notes CHAPTER 1 6. The concept of the settlement house 1. Mario Maffi, Gateway to the Promised originated in England with the still extant Land: Ethnic Cultures in New York’s Lower East Tonybee Hall (1884) in East London. The Side (New York: New York University Press, movement was tremendously influential in 1995), 50. the United States, and by 1910 there were 2. For an account of the cyclical nature of well over four hundred settlement houses real estate speculation in the Lower East Side in the United States. Most of these were in see Neil Smith, Betsy Duncan, and Laura major cities along the east and west coasts— Reid, “From Disinvestment to Reinvestment: targeting immigrant populations. For an over- Mapping the Urban ‘Frontier’ in the Lower view of the settlement house movement, see East Side,” in From Urban Village to East Vil- Allen F. Davis, Spearheads for Reform: The lage: The Battle for New York’s Lower East Side, Social Settlements and the Progressive Movement, ed. Janet L. Abu-Lughod, (Cambridge, Mass.: 1890–1914 (New York: Oxford University Blackwell Publishers, 1994), 149–167. Press, 1967). 3. James F. Richardson, “Wards,” in The 7. The chapter “Jewtown,” by Riis, Encyclopedia of New York City, ed. Kenneth T. focuses on the dismal living conditions in this Jackson (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University ward. The need to not merely aid the impover- Press, 1995), 1237. The description of wards in ished community but to transform the physi- the Encyclopedia of New York City establishes cal city became a part of the settlement work. that 80 percent of New York’s total population 8. Stanton Coit, Neighbourhood Guilds: An was housed in these four wards—Ten, Eleven, Instrument of Social Reform (London: Sewan Thirteen, and Seventeen—within the geo- Sonnenschein and Co., 1891). Coit had vis- graphic parameters of what is referred to later ited Tonybee Hall and later published his as the Lower East Side. ideas of the “guild,” a unit of a hundred fami- The website http://www.demographia.com/ lies that could function as a unit capable of db-nyc-sector1800.htm, accessed September self-sufficient organization. 15, 2015, calibrates the population density of 9. Jeffrey Scheuer outlines a brief history this area in 1900 at 314,931 per square mile. of University Settlement in his essay Legacy of This meant that more than three times as Light: University Settlement’s First Century many people lived in this neighborhood as the (New York: University Settlement, 1986). rest of Lower Manhattan. 10. Scheuer, Legacy of Light. 4. Jacob A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives: 11. Ibid. The purchase of the site and con- Studies Among the Tenements of New York (New struction were funded by some of the wealthi- York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1890). This est families of New York. piece of writing raised awareness of the poor 12. Robert A. Woods and Albert J. Ken- living Riis. His famous exposé first appeared nedy, eds., Handbook of Settlements (New York: as a long, illustrated essay in an 1889 edition Russell Sage Foundation, 1911), 177–248. of Scribner’s Magazine. This handbook lists the settlements across the 5. Maureen A. Flanagan, America Re- country and provides a brief description of formed: Progressives and Progressivisms, 1890s– their activities. 1920s (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). 13. Mina Carson, Settlement Folk: Social 222 NOTES Thought and the American Settlement Movement, United States as per the 1890 national census, 1885–1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago accessed October 9, 2015, https://history.state Press, 1990). Carson provides insight into the .gov/milestones/1921–1936/immigration-act. broader history of the settlement houses, with This excluded many minority national groups a focus on the early leaders who shaped the and had the effect of decreasing the continu- movement. Christopher Mele, “Different and ous influx of immigrants to the Lower East Inferior,” in Selling of the Lower East Side: Cul- Side. ture, Real Estate, and Resistance in New York 21. Robert A. Woods and Albert J. Ken- City (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota nedy, eds., Handbook of Settlements (Arno Press Press, 2000), 31–77, emphasizes the patriar- and the New York Times, 1970). First pub- chal imperative within the charitable impulse. lished in 1911, the Russell Sage Foundation, 14. For a discussion of the shaping of the Philadelphia, 1–5. The handbook lists a total ideology of the settlement workers in urban of 415 settlements in the United States and policy reform, see Carson, “The Settlers Look describes the collaborative effort. Outward: Housing, Health, and Labor,” in 22. For an account of Hall’s participation Settlement Folk: Social Thought and the American and statement before the House Ways and Settlement Movement, 1885–1930 (Chicago: Means Committee, see Helen Hall, Unfinished University of Chicago Press, 1990), 69–84. Business (New York: Macmillan Company, 15. See Davis, “The Settlement Movement 1971), 53–58. and Municipal Reform,” Spearheads for Reform, 23. Hall, Unfinished Business, 30. 