SETTLEMENT WORK IN A UNION TOWN LucILE EAVES, THE SAN FRANCISCO SETTLEMENT ASSOCIATION, AND ORGANIZED LABOR, 1894-7906 Ann Wilson Many of the pro-labor legislative reforms achieved in California during the Progres sive Era came about as a result of coalitions forged betw’een labor leaders and middle-class activists. But the relationship between the two groups was often a contentious one. In 1902 the Lcthor Clarion, house organ of the San Francisco Labor Council and the State feclration of Labor, responded warily to the “eight thousand wealthy women” convening in Los Angeles for the national convention of the General Federation of ‘Women’s Clubs. Invoking the clubwomen’s “earnest wish to.. make this world a better place in which to live,” an unnamed author remarked that the laboring woman knows that if you would stand for one tiling, just one ... the greatest crime of this age would be removed and abolished. This is child labor. Insist that all goods that are brought into your home, from a broom to a beefsteak, from a shoe to a bonnet, [lacJ the product of a shop where the union label is in evidence. That is all. The way is simple. The duty plain. It does not require either oratory or spasms of ethics. Simply ask for the union label on everything, [and] the child will he set free. Although it acknowledged the value of retaining organized womanhood as an ally, the Labor Clarion insisted that labor organizations would lead the way in bettering society. In closing, the author challenged clubwomen to “help in the cause of humanity, where the battle is waging. and where victory will come without you, but infinitely easier and ciuicker with you.” 79 SETUEuENT WORK IN A UNION TOWN A year later, the same newspaper turned its attention to the “publicists, educators, and other professional and business men who undertake to speak and w’rite on labor union topics.” This time, however, it expressed unabashed enthusiasm for the “many intelligent and fair-minded men and women” of the social settlement movement who “have earnestly and unostentatiously tried to establish cordially sympathetic relations with working men, w’omen, and children, and have succeeded in accomplishing vast good.” The writer praised the San Francisco Settlement Association, and especially its head worker, Lucile Eaves, for establishing closer relations with the labor movement than had been the case elsewhere. According to the Labor Clarion, the “practical assistance” of Eaves and people like her “resulted in a better understanding of the movement by a class which does much to form public opimon.”2 A former lecturer at Stanford University with an abiding interest in the California labor movement, Lucile Eaves indeed offered a great deal of practical assistance to the San Fran cisco Labor Council, and her work contributed to a fruitful cross-class coalition that pro duced an important legislative victory for organized labor in the first years of the twentieth century. As head worker for the San Francisco Settlement Association’s South Park Settle ment, Eaves took up the very battle the Labor Clarion assigned to women of her class: she committed herself to abolishing child labor. Yet she hardly limited herself to the consumer activism associated with the union label. Instead, Eaves channeled the resources of the Settle ment into a campaign designed by California labor leaders to restrict children under Four teen from the state’s factories, stores, and workshops. In the process, she transformed the South Park Settlement from a relatively sleepy neighborhood house into a lively, reform- oriented institution where men and women of different class backgrounds found it possible to work together toward a common political goal. At the same time, her tenure as a settlement worker gave her valuable experience that later helped her build a successful career as a profes sional sociologist, despite the widespread gender discrimination that disadvantaged aca dcmic women of her generation. The early history of the San Francisco Settlement Association reveals how Lucilc Eaves took advantage of a unique institutional space in order to both further her career and reach her class-bridging political goals. Drawing upon the work of Estelle Freedman, Kathryn Kish Sklar, Suzanne Lebsock, and Linda Kerber, this essay recognizes the importance of social settlements as literal embodiments of a politicized “woman’s sphere.”3 Like other settlements, the South Park Settlement served as an incubator for activist and professional networks and helped to launch individual women into public life during a period when Victorian gender norms were undergoing contested change. But as an organization made up of men and women responding to the social conditions of the urban far West, its story provides a useful addition to the historiography of the settlement movement, which has focused primarily on the female clominated settlements of New York, Boston, and Chicago. Although many historians have praised Eastern and Nlidwestern set.tlement leaders for so A,i,1 ‘ilson representing a vanguard of social justice during the Progressive Era, some have been more critical, highlighting instead the repressive aspects of reformers’ aspirations for social con troL1 By directing our attention to the far West, a region little covered by historians of settle ments, the present study adds to our understanding of the varied agendas that found a home within the national movement.5 Drawing on institutional records, newspaper reports, letters, and the published works of resident staff, I argue that the South Park Settlement could have followed a relatively apolitical trajectory had it not been for the inspired leadership of Eucile Eaves. Because the men anel women who founded the San Francisco Settlement Association believed that pov erty in San Francisco was neither dramatic nor inevitable, they initially veered away from direct political action aimed at structural social change. Instead, they busied themselves with providing wholesome entertainment and uplifting instruction for local children and adults. This cautious orientation quickly changed, however, with the arrival of Lucile Eaves as head worker in 1901. Passionately committed to the development of a “scientific” labor movement, Eaves leveraged the resources of the Settlement in order to forge an activist part nership with California labor leaders. Her agenda, then, differed from that of her predeces sors. Where they had sought to create a space in San Francisco where middle-class and working-class people could mingle socially and intellectually, Eaves seized that space and used it toward an explicitly political end. This essay traces that institutional transformation and show’s how Eaves’s class bridging efforts, made possible by her work at the Settlement, helped to win the passage of a revamped child labor bill in 1905. The San Francisco Settlement Association was founded in the spring of 1$94 following a visit thatJane Acklams paid to California earlier that year. In the midst of economic clepres sion, Adclarns and her sister Alice traveled to Palo Alto and Berkeley, where Addams met with faculty and students of the recently established Leland Stanford, Jr., University and the University of California.6 A detailed record of her stay has not survived, but it is likely that Addarns delivered some version of her 1892 paper on the “Subjective Necessity of Social Settlements,” in which she outlined her philosophy of social democracy.7 Addams also may have spoken about her work on Hull House Maps anclPapcrs, a sociological study of Chicago’s nineteenth ward that was published the following year.6 Whatever her topic, Acidams left a strong impression. Soon after her departure, a local committee formed to discuss the possi bilities for establishing a settlement house in San Francisco, and on April 14, 1894, the San Francisco Settlement Association was born.9 The men and women who founded the San Francisco Settlement Association w’ere prominent figures in local intellectual and charitable circles. The Association’s first Presi dent, Bernard Moses, was a University of California professor with lecture responsibilities in history, economics, political science, and jurisprudenee he later went on to serve on the 81 .r - -- -.. -- - SETTiENIENT WoRI IN A UNION TOWN Philippine Commission under William Howard Taft.’° Other members included Fred F. Haynes, a recent Harvard Ph.D., Frank Angell, professor of psychology at Stanford Univer sity, anctjessica Peixotto, a University of California graduate student who later became the University’s First female full professor, serving in the department of economics.” Some, like Hayncs and Fannie W. N IcLean, a Berkeley schoolteacher, had spent time in the settlements of Boston and New York.’2 Others were active on the boards of local charitable groups like the Harrison Street Boys’ Club, the Buforci Kitchengarten, and the Associated Charities of San Francisco—an organization that provided the San Francisco Settlement Association with “constant advice” during its first year.’3 Many of the council members and early assistants were college educated, and a large number were listeclin the city’s exclusive Social Dirccteiy, lending support to historian Carol Roland’s suggestion that participation in charitable ac tivities was held in high esteem by San Francisco elites.’1 The organizations that contributed members to the San Francisco Settlernetit Associa tion shared a perception that poverty in San Francisco was less drastic, and more easily