The Hiram House was the first settlement house in Cleveland and one of the first in the United States. It was founded in 1896 by George A. Bellamy and students from Hiram College.
The Hiram House was the first settlement house in Cleveland and one of the first in the United States. It was founded in 1896 by George A. Bellamy and students from Hiram College.
Hiram House was founded by students from Hiram College who had been studying settlement work. [1] In June 1896, the students rented a house near the Whiskey Island area of Cleveland, which was predominantly populated by Irish immigrants at that time. [1] George Bellamy joined the group, which shortly thereafter moved the settlement house to a site on Orange Avenue, in what was then the city's main Jewish neighborhood. [1] Hiram House was incorporated in 1899, and within a year had raised enough funds to construct a new four-story building, which served until 1941. [2] [3] Financial support came from the Mather, Prentiss, and Hunt families. [1]
Hiram House initially offered English classes for immigrants to assist in passing the exams for citizenship. [2] With the new building came college preparatory courses, a kindergarten, a summer camp, and various clubs and other recreational activities. [1] Among the teachers at Hiram House in 1900 was Louise Brigham, who later became known for designing furniture out of packing crates. [4]
The Hiram House Camp, located on a 172-acre (0.70 km2) site in the nearby Chagrin River Valley village of Moreland Hills, was donated in 1902. [3] The organization has operated a summer camp continuously since 1897. [2]
Hiram College is a private liberal arts college in Hiram, Ohio. It was founded in 1850 as the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute by Amos Sutton Hayden and other members of the Disciples of Christ Church. The college is nonsectarian and coeducational. It is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. Among its alumni is James A. Garfield, who also served as a college instructor and principal before he was President of the United States.
Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) is a public medical school in Rootstown, Ohio. It specializes in graduate education in medicine and pharmacy but also has a College of Graduate Studies.
The settlement movement was a reformist social movement that began in the 1880s and peaked around the 1920s in the United Kingdom and the United States. Its goal was to bring the rich and the poor of society together in both physical proximity and social connection. Its main object was the establishment of "settlement houses" in poor urban areas, in which volunteer middle-class "settlement workers" would live, hoping to share knowledge and culture with, and alleviate the poverty of, their low-income neighbors. The settlement houses provided services such as daycare, English classes, and healthcare to improve the lives of the poor in these areas. The settlement movement also spawned educational/reform movements. Both in the UK and the US settlement workers worked to develop a unique activist form of sociology known as Settlement Sociology. This science of social reform movement is neglected in the history of sociology in favor of a teaching-, theory- and research university–based model.
Collinwood is a historical area in the northeast part of Cleveland, Ohio. Originally a village in Euclid Township, it was annexed by the city in 1910. Collinwood grew around the rail yards of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway and is divided by these same tracks into the neighborhoods of North Shore Collinwood and Collinwood–Nottingham. Collinwood was identified as one of America's Best Secret Neighborhoods by Travel + Leisure in 2008.
The written history of Cleveland began with the city's founding by General Moses Cleaveland of the Connecticut Land Company on July 22, 1796. Its central location on the southern shore of Lake Erie and the mouth of the Cuyahoga River allowed it to become a major center for Great Lakes trade in northern Ohio in the early 19th century. An important Northern city during the American Civil War, Cleveland grew into a major industrial metropolis and a gateway for European and Middle Eastern immigrants, as well as African American migrants, seeking jobs and opportunity.
Ohio City is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Cleveland, Ohio. It is located immediately west of the Cuyahoga River.
Broadway–Slavic Village is a neighborhood on the Southeast side of Cleveland, Ohio. One of the city's oldest neighborhoods, it originated as the township of Newburgh, first settled in 1799. Much of the area has historically served as home to Cleveland's original Czech and Polish immigrants. While demographics have shifted over the decades, the largest part of Broadway today, Slavic Village, is named for these earlier communities.
The Bellefaire Orphanage was a Jewish orphanage in Cleveland Ohio founded in 1868 as an orphanage for children who lost their parents in the Civil War, making it one of the oldest orphanages in the US.
Lakeland Community College is a public community college in Lake County, Ohio. Established in 1967, Lakeland was the first college in Ohio founded by a vote of the people. Today, Lakeland serves more than 8,000 full-time and part-time students each year at the main campus in Kirtland, an off-site location in Madison, and via distance learning.
