Toynbee Hall, 1884-1914

Abstract

Toynbee Hall, the first settlement house, was widely imitated in both England and the United States. This article explains the tremendous appeal that the institution held for a generation of social reformers and traces its development during a thirty-year period. Samuel Barnett, the founder and first warden of the settlement, had a vision of the role of settlement residents in working-class areas that bore a striking resemblance to the popular ideal of a woman's function in society. Many of the first residents shared his goals and ideals, viewing themselves as moral guardians of the poor and organizing uplifting educational activities. After 1900, however, many of the residents gained an understanding of the nature and extent of poverty in an urban-industrial society, and they placed less faith in personal relationships and private philanthropy. Although retaining the elitest assumptions that had shaped the settlement since its foundation, they shifted their focus from elevating the poor to social inv...