Lessons From a Buried Past

Abstract

Networks are developing alongside traditional bureaucracies as viable entities for addressing wicked problems. This alternate organizational model requires that administrators learn to manage and lead in more horizontal power-sharing structures. Public administration scholars trace the rise of networks in the United States back to the 1990s, yet the settlement women of the Progressive Era established a managerial and organizational precedent for using democratically anchored governance networks to affect social change. This article examines the work of the settlement women and explores how contemporary network managers can adapt and apply valuable but frequently overlooked managerial lessons from the field’s history.