The Hiram College Library was established in 1900 as part of the Hiram College, previously known as the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute. The construction of its predecessor, the Teachout-Cooley Library, was funded by Abram Teachout. The collection consisted of books donated by the literary societies and the depository collection. The first of several additions made to the building was constructed in 1923.
Union Settlement is one of the oldest settlement houses in New York City, providing community-based services and programs that support the immigrant and low-income residents of East Harlem since 1895. It is East Harlem’s largest social service agency and serves 10,000 people annually through programs including early childhood education, youth services, senior services, adult education, mental health, small business development and community outreach.
Louise Brigham was an American early-20th-century designer and teacher. She was a pioneering champion of the use of recycled materials in furniture design. A system she invented for building furniture out of packing crates represents one of the earliest to adopt a modular approach to the design of individual units. She also founded one of the earliest ready-to-assemble furniture companies, as well as the Home Thrift Organization (HTA) to teach woodworking to New York City boys. In 1940, she received a medal from the HTA in honor of her quarter century of service to the organization.
Central, also known as Cedar–Central, is a neighborhood on the East Side of Cleveland, Ohio. Situated on the outskirts of downtown, Central is bounded roughly by East 71st Street on its east and Interstate 90 on its west, with Euclid Avenue on its north and Interstate 77 and the Penn Central Railroad to the south. The neighborhood is eponymously named for its onetime main thoroughfare, Central Avenue. It is home to several schools, including East Technical High School.
Bellaire–Puritas is a neighborhood on the West Side of Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States. Originally part of the Village of West Park, it was annexed by the city in 1923. Formerly known as Puritas–Longmead, the neighborhood takes its name from the two streets which form its northern boundary: Puritas Avenue and Bellaire Road.
Near West Theatre is an independent, nonprofit theatre troupe housed in a 275-seat venue in the Gordon Square Arts District of the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. Located along the major thoroughfare Detroit Avenue, two blocks from Cleveland Public Theatre, Near West specializes in musical productions with casts of all ages, with a special emphasis on serving at-risk youth in the Cleveland area. It was founded in May 1978 by Stephanie Morrison, George Hrbek, and Robert Scullin as the Near West Side Shared Ministry Youth Theatre. Its first musical director was Robert Schenk, who directed a production of Godspell in the summer of 1978. The troupe built its new facility over the course of 2014 for $7.3 million, which it raised as part of a wider $30 million Gordon Square Arts District campaign. From 1978 to 2014, the theatre performed in the third-floor ballroom of St. Patrick Church's Catholic Club Building at 3006 Bridge Ave. in Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood. Prior to opening its state-of-the-art space in 2015, the company rented out various spaces to mount their sizable productions.
West Boulevard is a neighborhood on the West Side of Cleveland, Ohio. It borders the suburbs of Brooklyn and Linndale to the south, Interstate 90 and the neighborhoods of Cudell and Detroit–Shoreway to the north, Stockyards to the east, and Jefferson to the west. Its name is derived "from the West Blvd. thoroughfare which runs north-south through the district’s center."
The following is a bibliography of Cleveland, Ohio. It includes selected publications specifically about the city, Cuyahoga County, and the Greater Cleveland Metropolitan Area.
Settlement and community houses in the United States were a vital part of the settlement movement, a progressive social movement that began in the mid-19th century in London with the intention of improving the quality of life in poor urban areas through education initiatives, food and shelter provisions, and assimilation and naturalization assistance.
Goodrich Social Settlement was the second settlement house in Cleveland, Ohio, after Hiram House. It organized on December 9, 1896, incorporated May 15, 1897, and opened May 20, 1897 at Bond St. and St. Clair Ave. It was established by Flora Stone Mather as an outgrowth of a boys' club and women's guild conducted by the First Presbyterian Church. Its aims were “to provide a center for such activities as are commonly associated with Christian social settlement work". It was maintained by an endowment. The Goodrich House Farm, in Euclid Point, Ohio, was part of the settlement.
Alice P. Gannett was an American settlement house worker and social reformer. The Goodrich-Gannett Neighborhood Center in Cleveland, Ohio, is named in her honor.