Question

In what ways were woman involved in settlement houses?

Answer 1

Answer:

At the same time that new immigrants were flooding into American cities, more and more American colleges and universities were beginning to open their doors to women. In 1870 about eleven thousand women, mostly middle-class and white, were enrolled in institutions of higher education; by 1880 there were roughly forty thousand. Female graduates pioneered the field of social work. Many women in this field started their professional careers as staff members at settlement houses, forming professional networks within the movement. The movement also drew in lesseducated middle-class women who were concerned about the poor and felt a personal need to help them. The settlement-house movement was part widespread political impulse for national self-improvement, or progressivism. Whereas settlement-house workers at first believed that introducing art, music, and the humanities to the poor would uplift them from their degradation, the hardships of the economic crisis of 1893 and 1894 caused the workers to seek more practical ways to end suffering. For example, Hull-House joined with the Illinois Women’s Alliance, an organization of working-class and middle-class women, to convince the Illinois legislature to pass protective legislation for working women and children. Many women who were clients or staff members at settlement houses gained a political education there and went on to participate in the labor movement, civic-reform organizations, and national party politics.