Northwestern University Settlement Association Records Photographs 1890-1991

Historical Note

The Northwestern University Settlement Association was founded in 1891 by a group of administrators and faculty from Northwestern University in order to provide social services, educational programs, referrals, and emergency relief to a poor immigrant neighborhood on Chicago's near northwest side. In 1901, after three moves, the Settlement was established in the building at 1400 West Augusta where it continues to operate as a community center.

Early Settlement activities centered around acculturating the largely immigrant population of the 16th Ward and included a picture loan service, a small library, and dance and music classes. Shortly after its founding, though, the Settlement began to offer additional eleemosynary services relating to public health and hygiene. During the Great Depression, the Settlement suspended many of its regular programs in order to dispense food, fuel, clothing and medicine to needy families. During World War II, the Settlement became a draft registration center and played an active role in various home front activities. In the 1950s and 1960s the Settlement greatly expanded its network to civic, service, social, fraternal, veteran and church organizations and offered many more citizenship and English classes. In the early 1980's, a project to establish an online database for the Settlement program records was initiated. Prior to that time, all program records had been handwritten on index cards and filed in thousands of family files.

For additional historical background on the Settlement, see the historical summary which forms a part of the descriptive inventory for Series 41/1, the General Administrative Records. See also the informal history prepared for the Settlement's centennial, <emph render="italic">The Worn Doorstep</emph>, by Mark Wukas (Chicago: Northwestern University Settlement Association, 1991).