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Abstract
Settlement houses, a concept which originated in mid nineteenth century England and eventually spread throughout Europe and the United States, were welfare centers in urban areas designed to benefit the impoverished and uneducated. In the United States the settlement houses played a crucial role educating educate women in housekeeping, home economics, child care, health and hygiene, workplace skills, civics, and English.
Some may argue that the ultimate goal was to turn all the immigrants into middle-class housekeepers; an argument not readily disputed. However, the means to this end became the methods used to educate the immigrant women and help them adjust to their new lives.
Homemaking skills became essential for the rural immigrant woman forced into a crowded, urban tenement. Even women who came from an urban environment needed help adjusting to modern “American” society. The education in housekeeping and home economics is not the only realm where the settlement house workers observed the need for aid. They saw a calling for help in child care, health and hygiene, English and citizenship lessons, and training for the workplace.
How much did the settlements help women in the workforce? The answer is not accurately measurable. It is difficult to ascertain the specific number of women who were able to obtain jobs directly related to their settlement house courses. It is, however, quite evident that the settlements trained many women which enabled them to get jobs which paid more than the unskilled worker earned. The settlements were also astute enough to realize that work skills were of primary concern but women also had a secondary need of learning English in order to attain a higher status in the workplace. English and civics were the keys to the Americanization and naturalization of the immigrants. The settlements tried to indoctrinate them with classes, community service, and volunteer work. The public's attitude toward the assimilation of the immigrants was a driving force behind the motives of the settlement houses.
My conclusions about the success of educating immigrant women are by no means to denigrate the work done by the settlement houses. They were earnest women who made every attempt to better the lives of immigrant women. What is important is that the numbers affected might have been small, but they were significant in their importance.
