The Settlement Movement.

Originating in Victorian England, but spreading quickly to the United States, the settlement movement was a loose coalition of groups and individuals who sought to relieve the harsh conditions facing factory workers in the crowded English and American cities of the late nineteenth century. The first socalled settlement house opened in London in 1884, when social activist Edward Denison, clergyman Samuel A. Barrett, and historian Arnold Toynbee established a lodge, Toynbee Hall. Believing well-educated people should help close the gap between the society's rich and poor, Denison, Barrett, and Toynbee felt they could promote this purpose by living among poor people, most of whom were factory workers, and making the residence, or "settlement," a center of education. At Toynbee Hall the three men taught classes for the working people of London, hoping to give these people educational weapons to...