Settlement Houses In The Progressive Era

These settlement housing complexes, along with other emerging municipally supported housing and projects, were failing considerably as time went on, in more ways than not. Ways these housing and government projects were failing were in hygiene and sanitation, in addition to perishable products that went uninspected, like meat and dairy products, which eventually made citizens very ill, and even killed a few. Local factories emitting toxic fumes also did not help the issue at all8

A few of the problems that the people during the Progressive Era made life difficult. Many people living in the cities lived in tenement houses. Theres houses were crowded, dark, and very unsanitary. Most of there houses did not have electricity. In the middle of them, there were alley ways that were overflowing with filth. Many of the occupants of there tenements fell ill

In the early 19th Century the vast majority of housing for the working class was in a terrible condition, which were mainly due to overcrowding, poor ventilation and unsanitary environments. These issues lead to outbreaks of cholera on a number of occasions between the years 1813 and 1865. The Public Health Act was introduced in 1848, which required all local authorities to provide towns with hygienic sewage disposal and clean water supplies. Due to the presence of disease in slums, the Sanitary Reform Act was introduced in 1866. The act gave local authorities powers to inspect the cleanliness of homes in their district. (Naidoo and Wills, 2009). As stated by Berridge, Martin and Mold (2011), the Sanitary Reform Act aimed to address the problems with sewage, household waste and contaminated

It is hard to imagine in the twenty first century the level of filth that was experienced in the 1830’s on a daily basis. Sanitation, public health and sewer systems were problems that gripped the nation throughout the ninetieth century (1830-1860s), encouraging popular debate and proposal of changes. The growth of population and increase in the industry

Public health was an extremely important issue that sparked reactions to the polluted water and air, the Corn Laws and the well-being of laborers in filthy conditions. “Diseases caused or aggravated by atmospheric impurities produced by decomposing animal and vegetable substances, by damp and filth, and close and overcrowded dwellings, prevail among the laboring classes. The annual loss of life from filth and bad ventilation is greater than the loss from death or wounds in modern wars” (doc 6), “Most workers lack clothing, bed, furniture, fuel wholesome food, even potatoes! They spend from twelve to fourteen hours each day shut up in low-ceilinged rooms where with every breath of foul air they absorb fibers of cotton, wool, or particles of copper, lead or iron. They live suspended between an insufficiency of food and an excess of strong drink; they are all wizened, sickly and emaciated, their bodies thin and frail, their limbs

Urbanization in the progressive era was a huge factor, with millions of immigrants flocking to America for jobs. African americans flooded north also in search of jobs. Cities exploded outward and upward, condensing people into building and houses. This, given the time was highly unsanitary, with waste and filth in the streets, disease spread rapidly. Pollution caused poor living conditions often crowded and unsafe. Often there was little clean water or paved roads for transportation. Many people in the city's began to push for urban reformers. A Progressive reformer named Jane Addams stepped up and opened one of the first settlement houses in Chicago with Ellen Gates Starr, which greatly helped out local immigrants by producing education and even social services. Many reformers supported laws that would improve living conditions in the center city and fought to get rid of political corruption, which had been widely spreading.

The movement can be traced back all the way to England in 1884, which is called the Progressive era movement and then spreading to the United States in 1886. In the early 1900’s the settlement house movement seemed to have its impact with the European immigrants living in slum dwellings. Having a basic need to improve their daily quality of life through education and health services. They were the first to benefit from the lack of welfare programs of the time. Initially the Kindergarten program was a way to attract parents to the settlement houses, but eventually evolved to improve living conditions for children. According to the Texas State Historical Association, children in the South suffered from a higher illiteracy

Another goal of theirs was to improve city life. The Hull House wasn’t just a place where immigrants could participate in programs and learn, but it was a place where they were able to feel safe and get the support and assistance they needed to live a normal life in the large city of Chicago.

Another goal of theirs was to improve city life. The Hull House wasn’t just a place where immigrants could participate in programs and learn, but it was a place where they were able to feel safe and get the support and assistance they needed to live a normal life in the large city of Chicago.

One of the first reform movements, the Social Gospel movement, spoke to those who believed that the way to heaven was to help those who were less fortunate. From the Social Gospel movement came settlement houses, which was a type of community center where the poor could receive help. There were different ways that the settlement houses helped, such as teaching English, providing nurses, cooking with what you had available, and ways for you and your family to stay healthy and avoid health hazards. Settlement houses were usually run by middle or high class women who went to college to marry well, and later just sat around, having nothing to do, and figured they may as well help the less-fortunate. The Hull House in Chicago, a settlement house, was founded by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr.

Jane Addams was a Progressive reformer and famous advocate for the settlement house movement. Addams mostly focused on improving social conditions for immigrants and for other residents of urban slums. Jane Addams’s health problem caused her to become famous reformer. In 1881 she travelled many medical schools. In one of her journey she took her friend Ellen Gates Starr with her. They visited well known Toynbee Hall in London. The purpose of Toynbee Hall was to reduce urban problems such as poverty. This visitation inspired them to create one settlement house in Chicago. In short term their dream became true. In 1889 they opened Hull House in the neighborhood of slums in Chicago. Hull House provided services for the poor immigrants in that

This house was trademark precedent that granted the push for the progressive movement, because it demonstrated the passion, drive, and action that strong educated women can achieve. Adams inspired others to be included in this movement in order to reverse the systematic perception of women’s roles. Eventually, these women accomplished so many merits that through the Hull House that women even created their own occupation, social work.

Rapid Industrialization and population growth in cities created a lot of crowded settlement and ghettos with poor sanitation. To solve the problems associated with urban industrial life, American woman reformer Jane Addams founded one of the first settlement houses, Hull house, in Chicago in 1989 to provide social and educational opportunities for working class people (many of them recent European immigrants) in the surrounding neighborhood to provide social and educational opportunities for working class people who were mostly European immigrants. The nurses in settlement houses also taught hygiene and health care to the poor immigrant

The settlement house movement was a social reform that was first established or started in England in 1884 when the first settlement house was opened in Whitechapel and it was called the Toynbee Hall and was staffed with university men . It rose in America around the time that women struggled for suffrage, the development of social work as a profession, and the arrival of millions of new immigrants into the country. The idea of the settlement house was founded or formulated by a man that went to university named Cannon Barnett who wanted other university men to help working class neighborhoods to relive poverty by “settling” into those neighborhoods. He also wanted the university men to learn about the real world and he thought that only way for them to do that was to live day to day in the slums like the people that they were helping .

Nowadays, in a growing number of housewives who came out of their family and became a worker, we unconsciously admitted the phenomenon that women and men are no gender differences. Under this recognition, we focused more on class equality instead of gender equality. However, in Maria Mies’s Colonization and Housewifization, she questioned about this dissertation by giving examples and facts.