Ohio History Journal

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

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

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.

NOTES                                                                         69

quiries into the Communist conspiracies of the 1950's prompted the Cincinnati National

League club to change its totem from "Reds" to "Redlegs."

17. De Witt's Base Ball Guide, 1871, 94.

18. Ellard, Baseball in Cincinnati, 154-158; Chadwick, Scrapbooks, VI, 21-24.

19. Ellard, Baseball in Cincinnati, 161-162.

20. Harper's Weekly, July 3, 1869, July 2, 1870; Cincinnati Commercial, July 1, 2, 3,

1869.

21. Cincinnati Commercial, August 27, 28, September 1, 3, 6, 1869; Ellard, Baseball

in Cincinnati, 166-169; Chadwick's Base Ball Manual, 1871, 96.

22. Wright, Note and Account Books, I; Harry Wright, Correspondence of Harry

Wright, Baseball Manager, Volume V 236-237 Spalding Collection New York Public

Library; Chadwick, Scrapbooks, I, 26; Reach Official Base Ball Guide, 1894, 79-85.

23. Cincinnati Commercial, October 29, 1870.

24. Voigt, American Baseball, 32.

25. Ellard, Baseball in Cincinnati, 189, 190-195; Cincinnati Commercial, June 15,

1870.

26. Ellard, Baseball in Cincinnati, 210-213; Sporting Life, January 23, 1884; Hy

Turkin and S. C. Thompson, The Official Encyclopedia of Baseball, (New York, 1956), 6.

TWENTY YEARS AT HIRAM HOUSE

The author gratefully acknowledges the encouragement and guidance of the late Dr.

Harvey Wish of Case Western Reserve University in the preparation of this paper.

1. Hiram House's more serious rival for the designation of Cleveland's first social

settlement is Goodrich House. Mrs. Samuel Mather financed the building of this social

settlement in Cleveland under the auspices of the Old Stone Church; ground was broken

in April 1896. Henry E. Bourne, vice-president of the first board of trustees, in The First

Four Decades: Goodrich House (Cleveland, 1938), 13, writes in regard to the founding:

Probably no one would push back the date to April, 1896, when the building it-

self was begun. It is doubtful whether anyone would insist that it began only on the

date of formal opening, May 20, 1897. Of course, the legal terminus a quo was May

15 [1897], when the Settlement was incorporated .... The first meeting for organiza-

tion occurred on December 9, 1896, when also a Board of Directors ... was chosen.

Actual settlement work had begun two months earlier [October 1896], when Mr.

Chadwallader came to Cleveland to take charge.

Cooperation was good between the two settlements. George Bellamy served for a time on

the Goodrich House board while Mr. and Mrs. Mather contributed heavily to both. A

third Cleveland settlement, Friendly Inn, claims 1874 as its founding date, but this is

the date of establishment of the Inn's parent organization.

2. Autobiographical notes, George A. Bellamy Papers, Western Historical Society.

3. Membership list of the New England Society of Cleveland and the Western Re-

serve; see also Roland Wolcott to Bellamy, December 8, 1944, Bellamy Papers.

4. Address delivered by Bellamy before the National Federation of Settlements, May

26, 1926, Bellamy Papers. Taylor, in turn, credited Jane Addams with influencing him

to begin settlement work.

5. Historical Report of the Sixteen Years of Hiram House (Hiram House, 1912), 5.

6. Second Annual Report (Hiram House, 1898), 19.

7. Louise C. Wade, Graham Taylor: Pioneer for Social Justice (Chicago, 1964), 82.

The best secondary source for relating the settlement movement to the progressive era

is Allen F. Davis, Spearheads for Reform (New York, 1967). Davis' book contains a

number of examples of settlement workers attempting through studies and political

activities to bring about various reforms. Two outstanding book-length examples of

early settlement house studies are: Residents of Hull House, Hull House Maps and

Papers (New York, 1895) and Residents of South End House, The City Wilderness

(Boston, 1898).

8. George A. Bellamy, "City Housing with Special Reference to Cleveland," Decem-

ber 28, 1901, Bellamy Papers.

