Settlement Houses: Providing Social and Educational Services to the Immigrants

Hull House was unique in the sense that it held a position in both the public and private spheres of society. Within the private sphere, women in the Addam?s settlement house ran the household, raised children, taught about the necessity of morals, and preached about religion. In addition, Hull House members offered assistance to their community, which later encompassed the realm of the private sphere. Such actions included teaching, daycare, art galleries, and libraries. ??Hull House in the

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

Addams toured in Europe in 1883 and was impressed by Toynbee Hall, which was a charity workers’ residence situated deep in a London slum. When Addams returned to Chicago in 1889, they purchased and refurnished Charles J. Hull’s mansion and opened the Hull House, in a settlement approach.

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

Jane went to Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia in the fall of 1882. Later in the 1880’s Jane traveled to Europe where she visited a settlement house by the name of Toynbee Hall. Settlement houses were the country’s way of providing community services to the poor. Addams and her friend, Ellen Gates Starr, the Hull House in the lower income section of Chicago in 1889. Most of the residents who lived there were from countries such as Italy, Russia, Poland, Germany, Ireland, and Greece. Hull House provided a day care center for children of working mothers, a community kitchen, and visiting nurses. Addams and her staff gave classes in English literacy, art, and other subjects. Hull House also became a meeting place for clubs and labor unions. Most of the people who worked with Addams in Hull House were well educated, middle-class women. Hull House gave them an opportunity to use their education and it provided a training ground for careers in social work.

During this time many African Americans did not have access to many things academically nor financially and were treated very poorly. Janie Porter Barrett created the Locust Street Social Settlement in 1890. Barrett knew the need for many things in the African American community therefore, became an advocate for these women and girls. Barrett established Locus Street Social Settlement was the first settlement organization for African Americans in the United States of America. Also, this settlement house was modeled on Hull House in Chicago founded by Jane Addams in 1889. In 1908 Barrett helped found the Virginia State

Although Addams has done many impeccable things, one of her most distinguishable actions was co-founding Hull House with her friend Ellen Gates Starr in 1889. Hull House is a settlement house in Chicago, Illinois, inspired by the Toynbee Hall she visited in England. Opening Hull House, Addams expected the settlement to be a place where the poor could attend cultural programs, such as art, however her ideas changed as she explored the city and got to know her neighbors. While walking down the streets of Chicago, the reformer noticed all the poor immigrants residing in the cramped and dirty tenements, which led to her newfound passion to help

The life of living as a poor settler or an immigrant was a problem in the urban life. Most of the immigrants faced poverty that needs to be secured with food, shelter, healthcare, and money. For example, if there were no food for the immigrants to eat, they will starve to death. A shelter was one of the most important things they need because it keeps them securities from harm and it is a cozy place for them to sleep. Another source they need was health care because without medical attention most of them had the disease. The disease like cholera, yellow fever, and typhoid came from bad hygiene which was preventing bad sanitation. The health factor was

In American industrial cities, late 1800s, Poor neighborhood were not the best place to live. With poor living conditions, poor sanitation and crowded housing, many epidemics of infectious disease spread into the poor population and touched even the wealthy class. Cities such as New York were crowded and workers were living in tenements, which were often cramped, poorly lit and poorly aerated. Moreover, these tenements lacked of adequate plumbing, therefore waste was flooding in the public streets. Streets was crowded of waste and garbage. Population was poorly nourished and has a poor life hygiene like water pollution and poisoned food and milk. Accordingly, infectious disease was the common death reason. Big cities had known outbreaks of

Jane Addams and her colleague, Ellen Gates Starr, founded the most successful settlement house in the United States otherwise known as the Hull-House (“Settlement” 1). It was located in a city overrun by poverty, filth and gangsters, and it could not have come at a better time (Lundblad 663). The main purpose of settlement houses was to ease the transition into the American culture and labor force, and The Hull-House offered its residents an opportunity to help the community, was a safe haven for the city, and led the way through social reform for women and children.

Angel Island immigration station was on the San Francisco Bay. Another immigration station was Ellis Island and they had immigrants from the East and were mostly Europeans. Ellis Island was a small island in New York Harber. The Hull House is located in Chicago, which was founded by Jane Addams to help poor immigrants get steady there and find a job, a place to live, and then leave. The Chinese Exclusion Act worked on Railroads and mines (cheap labor source).The U.S. banned Chinese immigrants for 10 years possibly, and would probably renew it in about 10 years. A advantage is how immigrants could come to the U.S., but the disadvantage to this was how much time and effort it took to come to the U.S.

During the 1800’s the way people lived was not quite how we live today. Although some may argue that the way they lived back then was so much easier it actually caused a lot of humans to perish. Not only did they die from diseases, but also because there was a lack of sanitization. “Industrial growth brought with it a host of environmental pollution problems”, (Document 3). Imagine living in an environment with trash and waste just being dumped into the streets, compared

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

Two Works Cited    Victoria Bissell Brown's introduction to Twenty Years at Hull-House explains the life of Jane Addams and her commitment to insight social change to problems that existed during the turn of the 20th century.  As a reaction to the hardships of a changing industrial society, Addams decided to establish a settlement house in the West side of Chicago to help individuals who had suffered from the cruelties of industrialization.  Rejecting the philosophies that stemmed from the Gilded Age, such as social Darwinism and the belief that human affairs were determined by natural law, Addams was a progressive who wanted government to be more responsive to the people.

As Immigrants would come through Ellis Island and other places with a gleaming amount of hope, they would experience something totally different on the other side. Inside the US was this feeling of Anglo-Saxon superiority and therefore immigration was frowned upon in may areas. An immigration officer from this time period cited “early economic opportunity came to an end” as one of the major things that affected immigrant life. They [immigrants] were left to find day jobs working at the first opportunity that presented itself and then return to the tenement. Out of this pattern grew an extreme feeling of isolation. Immigrants lived in their own communities, socialized with their own, and slept with their own. Nativist feelings from the american-born community were real and present and ultimately the belief was to sleep, eat, and work for someone else and be content.