Twenty Years at Hiram House by JUDITH A. TROLANDER Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the settlement movement reached the United States. Hull House, the most outstanding and second oldest settlement, was established in Chicago in 1889. The first social set- tlement in Cleveland to actually do settlement work as such was Hiram House, founded in 1896.1 Today, however, Hiram House has been largely forgotten, partly because George Bellamy, the founder and director through- out its existence, published very little. Fortunately, Bellamy was a com- pulsive saver of papers relating to his work. Recently, his widow presented these letters, reports, notes for speeches, and other papers dating back to 1901 to the Western Reserve Historical Society. As a result, it is now pos- sible to present a fuller and more detailed picture of the significance of Hiram House in the early years of the settlement movement. George Bellamy was born on September 29, 1872, in a small town in Michigan. He was a "descendant of the Wolcott [Oliver] who signed the Declaration of Independence and who was Secretary of the Treasury and in the Cabinet of George Washington."2 Unusual for one who worked as extensively with immigrants as he did, Bellamy was proud enough of his "old family" background to become a member of the New England Society of Cleveland and the Western Reserve and also the Society of the Descen- NOTES ON PAGE 69 |
26 OHIO HISTORY |
dants of Henry Wolcott, one of the first settlers of Windsor, Connecticut.3 Bellamy's immediate family had little money, and from the day George left home, he found it necessary to earn his own living. He worked his way through Hiram College in northeastern Ohio with various selling jobs and graduated in 1896. The idea of founding a settlement, or neighborhood house in a congested area that would provide various social services to the community, was con- ceived by Bellamy while still in college. Two years before graduation, he met Graham Taylor who had just founded the Chicago Commons settlement and had written the Y.M.C.A. Handbook used by members of a club study- ing sociological questions at Hiram College. Later Bellamy was to credit Taylor with "the motivation of my life work."4 In the spring of 1896 this club voted to study the need for a social settlement in Cleveland. A quick trip to Cleveland convinced them that the need did in fact exist. In the summer Bellamy and two other members of the club moved to Cleveland to begin a settlement which they named Hiram House because the first residents were graduates of Hiram College. Four others joined them to make an initial group of seven residents, or social workers who lived in the neighborhood they were trying to help. Bellamy's financial resources during the first few years were slender. To finance the fledgling project, he solicited contributions, but the largest amount given by anyone during the first year was $75.00.5 He rented a |
HIRAM HOUSE 27 small house which provided only enough space for a nursery and the clubs, forcing him to find living space across the street. In the spring, the settle- ment was evicted from its first home because too many people were using the house and causing too much wear on it, in the opinion of the landlord. The rent had been paid, but Bellamy had fallen behind in paying salaries, including his own. In order to buy a badly needed suit, he had to take a temporary job collecting pledges for the Anti-Saloon League. By 1898, the settlement in its second location had expanded to include nine clubs, a nursery, and a kindergarten with sixty-five children enrolled.6 Also, with incorporation in 1898, the house began to receive gifts from prominent Cleveland philanthropists, led by Samuel Mather, and in 1899 ground was broken for its own building near Twenty-seventh and Orange. Bellamy was then at last able to relax secure in the knowledge that Hiram House was going to have a place where the settlement work could proceed. To Bellamy and many of his contemporaries, the key to social problems was the environment--improve the environment and social problems will be alleviated, or so they thought. Specifically, Bellamy blamed congestion in the slums for health problems, law-breaking, low morals, and truancy. In response to these and other social problems, settlements offered facilities and programs which were intended to be of a remedial nature. They also supported the rehabilitative efforts of other charities and organizations, and they became closely connected with the social gospel and progressive |
28 OHIO HISTORY
movements. However, from the beginning
of the first settlement in the
world, Toynbee Hall founded by Samuel
Barnett in London, the settle-
ment approach differed from that of
other organizations. Early leaders of
the settlement movement, such as Stanton
Coit (founder of the first settle-
ment in the United States), Jane Addams,
Graham Taylor, and Robert
Woods of South End House in Boston, stressed
the importance of residence
in the neighborhood to be helped. For
example, Taylor talked about resi-
dents identifying themselves with the
poor by actually living among them.
