settlement houses

Cultural  

1. Social and cultural centers established by reformers in slum areas of American cities during the 1890s and the early 1900s. Jane Addams founded the most famous settlement house, in Chicago. (See Progressive movement.)

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Settlement houses attracted idealistic college graduates eager to learn how the poor lived and to improve the condition of the poor.

Example Sentences

In major cities, middle-class reformers opened settlement houses for poor immigrants, enacted housing codes to ban cold-water tenements and set up free public schools.

From Salon • Jul. 30, 2025

The Bank of England said on Tuesday it was considering a set of "fundamental rules" for securities and derivatives clearing and settlement houses as it revamps UK regulation post-Brexit.

From Reuters • Nov. 7, 2023

Syracuse professor Lasch-Quinn, author of “Black Neighbors: Race and the Limits of Reform in the American Settlement House Movement, 1890-1945,” said that some White settlement houses closed rather than integrate.

From Washington Post • Feb. 12, 2022

By 1887 there were 10 sand gardens, mostly located near the settlement houses that served recently arrived immigrant families.

From Slate • Jun. 15, 2018

The halfway point is the Queensland Drawbridge, which arches over the river, and then the course winds back toward the historic settlement houses and into Old Town.

From "The Running Dream" by Wendelin Van Draanen