9. Oscar Handlin, in The Uprooted (Boston, 1951), illustrates the many ways in

which the immigration experience placed strains on family life, often altering tradi-

70                                                           OHIO HISTORY

tional roles within the family and many times resulting in a loosening, if not disruption,

of family ties.

10. Fragment of a speech or essay, Bellamy Papers.

11. Bellamy to W. D. Van Voorhis, March 30, 1912, Bellamy Papers.

12. George S. Meyers, "Report of the Dance Hall Inspector," Annual Report of the

Departments of Government of the City of Cleveland for the Year Ending December 31,

1913, 1495-1501. See, also, Thomas F. Campbell, Daniel E. Morgan, 1877-1949: The Good

Citizen in Politics (Cleveland, 1966), 19.

13. Nineteenth Annual Report (Hiram House, 1915), 14.

14. Newton D. Baker to Bellamy, September 20, 1913, Bellamy Papers.

15. Bellamy to Francis F. Prentiss, June 24, 1914, Bellamy Papers.

16. Prentiss to Bellamy, July 26, 1910, Bellamy Papers. Bellamy had acquired a farm

near Chagrin Falls, Ohio.

17. In addition to his success in raising money to finance Hiram House, following

World War I Bellamy raised $135,000 in various cities to cover the expenses of nine

regional conferences organized by the League to Enforce Peace, overshooting his goal

by $25,000.

18. Historical Report ... Hiram House, 11.

19. Ibid., 89. Davis in Spearheads for Reform claims that progressive education de-

rived much support from settlements which often preceded their local school boards in

introducing kindergartens, vocational training, and Americanization classes. Presumably,

these local experiments were a factor influencing school boards to adopt many of these

programs. Although Davis did not consult the Hiram House Papers, the settlement's

activities in education illustrate his thesis very well.

20. Bellamy, Essay, May 27, 1955, Bellamy Papers.

21. Ibid. Ernest Poole describes Levine in action as police prosecutor and reformer

in "The Story of Manuel Levine," Outlook, LXXXXVII (October 26, 1907), 413-419.

See also, Who Was Who in America, 1897-1942, I, 724.

22. William Rothenberg to Bellamy, January 6, 1906, Bellamy Papers.

23. Grace Goulder, "A Country Boy's City Dream Comes True," Cleveland Plain

Dealer, September 13, 1936.

24. Robert A. Woods, and Albert J. Kennedy describe this program in their history

of the settlement movement, The Settlement Horizon (New York, 1922), 114.

25. Historical Report ... Hiram House, 66.

26. George Bellamy, "Evening Recreation," Playground, V (October 1911), 239-244;

and George Bellamy, "Recreation and Social Progress," National Conference of Chari-

ties and Corrections, Proceedings, 1914, 375-382.

27. Although a number of attempts were made to train people for positions like

Margaret Mitchell's, "the first school of social work to begin its existence as part of a

university" did not open until 1916. This was the School of Applied Social Science at

Western Reserve University. See Case Western Reserve University, Bulletin -- School of

Applied Social Science, 1968-1969, 5. Since the resources of the settlement were limited,

part of Miss Mitchell's job was to refer cases to other community agencies, such as a free

hospital dispensary, Hebrew Relief, the city's Outdoor Relief, the orphan asylums, and

other agencies, according to the problems of each family. The fact that Miss Mitchell

was a resident of a settlement meant, of course, that she was personally familiar with

the neighborhood and was, in a sense, part of it. Recently, the VISTA program has re-

turned to this practice of having the volunteer become an actual resident of the neighbor-

hood with which he is working.

28. Margaret Mitchell, "Report, 1911," Bellamy Papers.

29. Twelfth Annual Report (Hiram House, 1908), 3-13. See also Thirteenth Annual

Report (Hiram House, 1909) 3-5 and over fifty pages of reports which Margaret Mitchell

devoted to this gang in the Bellamy Papers.