In return for the help which they gave,
the residents would receive insights
into the lives of the poor. In fact,
when Taylor began in 1894, he thought
of Chicago Commons "primarily as a
'social observatory' and 'statistical
laboratory' for his students."7
He added other programs as the need for
them became apparent. Bellamy attempted
to put into practice as much of
this philosophy as possible.
The usual procedure in determining the
needs of an area was to make a
study of some aspect of the
neighborhood, such as housing, and then, armed
with the facts, seek community support
through publicity in order to get
local government legislation to correct
the situation. Hiram House made
such a study in 1901 on housing. At the
time of the report the neighbor-
hood, bounded roughly by East Fourteenth
and East Fifty-fifth Streets,
Carnegie and Broadway, was predominantly
Jewish, Russian immigrants
in the majority. The survey showed that
there were two types of slum
dwellings-the tenement, a large building
originally divided into apart-
ments, and the small house, crowded two
or more onto one lot. The latter
type was more common in Cleveland.
Garbage boxes, sheds, and manure
heaps occupied the space on each lot not
taken up by the small frame
houses, which were often partitioned to
accommodate two or more families.
The following houses were not the worst,
but only representative:
An investigation of a piece of property
37' by 140', with two three-
story buildings [revealed]: Three
closets in the yard with water connec-
tions but the water don't run. Sixteen
people live in the front house
and seventeen in the rear. No bath
rooms. Yard is built up with sheds.
These sheds are on the fifteen per cent
of the ground space not occu-
pied by the buildings. House in the rear
has wooden balcony for fire
escapes. A fire trap. Heated by stoves.8
This report summarized the results of
the first study of slum housing
made in Cleveland. It urged that new
laws be passed to prevent the worst
types of slum housing and the
enforcement of laws regulating housing
where they existed. The report was
prepared for the Cleveland Council of
Sociology and then was presented to the
mayor.
Who were the people who lived in these
substandard houses? They were
mostly immigrants, first Jews, then
Italians, but also Slavs, Poles, and oth-
ers from southern and eastern Europe.
Their families were often large,
which meant that neighborhood schools
were crowded. Poverty was the
rule. In many cases, family ties were
loose, reflecting an estrangement be-
tween the foreign-born parents and their
American-born children.9 Street
gangs flourished. Deserted wives or
widows struggling to support them-
HIRAM HOUSE 29
selves and their children on sweat shop
wages were common. Income for
some families was as low as $2.00 to
$3.00 per week.
One such woman was a Russian-Jewish
immigrant who lived in a one-
room apartment on highly congested
Cherry Alley. She regularly left her
three children at the Hiram House day
nursery for five cents per day per
child. She then went to a factory and
carried home "heavy loads of boys'
suits . . . and then returned them to
the factory when the labor on them
had been finished. She toiled all day
sewing buttons on the suits, being
paid one cent for each suit she
completed."10 Such people were typical of
Hiram House's neighbors.
Another of the settlement's efforts to
improve the neighborhood environ-
ment focused on the dance halls. Bellamy
revealed his methods in the fol-
lowing candid letter to another reformer
in West Virginia:
We made an investigation of the dance
halls .... We kept it quiet
from the papers or any one else,
employed a woman, paying $100.00
per month, furnished escorts to her, and
she made a thorough study of
the dance hall situation. We called in
the mayor, two or three good
councilmen, and a few men whom we could
trust, and read the report
and said it had been kept absolutely
quiet, and if they would go ahead
and put the ordinance, which we had
already drafted, through the
council, we would let them get the
credit of the good work done. Then
we secured the appointment of an excellent
man to put into execution
the requirements of the ordinance. That
is the best way to go after
these things.11
The resulting ordinance was passed in
1911 and established an inspection
system which was designed to improve the
moral tone of the halls. Dance
hall inspectors had the authority to
censor "all freak or immodest danc-
ing," eliminate "objectionable
advertising," maintain order, and prohibit
children under eighteen from the
premises unless "properly chaperoned."
