settlement houses


Social and cultural centers established by reformers in slum areas of American cities during the 1890s and the early 1900s. Jane Addams founded the most famous settlement house, in Chicago. (See Progressive movement.)

Notes for settlement houses

Settlement houses attracted idealistic college graduates eager to learn how the poor lived and to improve the condition of the poor.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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