locations in the city. Its services include childcare and youth programs, creative productions and classes, mental health services, legal help, and college and career planning. These programs are held in multiple languages, including Spanish, French, Cantonese, and Mandarin.

While its physical doors are currently closed in light of Covid-19, their work continues. Over the past two months, University Settlement distributed meal boxes, PPE, and supplies to their communities, and continue to connect people to resources and support networks around New York City. The organization is also serving as a platform for community members to make their voices heard on city issues, and is joining in the national protest against anti-Black violence, police brutality, and racism.

University Settlement's enduring existence today speaks not only to how vital its work continues to be, but also how it has continually grown and learned from the neighborhood it settled in over 130 years ago.

To keep up to date with the work University Settlement is doing now, you can find them on Twitter @UnivSettlement and Facebook @UniversitySettlement.

Our #USCAMPOSRECOVERYTEAM hard at work distributing meals yesterday for our communities. Like and share this tweet to stand in solidarity with Human Services workers and with our partner @cpc_nyc. #AlwaysEssential #NoRecoveryWithoutUS pic.twitter.com/Yd6hFwmQGG

- UniversitySettlement (@UnivSettlement) May 29, 2020

Written by SJ Costello, Tenement Museum Lead Educator Sources:
Leon, Fink. Progressive Intellectuals and the Dilemmas of Democratic Commitment, Harvard University Press, 1997

Woods Albert & Albert J. Kennedy, eds. 1911. Handbook of Settlements. New York:Russel Sage Foundations Committee

Images:

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Transfer from the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Social Museum Collection. " University Settlement " The Harvard Art Museums Digital Collections.

Museum of the City of New York. " University Settlement House, Eldridge & Rivington Sts " Museum of the City of New York Digital Collections.

New York Public Library Archives, The New York Public Library. " Mulberry Settlement House children reading in Settlement house library, Oct.1920.": The New York Public Library Digital Collections . 1920.

University Settlement House website, https://www.universitysettlement.org/us/programs/campos_plaza/attachment.jpg

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America's First Settlement House - Tenement Museum

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Situated at the corner of Eldridge and Rivington Streets stands University Settlement, a non-profit social justice organization that has a deeply-rooted place in Lower East Side history. While a familiar institution to neighborhood residents today, it would have been just as familiar to the families whose stories we tell at 97 and 103 Orchard.

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Inspired by the message of the Social Gospel movement, 19th century reformers responded to the call to help the urban poor.
In the late 1800s a few reformers established settlement houses, community centers in slum neighborhoods that provided assistance to people in the area, especially immigrants.
Settlement Houses- founded by Charles Stover and Stanton Coit in New York City in 1886.

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American social worker and activist; she was the co-founder of Hull House, an organization that focused on the needs of immigrants.  She later became internationally respected for the peace activism that ultimately won her a Nobel Peace Prize in 1931, the first American woman to receive this honor. Hull House provided child care, practical and cultural training and education, and other services to the largely immigrant population of its Chicago neighbourhood

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Settlement House- a community center providing assistance to residents--particularly immigrants--in a slum neighborhood