Although this ordinance dealt only
indirectly with the selling of liquor, a
1913 state law prohibited
"temporary bars in the same building as dance
halls."12 By 1915, Hiram
House had evidently developed some dissatisfac-
tion with the municipal inspector for he
was invited to one of the neighbor-
hood's dances in order to "show him
how a dance should be run."13 The
settlement recognized that the mere
passage of an ordinance did not al-
ways produce sufficient and lasting
change, and so Hiram House kept a
vigilant eye on the enforcement of this
regulation in the years that followed.
In 1912, with reformer Newton D. Baker
as mayor, Bellamy was active
in politics as chairman of the campaign
committee for the Municipal Play-
ground Bond Issue. The committee sought
$1,000,000. The issue failed to
pass that year, but in 1913 Bellamy
again sought to place the bond issue
on the ballot. This time Mayor Baker
opposed the move, saying that he
doubted the issue would pass although he
favored more money for play-
grounds.14 At the same time,
Baker was trying to get Bellamy to accept
the post of commissioner of recreation.
Bellamy hesitated, but nine months
later took the job on a temporary basis
for the following public-spirited
reasons:
30 OHIO HISTORY
The Department of Public Recreation
seems to be in a bad way and
the Council refused to appropriate any
money to carry it on, for they
want McGinty, an ex-pugilist and
saloonkeeper to be appointed Direc-
tor of Recreation. In order to save the
day until the Mayor comes back,
I accepted the temporary appointment and
have already appointed
playground directors so that our
playgrounds will start on June 29th.
In the meantime . . . there will be
quite a fight on and I rather antici-
pate considerable enjoyment from it,
although it is going to mean a
great deal of extra effort.15
Although obviously interested in the
recreation position, Bellamy was
forced to be practical about money
matters and did not stay in the public
recreation department. Francis F.
Prentiss, chairman of the Hiram House
board, had recognized his financial
need. When Bellamy had been offered
the job of secretary of the Playground
Association in 1910, Prentiss held
out the possibility of a salary increase
and mentioned picking up the deficit
on Bellamy's farm if he would not leave
the settlement.16 By the depres-
sion years Bellamy's salary reached
$7500 plus "other benefits"--Samuel
Mather and others also paid for the
college education of his daughters.
Even so, Bellamy probably made less
money than if he had gone into busi-
ness with his ability as a salesman and
fund raiser.17
The settlement's efforts on behalf of
playgrounds, housing, and recrea-
tion helped to produce some constructive
results. A survey of the neighbor-
hood in 1899 showed that it lacked
playgrounds, public gyms, parks, and
was deficient in school facilities. But
by 1912, through its cooperation on
civic committees and by means of other
activities, Hiram House had the
right to claim partial credit for the
following results:
Better housing laws, the establishment
of public baths, the improve-
ment of school conditions, the
establishment of Juvenile Court, the se-
curing of a dance hall ordinance, the
reduction of hours of labor for
women and children in factories, the
extension of the school age of
children, and the establishment of
better public recreation.18
Also, Hiram House preceded the Board of
Education in the introduction
to Cleveland of new types of education.19
While the public schools hesi-
tated, the settlement made available a
kindergarten, domestic education,
and manual training classes. The
kindergarten and nursery were among
its first activities. In 1900 there were
estimated to be 2500 children in the
neighborhood under six. The House
secured a teacher trained at Graham
Taylor's Institute in Chicago, a school
which emphasized the theories of
Pestalozzi and Froebel. By 1912, the
public schools had established their
own kindergartens, but since they could
not accommodate all the children,
Hiram House still temporarily donated
space for this purpose while the
school board paid the teachers' salaries
and furnished supplies.
Sewing and cooking classes began at
Hiram House in 1898. In the early
1900's, one of the houses adjacent to
the settlement was bought and con-
verted into a "model cottage,"
where classes were conducted in a realistic
HIRAM
HOUSE 31
home setting. Throughout the first
twenty years, Hiram House continued
to offer domestic education courses of
this type.
In 1901, the manual training department
was organized. Using the do-
nated presses, the students printed all
Hiram House publications, plus
tickets, stationery, and other items.
Printing proved to be the most popular
subject offered. Other classes during this
period were given in bookkeep-
ing, stenography, mechanical drawing,
carpentry, metal work, telegraphy,
and machine shop. Thus Hiram House
partially filled the gap until voca-
tional education was adopted by the
public schools.
