Settling in Urban Neighborhoods.

During the 1880s and 1890s newly arrived immigrants faced a difficult struggle to earn a living wage, and cities offered little in the way of tangible aid. The urban neighborhoods in which these immigrants lived were filled with overcrowded tenements that lacked kitchens and bathrooms. Tenants drew water at a sink or pump in the hallway and used unsanitary privies in the basement. The settlement-house movement was established to help immigrants and the working poor. Settlement houses helped newcomers adapt to American life and customs by providing job placement and training, citizenship classes, legal aid, health services, child care, public kitchens, cultural programs, and classes on subjects such as nutrition and parenting. Springing up in most major cities, settlement houses were staffed mainly by educated middle-class white women who "settled" among the people they helped. The movement was not...