Reed Street Neighborhood House (Philadelphia, Pa.).

Reed Street Neighborhood House was a settlement house in South Philadelphia which served a mixed population of Italians, Jews and Blacks from 1913. In 1875 the congregation of St. James Episcopal Church in Center City founded the St. James Industrial School for Girls and Women at Twenty-first and Sansom Streets, a "veritable hotbed of vice and crime." The school had courses in household work and general instruction for neighborhood girls "addicted to street begging." Racial and economic changes in the neighborhood, as the ward's black population dropped from 3031 in 1899 to 1839 in 1910, prompted the school's directors to move to a section of the city where their efforts were needed more. In 1913 they opened a new building at Seventh and Reed Streets. The program was expanded to include boys and, in 1919, to serve the entire neighborhood on a non-sectarian basis.

Reed Street Neighborhood House was oriented toward Jewish, Italian and, later, Black immigrants, especially children and teenagers. The settlement ran social, recreational and educational clubs and operated an extensive gang-work program, with area youth workers attempting to direct youth toward constructive activities and counseling opportunities at the settlement.

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