Less successful than manual training and
domestic education were the
adult education classes in academic
subjects. In 1898, Hiram House offered
twenty different classes in such
subjects as general history, Latin, Greek,
French, English literature, and
arithmetic. Enrollment was small. For ex-
ample, only two boys chose to study
Greek. There were, however, three
students qualified to enter college by
1900. The main problem was the
fact that its volunteer teachers did not
always appear to teach their classes.
The program may have been too ambitious
for the young settlement. What-
ever the reason for failure, Hiram House
switched from academic to manual
training classes in 1901.
Some of the early adult education
classes were in English for immigrants,
and these were not discontinued. It was
in connection with this activity
that Hiram House had a hand in the
success story of Manuel Levine. Levine
was a sixteen year old Russian-Jewish
immigrant who arrived at Hiram
House early in 1897. He wanted to learn
English so George Bellamy found
a tutor who worked with him three
mornings a week without charge. In
the fall of 1897, the director helped
the young man get into the Western
Reserve University Law School. He almost
"flunked out" during his first
year because of his language problem,
but in three years he graduated
among the top students in his class. In
1899, Levine joined the Hiram
Social Reform Club to which he belonged
until his death in 1939. Bellamy
claimed, "Levine often attributed
much of his educational and debating
ability to his experiences in this
club."20 Levine also organized citizenship
classes at Hiram House and spent his
Saturday nights teaching immigrants.
He was appointed judge on the Police
Court in 1908 and worked to stop
the unethical practices in which lawyers
often took advantage of immi-
grants. He went on to help establish the
Municiple Court of Cleveland, the
first conciliation court in America, and introduced the
probation system
in Common Pleas Court. He was appointed
a judge of the District Court
of Appeals in 1922 and became its chief
justice in 1932. In addition to this
distinguished legal career, Newton D.
Baker referred to Levine as "The
Father of the Cleveland Immigration
Bureau."21 Although Levine's was
the outstanding success story of Hiram
House, there were others who made
considerable progress after they left
the settlement. Some early members
of the Webster Debating Club attended
the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Case School of Applied
Science, Western Reserve University
Medical School, Cleveland Pharmaceutical
School, and two law schools.22
32 OHIO HISTORY The Cleveland Immigration Bureau, mentioned in connection with Le- vine, was supported also by George Bellamy. The Bureau was established in 1913 with three aims: to meet immigrants on arrival, to get immigrants out of difficulty with the law, if necessary, and to further their Americani- zation. To accomplish the third objective, the Bureau organized a course to train teachers as instructors in English for immigrants. Through its ef- forts, over 30,000 immigrants attended English classes and over 4,000 en- rolled in citizenship classes at Hiram House as well as other cooperating settlement houses in Cleveland. |
A unique feature of the settlement approach was the principle of social interaction. It was the hope that some of the problems of the people would be alleviated by this means, with the settlement house providing the com- mon meeting place. The first club providing such interaction at Hiram House was the Buckeye Literary and Debating Club, dating back to the summer of 1896. It was composed of Russian-Jewish boys. The Social Re- form Club, which Manuel Levine praised, grew out of this club. The group discussed current topics and invited such prominent Clevelanders to speak as President Thwing of Western Reserve University and Mayor Tom L. |
HIRAM
HOUSE 33
Johnson. The original members were
students who, as the years passed,
continued to meet as adults. Many early
settlements had clubs such as this
one.
Not all the groups were intellectually
oriented. Girls' clubs were organ-
ized around such activities as music,
dramatics, basket-weaving, doll-dress-
ing, and dancing. Boys' clubs often
emphasized athletics. Both the Camp
Fire Girls and the Boy Scouts met at
Hiram House. There were also sev-
eral bands and choruses and arts and
crafts clubs, as well as purely social
clubs. Some of the social activities
were not organized functions. In the
early days, neighborhood receptions were
held often and were continued
later on special occasions. Thursday
nights in the summer a band concert
was scheduled on the playground.
Programs featuring stereopticon lectures
and later moving pictures were also
given. The game room and gymnasium
provided further facilities in a
neighborhood starved for wholesome public
recreation. To acquaint people with all
its activities, Hiram House Life
was published bi-monthly beginning about
1900. The Hiram House Echo,
which was started to help club members keep
in touch with each other,
appeared in 1910.
