Henry Street Settlement

"The sight of a woman in a rear tenement, under unspeakably distressing conditions, was the starting point of the Settlement," Lillian D. Wald related during the Henry Street Settlement's 20th anniversary celebration in 1914. "Miss Mary Brewster and I, both graduates of the New York Hospital Training School," Wald continued, "established ourselves on the top floor of a tenement house near by. We charged ourselves with creating a visiting nursing service, on the terms most considerate of the dignity and independence of the patients ... and also with contributing our citizenship in an industrial neighborhood."

Known as the Nurses' Settlement when it was established in New York City's Lower East Side in July 1893, the Henry Street Settlement earned national standing in the settlement movement. It served an immigrant neighborhood composed initially of Russian Jews, intermixed with Irish and Italians. As these groups were able to move to other areas in the years after World War II, they were replaced by African American, Puerto Rican, and Chinese residents.

The work of Lillian D. Wald and Mary Brewster from their office on the top floor of a tenement at 27 Jefferson Street soon attracted the attention of banker Jacob Schiff. In 1895, he purchased a house at 265 Henry Street and donated it to the settlement. Four more buildings on Henry Street had been added to the settlement by April 1903, when the Henry Street Settlement was incorporated. Among the incorporators and first directors were Lillian D. Wald and Lavinia L. Dock.

By 1913, the settlement offered a variety of programs in addition to a visiting nursing service that extended beyond the Lower East Side. The settlement was operating two branch centers--one on East 79th Street and a second, the Stillman House for Colored People, at 205 W. 60th Street. The settlement also ran two summer camps, Camp Henry for boys and Echo Hill Farm for girls, and programs for boys and girls in the city were already well established. In addition, Rita Wallach Morganthau and Alice and Irene Lewisohn had begun offering dance and drama classes, work that led to the establishment of the settlement's well-known Neighborhood Playhouse at 466 Grand Street in 1915.

The work of the visiting nurses and the social settlement were closely allied at first. By the time Helen Hall was named to succeed Lillian D. Wald as headworker in 1933, the two had grown into virtually separate enterprises. Hall, a social worker rather than a nurse by training, separated the nursing service from the settlement administratively in 1937. The Henry Street Settlement and the Visiting Nurse Service of New York were incorporated as separate legal entities in 1944. (During the reorganization, the settlement was known briefly as the Lillian Wald Settlement.) Helen Hall, the former headworker at Philadelphia's University Settlement and a leader in the national settlement movement, directed Henry Street until she retired in 1967 at age 75. Her husband, Paul Kellogg, editor of Survey magazine, also made his home at the settlement.

During Helen Hall's tenure as headworker, the settlement continued to grow in size and stature. A credit union was established in 1937 and a mental health clinic was organized in 1946. In 1948, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert H. Lehman dedicated a new settlement building, "Pete's House," named in memory of their son who had died in World War II. As new public housing projects were established, the settlement expanded its consumer education efforts. Home planning workshops offered housing residents the space and tools to mend furniture, clothes, and shoes. The Lower Eastside Neighborhoods Association (LENA) was organized at Henry Street in 1955 and Mobilization for Youth was created there in 1957. A new building, the Charles and Stella Guttman Building, opened its doors in 1963.

During this time, Helen Hall and the settlement's Community Studies Department studied, analyzed, and reported on the Lower East Side's changing social conditions. The results of many of her probes were published in the Survey . When a bibliography entitled The Helen Hall Settlement Papers was compiled in 1959, 65 studies made between 1928 and 1958 were listed.

Bertram Beck, the former director of Mobilization for Youth and associate director of the National Association of Social Workers, succeeded Helen Hall in 1967. During his ten-year stay, the settlement brought its arts programs under one roof in the new Arts for Living Center. Like most social service organizations at the time, Henry Street also grew to rely on increased government funding. (In 1975, for example, public funds accounted for two-thirds of the settlement's $4.5 million budget.) New services were organized, including a day care center and jobs programs as well as programs and temporary shelters for homeless families.

In 1970, the settlement began referring to itself as the Henry Street Urban Life Center, but retained Henry Street Settlement as its legal name. According to the board minutes of June 22, 1970, the name change was "seen as an aid in fund raising and in securing public understanding .... The word 'settlement' was derived from the fact that the settlement pioneers moved into the poor community and settled there. The term, 'urban life center,' is designed to quickly convey the notion of interaction between the staff and people who live in the neighborhood..."

In 1977, Bertram Beck was succeeded by Frank Seever, who had been director of Chicago Commons. Niathan Allen served as the settlement's fifth executive director from 1981 to 1985, when Daniel Kronenfeld was appointed. During the 1980's and 1990's the settlement expanded its arts, homeless, senior citizen, youth, employment, and mental health programs and continued to add new projects, including education and assistance programs for persons affected by HIV/AIDS. In 2002, Daniel Kronenfeld was succeeded by Verona Middleton-Jeter.

Additional information about the history of specific projects and activities is included in the series descriptions.

From the guide to the Henry Street Settlement records, 1892-2005, (University of Minnesota Libraries. Social Welfare History Archives [swha])