Settlement Movement

Play Streets & New York City Recreation History

July 20, 2026 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

In summer thoughts turn to fun at the beach, pool and in parks. The vertical files of the New York City Municipal Library include a trove of publications describing City government’s role in providing recreational opportunities between 1919 and 1979.

A good portion of the contents are news clippings that track, decade by decade, City residents’ recreational choices. “Eel Season Ending For City Anglers” the New York Times reported in 1967; “People Pushing Horses Out Of Park” the Daily News decried as the Claremont Riding Academy was poised to close in 1970; and the perennial “New York on Next to Nothing” from the New York Post are just a few of the titles. [Read more…] about Play Streets & New York City Recreation History

The Great Christmas Boycott of 1906

November 3, 2025 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

Today’s battle over Christianity in American public schools has deep roots. In the nineteenth century it was an intramural struggle between Protestants and later-arriving Catholics.

But at Christmastime in 1905, when the Presbyterian principal of a Brooklyn elementary school urged his Jewish students to be more like Jesus Christ, Jews entered the fray in a big way. [Read more…] about The Great Christmas Boycott of 1906

Preservationists Hope To Revive Albany Settlement House ‘Guild Hall’

April 22, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Situated behind Albany’s neo-gothic Cathedral of All Saints (the central church of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany and the seat of the Episcopal Bishop of Albany) is the similarly styled Guild House.

Built in 1902 as an immigrant settlement house and school, it has fallen into disrepair over the years and now is in dire need of rehabilitation to bring it back to its former glory – and return it to providing space for much-needed social services. [Read more…] about Preservationists Hope To Revive Albany Settlement House ‘Guild Hall’

Margery Ryerson: The Art Spirit Contagious

December 13, 2024 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Margery Ryerson was born in 1886, graduated from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1909, and moved to New York City in 1911, where she lived until her death in 1989 at the age of 102. Ryerson studied under famed art instructors, Robert Henri and Charles W. Hawthorne, and worked with each to compile their classroom lessons into published instructional guides. [Read more…] about Margery Ryerson: The Art Spirit Contagious

Relief & Reform From The Settlement Movement to The New Deal

June 4, 2024 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment

In December 1884, Canon Samuel Barnett and his wife Henrietta along with friends from Oxford University established Toynbee Hall in Commercial Street, Whitechapel. Named after their friend, fellow reformer and Oxford historian Arnold Toynbee who had recently passed away, the founders’ vision was to create a center for social research where privileged students would live and work. Their expectation was that “settling in” amongst East London’s poor would improve mutual understanding and ease class tensions. [Read more…] about Relief & Reform From The Settlement Movement to The New Deal

Settlement Movement

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