Of its many activities, the workers at
Hiram House were proudest of the
playground program. The play area was
the gift of Mrs. Samuel Mather
and was installed after the permanent
building was constructed in 1900.
This was the first playground to be
lighted at night and was cited years
later "as the best programed play
space in the land."23 Very early Bellamy
discovered that the children needed
adult supervision, and he was among
the first to develop the job of
playground director.
About 1906, he began the Progress City
program which eventually re-
ceived national recognition.24 The
children were organized into a govern-
ment similar to Cleveland's, with a
mayor, city judge, and other officials.
Each child had a job, such as clean-up
worker (Sanitation Department),
for which he received play money which
was then put into the Progress
City Bank. At the end of the summer, a
store such as Halle's would donate
goods that the children could purchase
with their play money. The children
went so far as to imitate government
corruption. Occasionally mayors stole,
judges were bribed, and bankers
embezzled. The children, however, "im-
peached and punished the offenders . . .
with such a vengeance" that Pro-
gress City was considered an excellent
learning experience.25 Bellamy's
commitment to the value of recreation is
further revealed in his only
published writings--one article urging
that playgrounds be open in the
evening and the other promoting
wholesome recreation as is a builder of
character and preserver of morals.26
The "neighborhood visitor" is
a key figure in the early settlement move-
ment, and this person performed many of
the functions of the present day
caseworker. Before 1907, neighborhood
visiting was the responsibility of
all the workers at Hiram House. With the
addition of Margaret Mitchell
to the staff in 1908 neighborhood
visiting received special emphasis.27 Miss
Mitchell found herself doing a variety
of things, from finding work for
the unemployed to settling marital
squabbles. When social agencies called
34 OHIO HISTORY
to ask the settlement to look after a
neighbor, the job was usually delegated
to her. She also got referrals from
Juvenile Court. Consequently, she be-
came closely acquainted with many people
in the neighborhood. Her re-
ports present a vivid picture of their
personal problems. This family was
one such case:
The family is Hungarian, there are three
little children, the father
is a sober, hardworking machinist and
the mother is a drunkard. As
soon as the husband leaves for work, she
sends ten-year-old Arthur or
seven-year-old Annie for beer or
whiskey. When they return, she loses
no time in getting drunk. Then the baby
may lie neglected for hours,
the children go dirty and hungry . . .
If she could not get her drink
at home, she had friends who would
gladly treat and she would
often go away in the morning and be gone
all day. [The children were
left in charge of the house, and
unsupervised, they were also starting
to drink.] The mother was sent to the
State Hospital, but at the end of
three weeks, in despair because there
was no housekeeper at home and
in hopes that his wife would keep the
promises she made, the husband
brought her home and in a few days the
situation was as bad as ever.
Threats were made, but these did no
good, except to make the mother
more cunning .... We decided that
patient work was the only thing
that might do any good. For some time, I
called at the home almost
every day and tried to encourage the
mother to a better performance
of home duties--letting her know, too,
that we were keeping a watchful
eye on her. Tile home conditions seemed
to be improving and the hus-
band said his wife was doing better, but
I have not seen the family
since New Years, so I can not tell how
long she held out.28
This case shows the frustration and
inconclusive results that Margaret Mit-
chell faced in much of her work.
