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Folks, Homer

Homer Folks (1867 – 1963) – Social Work Pioneer, Advocate for Child Welfare and Public Health and Long Time Secretary of the State Charities Aid Society of New York Introduction: In his position as an active leader in New York’s largest aid society, Homer Folks was an advocate for social reform on a major scale….

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Coit, Stanton

Stanton Coit (1857-1944) – Founder of Neighborhood Guild, the First Settlement House in the U.S. in 1886 and Founder of the South Place Ethical Society in London in 1887.   Introduction: Stanton Coit was born in Columbus, Ohio on August 11, 1857. He studied at Amherst College, Massachusetts, 1879, and became an aide of Felix…

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Big Brothers Big Sisters of America

With more than 360 affiliates throughout the nation, Big Brothers Big Sisters’ mission is to provide children facing adversity with strong and enduring professionally supported one-to-one mentoring relationships that change the lives of the youth for the better, forever.

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Lenox Hill Neighborhood House

Lenox Hill Neighborhood House was founded in 1894 by the Alumnae Association of Normal College (now known as Hunter College of the City University of New York) as a free kindergarten for the children of indigent immigrants. Since then, we have remained at the forefront of community advocacy and social and educational change.

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Travelers Aid

Travelers Aid By: Raymond M. Flynt, President & CEO, Travelers Aid International History: The Travelers Aid movement began in 1851 when Bryan Mullanphy, a former mayor of St. Louis and a philanthropist, bequeathed $500,000 to the City of St. Louis to be used to assist “bonifide travelers heading west.” Those funds still endow the Travelers…

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Baltimore Settlements: Lawrence House and Warner House

These entries about Lawrence House and Warner House are taken from the “Handbook of Settlements,” a national survey of settlements published in 1911 by The Russell Sage Foundation of New York. This collection of detailed information about settlements throughout the nation and operating circa 1910 was collected, organized and written by two settlement pioneers: Robert Archey Woods and Albert J. Kennedy.

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Hull House – circ. 1910

“Hull-House endeavors to make social intercourse express the growing sense of the economic unity of society and may be described as an effort to add the social function to democracy.”

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University Settlement – 1911

This description of the University Settlement in 1910-1911 is from the Handbook of Settlements and was written by two settlement house pioneers: Robert Archey Woods and Albert J. Kennedy. The book included the findings of a national survey of all the known settlements in existence in 1910.

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Simkhovitch, Mary Kingsbury

Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch — (September 8, 1867 – November 15, 1951): Social Worker, Progressive, Social Reformer, Academic and Founder of Greenwich House in New York City.   Introduction: Mary Melinda Kingsbury was born in Chestnut Hill, MA, a suburb of Boston.  Her parents were: Colonel Isaac Franklin Kingsbury and Laura Davis Holmes Kingsbury. She entered…

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