30. Margaret Mitchell, "The Italian Gang," February 18, 1915, Bellamy Papers.

31. Bellamy to Prentiss, February 10, 1912, ibid.

32. Prentiss to Bellamy, May 17, 1912, ibid.

33. Frank Dekker Watson, The Charity Organization Movement in the United States

(New York, 1922), 429. For a contemporary summary of the arguments in favor of the

Federation, see "Put the 'Cleave' in 'Cleveland,'" The Survey, XXX (July 5, 1913), 447-

448.

NOTES                                                                       71

34. Quoted in Bellamy to the Federation for Charity and Philanthropy, December

23, 1931, Bellamy Papers. In 1931, Hiram House was considering withdrawal from the

Federation.

CORRESPONDENCE OF ANNA BRIGGS BENTLEY

FROM COLUMBIANA COUNTY, 1826

1. The following letter is taken from the correspondence of Anna Bentley in the

Briggs-Stabler Collection, MS 147, of the Maryland Historical Society. It is part of a

series of over 150 letters written by Anna Bentley in Ohio to her family in Montgomery

County, Maryland, over the period 1826-1884. Except where otherwise stated, all refer-

ences are taken from Quaker Records, Stony Run - Indian Springs Monthly Meeting,

1772-1846, Box M-638, Hall of Records, Annapolis, Maryland, and from the Briggs-

Stabler Collection cited above. No alterations have been made except to make extra

space for missing periods and to correct a few of the more confusing errors in spelling

and punctuation.

2. Anna Bentley used what appears to be the common practice among the Quakers

of numbering all days from Sunday or "First day." In none of her correspondence does

she refer to the month by anything other than by number.

3. Joseph Bentley.

4. Maria Bentley, Anna's eldest daughter.

5. Apparently a colored hired hand of the Bentleys' possibly brought with them

from Sandy Springs, Maryland.

6. Brookegrove was the estate of Anna's uncle, Roger Brooke V (1774-1860), the

house built by his father Roger Brooke IV in 1754. The use of the word "intentions"

here is somewhat confusing. To Quakers the word normally meant the coming of couples

before Meeting to express their "intention" to marry and to receive the Friends' ap-

proval of their betrothal.

7. Columbiana County, Ohio.

8. Isaac Briggs had recently died (1825).

9. Mary Briggs Brooke, b. 1798.

10. Dr. Isaac Briggs (1803-c. 1890).

11. Couples came before Meeting with their parents to receive the Friends' approval

of their betrothal.

12. Jesse Kersey (1768-1845), a Pennsylvania Quaker divine and author. About 1823

he was denied his position as a minister, and in depression began to drink heavily.

13. They were planning to raise a permanent home, which they called "Green Hill."

14. Sharon was the Briggs' family home; Hebran was a neighboring estate also in the

family, and home of Anna Bentley after her marriage.

15. The "spider" here is probably a frying-pan with legs and a long handle, although

it can also mean a type of trivet.

16. Deborah Bentley, the infant.

17. Mary Briggs and Richard Brooke (1790-1862).

18. Thomas Bentley, Anna's third son.

19. Franklin H. and Granville S. Bentley, Anna's eldest sons.

20. This probably is William Henry Briggs, Anna's youngest brother (1815-1902).

21. Samuel Brooke, son of Roger Brooke IV of Brookegrove.

22. "Uncle L" is not known. Isaac Briggs had a brother, Samuel, and his wife's two

brothers were Samuel and Roger Brooke. It is probable that "L" is a relative on the

Bentley side of the family, whose residence in Sandy Spring is poorly documented.

23. The certificates were transferred in September to the Sandy Springs Monthly

Meeting, Columbiana County, Ohio.

24. Meg may be Anna's youngest sister, Margaret Briggs, born in 1812 or her first

cousin, Margaret E. (Thomas) Garrignes.

25. Deborah Brooke Pleasants Stabler, Headmistress of Fair Hill School in Sandy

Spring, where Anna studied as a child.

26. "Dorcas" is unknown, but "Billy" may be William (Billy) Hammond Dorsey, who

married Anna's cousin Jane Brooke.

27. Sarah Briggs Stabler (1801-1886), Anna's favorite sister and in later years of re-

nown as a Quaker poetess.

28. "Aunt Ginny" is apparently a member of the Bentley family.