Another knotty problem that Miss
Mitchell encountered was that of the
neighborhood gang. There were a number
of such groups made up of boys
whose parents had little interest in or
control over them. One rowdy gang
lived independently of their families in
a shanty they had constructed be-
tween the blast furnaces and tile
railway. They supported themselves by
stealing. The youngest member was six. A
great deal of work was spent
drawing it into Hiram House; but mainly
due to the efforts of Margaret
Mitchell, the settlement succeeded.29
More representative than this group was
"Joe the Robber's Gang" which
had long caused a great deal of trouble
in the neighborhood, including the
Hiram House playground. They would enter
the playground at one end,
start a series of fights and break up
games in progress, and be out the other
end before they could be caught. After
much work on the part of Miss
Mitchell, the gang was persuaded to come
to Hiram House and form a
club. The boys, of course, elected Joe
president, but Margaret was elected
treasurer, not out of gratitude, but
"because the boys said she would not
shoot craps with the money." The
club also elected two sergeants-at-arms
"to literally 'bat' the members
into some semblance of order." In one in-
stance trouble followed in the gym as a
result of a game between some
HIRAM HOUSE 35 Jewish boys and this Italian gang. The gang threatened a fight outside the building, a knife was flashed, and the police were called; but no fight ensued before the police arrived. After four months of working with the group, including two months as a club, the boys' behavior improved. They fol- lowed the rules in the gym, did not threaten other boys, and occasionally mixed with them. The boys reduced their gambling; and Joe said he had cut his smoking down to one cigarette a day and was playing "hooky" less. Here, the success of Hiram House was more definite. Before coming into contact with the House, the gang had been largely independent of adult supervision. The settlement, however, changed that and the boys' energy was then channeled more constructively. In cases such as this, it was Mar- garet Mitchell's main job to go out into the neighborhood and make the initial contacts. Thus, on the neighborhood visitor fell some of the toughest and most challenging assignments.30 During its first twenty years Hiram House was supported in a variety of ways, reflecting a general transition relative to the collection and spending of private donations to public charities. In the beginning, the settlement relied on private contributions to pay expenses; all funds were personally solicited by George Bellamy or his associates and the contributors were personally acquainted with the House. At the end of this period, organized philanthropy became prevalent, and at a later date an all-powerful Welfare Federation with its United Appeal was formed. As has been mentioned, George Bellamy was a master at the art of fund- raising. He once remarked to Francis F. Prentiss, "As a boy, our church |
36 OHIO HISTORY
always used to get me to sell
tickets."31 By 1899, Bellamy had gone from
selling church tickets to soliciting
large sums of money from Samuel Mather
and John D. Rockefeller. The list of
contributors to Hiram House soon
read like a "Who's Who in
Cleveland." The major figure who supported
the settlement with his philanthropy was
Francis F. Prentiss. He was also
chairman of the board during the last
ten years of this period under study.
A busy man, Prentiss was president and
general manager of the Cleveland
Twist Drill Company, president of the
Cleveland Chamber of Commerce
in 1906, and a director of the Cleveland
Life Insurance Company. During
his lifetime, he headed numerous civic
and philanthropic enterprises. In
addition, he was a trustee of both
Western Reserve University and Case
School of Applied Science, president of
the Cleveland School of Art, and
vice-president of the Western Reserve
Historical Society. Prentiss seemed
to derive satisfaction from both
donating and soliciting funds for Hiram
House. He made a substantial
contribution each year while helping Bellamy
get more money from others. In addition
to money, Prentiss made a Christ-
mas gift of 400 to 700 or more pounds of
candy to the neighbors of the
settlement. This gift became an annual
custom extending from 1906 to
1931, when Mrs. Prentiss, the former
Elizabeth S. Severance, had to un-
happily inform Bellamy that she could no
longer afford to keep it up.
As a recipient of many requests for
donations and an associate of other
contributors of large amounts, Prentiss
knew from first hand experience
what it was like to be asked for money.
Through him Bellamy became
even more aware of the fine techniques
of fund-raising. For example, in
1912, he very much wanted W. S. Tyler,
head of the Cleveland Wire Works,
to name Hiram House as a beneficiary in
his will. Before typing a letter
to Tyler with this request, Bellamy
consulted Prentiss, who replied:
With reference to bequests, I think a
printed circular letter to con-
tributors would be better than a
typewritten one. My reason for this
is than none will feel they were singled
out for special consideration:
for instance, if you should send a
typewritten letter to Mr. Tyler he
might feel you were anticipating too
rapidly, and be offended, and the
same true of others.32
In 1913, fifty-three charities in
Cleveland organized the Federation for
Charity and Philanthropy, "the
first of the larger existing Federations" in
the United States.33 Its
purpose was to pool all fund raising efforts for cur-
rent expenses into one big drive, the
Community Chest. When a charity
joined the Federation, it agreed not to
solicit funds on its own from Feder-
ation subscribers to meet current
expenses. Furthermore, before soliciting
money for other needs, Federation
charities were expected to get permission
from the Federation board. Thus
belonging to the Federation meant a con-
siderable loss of independence on the
part of the individual charity. Before
formation of the Federation, the boards
of directors for each charity ap-
proved the programs of that charity.
