The settlement movement was a reformist social movement, beginning in the 1880s and peaking around the 1920s in England and the US, with a goal of getting the rich and poor in society to live more closely together in an interdependent community. Its main object was the establishment of "settlement houses" in poor urban areas, in which volunteer middle-class "settlement workers" would live, hoping to share knowledge and culture with, and alleviate the poverty of their low-income neighbors. In the US, by 1913 there were 413 settlements in 32 states.
The term also has a second unrelated meaning in contemporary USA, referring to independent living programs targeted towards young people who "age out" of the foster care system. The US Congress passed legislation in 1999, setting aside $140 million for independent living programs.
Read more about Settlement Movement: History, Active Settlement Houses, Historical Settlement Houses, Legacy and Impact
Famous quotes containing the words settlement and/or movement:
“The difficult and risky task of meeting and mastering the new—whether it be the settlement of new lands or the initiation of new ways of life—is not undertaken by the vanguard of society but by its rear. It is the misfits, failures, fugitives, outcasts and their like who are among the first to grapple with the new.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“For what we call illusions are often, in truth, a wider vision of past and present realities—a willing movement of a man’s soul with the larger sweep of the world’s forces—a movement towards a more assured end than the chances of a single life.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)