170-193. 24. Ibid., 29–39. Hall speaks of the impact 16. Carson, “Settlers Look Outward,” of “The New Deal Initials” in Chapter V. 153–160. 25. The Housing Act stipulated that its 17. “Protesting Women March in funds be used for slum clearance, followed by Mourning,” New York Times, September 30, low-income housing. Given the high cost of 1914, 11. land in Manhattan—even on the Lower East 18. Wald was elected the first chair- Side, this area was slated for slum clearance person of AUAM, a New York City–based and then developed with privately funded organization with fifteen thousand members. middle-income housing. The availability of Accessed August 15, 2015, http:// money from the federal government and the newyorkhistoryblog.org/2015/06/24/new- lobbying by reformers and construction yorks-long-history-of-peace-activism/# unions changed the course of this develop- sthash.t8VtWXaN.dpuf. ment into low-income housing under the 19. Wald, along with settlement col- aegis of NYCHA. See Joel Schwartz, “Rede- league Jane Addams of Hull House, remained velopment and Public Housing,” in The New committed to the anti-war efforts through York Approach: Robert Moses, Urban Liber- their membership in the Women’s Peace Party als, and Redevelopment of the Inner City (later renamed the Women’s International (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, League of Peace and Freedom [WILPF]). 1993), 25–60; and Ann L. Buttenwieser, “Shel- Their criticism of the country’s decision to ter for What and for Whom? On the Route enter the war, however, put them at odds with Toward Vladeck Houses,” Journal of Urban many former supporters, both within and out- History, vol. 12 (August 1986). side the government circles. See Carson, Set- 26. Hall, Unfinished Business, 145–157. tlement Folk, 153-160. Hall qualifies her position in support of the 20. In 1924 the Johnson-Reed Act, an need for the new public housing by pointing immigration law, created quotas that allowed to the studies and reports developed by Henry immigration visas to 2 percent of the total Street Settlement volunteers based on inter- number of people of each nationality in the views and opinion polls of the residents. The NOTES COUNTER INSTITUTION 223 titles of the reports (“Can We Renovate the warfare, see 219–225; for narcotics abuse, see Slums?,” “What Some Slum Dwellers Want in 245–253. Housing,” and “Rooms of Their Own”) indi- 35. Henry Heifetz, “Introduction,” in Indi- cate the focus of the settlement workers on vidual and Group Services in the Mobilization the residents. for Youth Experience, ed. Harold H. Weissman 27. The board chairman, Langdon Post, (New York: National Board of Young Men’s was the head of the Tenement House Com- Christian Associations, 1969), 19. mission; the vice chair, Mary Simkhovitch, 36. Noel A. Cazenave, “Professional Turf founded the Greenwich House Settlement; Battles in the Planning of the Mobilization and other members included Charney B. Vla- for Youth Project,” in Impossible Democracy: The deck, veteran socialist and general manager of Unlikely Success of the War on Poverty Commu- the Jewish Daily Forward; Louis Pink, a nity Action Programs (Albany: State University former settlement house worker and lawyer on of New York Press, 2007), 19–31. Cazenave the State Housing Board; and Monsignor E. convincingly articulates the different tactics of Roberts Moore of the Catholic Charities of the settlement versus the MFY administrators. the Archdiocese of New York. 37. Beverly Luther, “Group Service Pro- 28. Buttenwieser, “Shelter for What and grams and Their Effects on Delinquents,” in for Whom?,” 12. Buttenwieser reports that a Individual and Group Services in the Mobiliza- sixth of the people who moved into the Vla- tion for Youth Experience, ed. Harold H. Weiss- deck Houses were from the neighborhood. man, 126. 29. Helen Hall quoted in Joel Schwartz, 38. Cazenave, Impossible Democracy, “Tenant Unions in New York City’s Low Rent 117–118. Housing, 1933–1949,” Journal of Urban His- 39. Daniel Soyer, “Landsmanshaftn and tory 12 (August 1986): 424. the Jewish Labor Movement: Cooperation, 30. Schwartz, “Redevelopment and Public Conflict, and the Building of Community,” Housing,” 25–60. Journal of American Ethnic History 7, no. 2 31. Buttenwieser, “Shelter for What and (1988): 22–45. for Whom?,” 12. Buttenwieser reports that a 40. Stanley Nadel, Little Germany: Ethnic- sixth of the people who moved into the Vla- ity, Religion, and Class in New York City, 1845– deck Houses were from the neighborhood. 1880, (Urbana and Chicago: University of 32. After World War II, large numbers of Illinois Press, 1990), 29–46. Germans migrat- Puerto Ricans began migrating to the United ing to New York in the 1840s settled in the States.