Since the directors were usually the
major contributors, they had a great
deal of control over how their money
was spent under the old system but
little under the Federation. To a char-
ity like Hiram House which had much
success in raising funds the advant-
HIRAM HOUSE 37
ages of the organization were
questionable. Samuel Mather stated the case
against the Federation when he wrote to
George Bellamy in 1910:
I told them [the Federation officials]
frankly that I had been unable
so far to come to a conviction that
things would be better to have all
charitable gifts made in a lump sum to
the committee and distributed
by them to the various charities of the
city. I felt that it would destroy
far too much the interest felt by the
giver in the various charities of the
city, which depended much on the
information and interest he receives
through personal contact with those in
control of the institutions. I
presume it [the Federation] would result
in an economy of time and
money but at the expense it seems to me,
of a vital interest and con-
nection, both to the giver and the
worker.34
An institution, nevertheless, would
appear selfish if it stayed out so Hiram
House relunctantly joined the
Federation. With the exception of John D.
Rockefeller, the early contributors were
actively interested in the settle-
ment and played a more important role in
its work before the Federation
assumed control of the budget. Many had
supported it out of a sense of
generosity and civic duty, and Hiram
House owed its continued existence
to these men.
Only the first twenty years of Hiram
House are discussed here, a time span
chosen because these years appeared to
be the ones in which its work was
most significant as well as
representative of the settlement movement. At the
end of this period, the buildings on the
blocks across the street from the
settlement were demolished to make way
for a railroad. As a result, the
House lost almost one-half of its
neighborhood but remained active in this
location until the 1930's. From then
until 1947, its programs were carried
on in various school buildings. In 1947,
when Bellamy retired, the Federa-
tion voted to discontinue financing the
settlement but to continue its sup-
port of Hiram House Camp, acquired as
part of the settlement in 1903. The
Camp, located near Chagrin Falls, is all
that is left at the present time. The
land on which Hiram House was located is
now covered by a freeway; and
what remained of the old neighborhood
has been leveled, with one or two
exceptions, under the St. Vincent Urban
Renewal Project.
With so few physical reminders of the
past left, the question remains
what, if anything, was significant about
Hiram House. The only unique
contributions made by the House were in
connection with its playground,
but its human contacts were many and
varied. The settlement compensated
for the school board's hesitancy to
provide kindergarten, cooking, and man-
ual training classes. It helped the
immigrant to adjust to a new environ-
ment; it tried to improve that
environment by serving as a force for reform
during the progressive era. The
"neighborhood visitor" was one of the fore-
runners of today's caseworker. In
summary, even though Hiram House was
not a major innovator or leader among
settlements on the national scene,
its significance lies, instead, in the
fact that it participated fully and actively
in most aspects of the early settlement
movement and thereby attempted to
meet the needs of its neighborhood.
THE AUTHOR: Judith A. Trolander is
a doctoral candidate at Case Western
Re-
serve University.
Twenty Years at Hiram House by JUDITH A. TROLANDER Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the settlement movement reached the United States. Hull House, the most outstanding and second oldest settlement, was established in Chicago in 1889. The first social set- tlement in Cleveland to actually do settlement work as such was Hiram House, founded in 1896.1 Today, however, Hiram House has been largely forgotten, partly because George Bellamy, the founder and director through- out its existence, published very little. Fortunately, Bellamy was a com- pulsive saver of papers relating to his work. Recently, his widow presented these letters, reports, notes for speeches, and other papers dating back to 1901 to the Western Reserve Historical Society. As a result, it is now pos- sible to present a fuller and more detailed picture of the significance of Hiram House in the early years of the settlement movement. George Bellamy was born on September 29, 1872, in a small town in Michigan. He was a "descendant of the Wolcott [Oliver] who signed the Declaration of Independence and who was Secretary of the Treasury and in the Cabinet of George Washington."2 Unusual for one who worked as extensively with immigrants as he did, Bellamy was proud enough of his "old family" background to become a member of the New England Society of Cleveland and the Western Reserve and also the Society of the Descen- NOTES ON PAGE 69 |