Chicago Commons Association

The Chicago Commons was founded in 1894 by Graham Taylor at 140 N. Union Street; incorporated in 1895; moved to Grand Avenue and Morgan Street in 1901; established Farm Camp near New Buffalo, Michigan, in 1923. In later years, it became the Chicago Commons Association through mergers with Emerson House, 645 N. Wood Street, in 1948; headquarters moved to Taylor House, 915 N. Wolcott Avenue, in 1958; opened Jackie Robinson House in the Henry Horner Homes (Chicago Housing Authority), 124 N. Hoyne Avenue, in 1965; Olivet Community Center, 1441 N. Cleveland Avenue (founded 1888) merged in 1966; Mary McDowell Settlement, 4630 S. McDowell Avenue, merged in 1967; Benton House, 3052 S. Gratten Avenue, merged in 1967.

The Chicago Commons settlement was founded in 1894 by Graham Taylor, a Dutch reform minister who also founded the School of Social Economics which later became the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration. The settlement was initially home to Italian, Irish and Scandinavian immigrants on the Northwest side of Chicago; as well as Taylor, his four children, and several of his students. The Commons sought to reduce urban poverty and provide a sense of community through social welfare services such as free kindergarten, healthcare, and job training programs.

After graduating from Vassar, Taylor’s oldest daughter, Lea Demarest Taylor, returned to Chicago Commons to work as her father’s secretary and assistant. In 1917, she became the Assistant Head Resident and in 1921 became the Head Resident upon her father’s retirement. In 1924, she became the President of the Chicago Federation of Settlements. During the 1920s and 1930s, the low-income residents of the Commons were hit hard by the Great Depression and its resulting unemployment. Lea Demarest Taylor began a study of unemployment among the young families living in the Commons and lobbied the federal government for relief funds for the city’s vast number of unemployed workers. She sat on several Chicago committees of the Works Progress Administration, the largest New Deal agency created by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which employed millions to carry out public works projects in an effort to overcome the recession. In the 1940s, the ethnic profile of the neighborhood changed again as more African American families moved into the area. In 1947, the city of Chicago announced plans to build a freeway through the neighborhood, after which the neighborhood merged with another settlement, Emerson House, in 1948 to become to Chicago Commons Association.