The records of the University Settlement Society of New York City cover the years 1886 to 1967 and portions are available both in the original paper form and also as a microfilm publication. The records document the Society's organization, development, and activities in New York City as well as its participation in the international settlement house movement. Headworker Albert J. Kennedy while researching his never-completed history of the University Settlement Society arranged these records into eleven series: Council Papers, Headworkers' Reports, Publications, Headworkers' Subject and Correspondence File, Residents and Staff, Volunteers, Clubs, Charles B. Stover Papers, Camps, Cultural Activities, and University Settlement Who's Who. Each series is described separately below.
Included are minutes, reports, headworkers' subject and correspondence files, and other records of the settlement house administration; correspondence and biographical information concerning the staff and volunteers; and publications. Additional files include correspondence, notes, lists, and minutes concerning the various clubs, camps, and cultural activities sponsored by the society. These activities include involvement with the Citizens Union of the City of New York, Legal Aid Society, New York Tenement House Commission, and the School Committee of the New York City Club. Among their prominent correspondents are Nicholas Murray Butler, Seth Low, George B. McClellan, Jr., Theodore Roosevelt, Carl Schurz, James Speyer, Lawrence Veiller, and William English Walling. There are also additional papers of Charles B. Stover. The photographs include settlement house and camp activities, turn-of-the-century New York City street views, and recreational activities at city parks.
Supplementing this material are notes Kennedy inserted into the files. Identified with a stamp, “A.J. Kennedy Notes,” they contain additional information and his personal observations on the people or activity described by the documents. On the microfilm targets, the inclusive dates of these notes are indicated in parentheses after the inclusive dates of the original documents.
Series 1--Council Papers
The council papers contain minutes, 1891-1929, of the monthly and annual meetings of the Society's governing body. These papers include the constitution, by-laws, amendments, resolutions, and financial and committee reports, as well as correspondence between council members and headworkers. There is also biographical material compiled by Kennedy concerning the founders and council members; it consists of notes, lists, and tables.
Arranged chronologically.
Series 2--Headworkers' Reports
The headworkers regularly reported to the council on the activities and special projects of the settlement house and its relations with other social and governmental organizations in New York. In this series are monthly and some annual reports, 1896-1940.
Arranged chronologically.
Series 3--Publications
This series includes incomplete runs of a variety of publications of clubs and other groups within the University Settlement Society. Articles on the social work, cultural interests, and news of the Society are contained in Guild Review (1907), Guild Journal (1911-1916, 1918-1925), Guild News (1918, 1919, 1922, 1923), and University Settlement Studies (1905-1908). Strictly in-house publications are University Bulletin (1932-1933), University Press (1935), Univues (1935-1942), Upper Junior News (1937), and the ?(1943).
Also in this series are bulletins and annual reports, 1892-1944, which include reports of the annual meetings and the headworkers' annual reports.
Arranged by title of publication, and chronologically thereunder.
Series 4--Headworkers' Subject and Correspondence File
This series is the most extensive in the collection and is filmed on reels 4 through 13. It includes correspondence of the headworkers with public officials, officers and members of the Society, other settlement house personnel, educators, philanthropists, and the public. This correspondence concerns the varied problems of the headworkers, ranging from control of prostitution to abuses of child labor, from finding funds to pay adequately the Society's public bath attendants to keeping abreast of the implications of the Russian Revolution. Reports, speeches, pamphlets, articles, statistical tables, and Kennedy's notes supplement the correspondence.
Arranged by term of each headworker, and alphabetically by subject thereunder. A list of significant correspondents in this series comprises an Appendix to this finding aid.
Series 5--Residents and Staff
This series is comprised of biographical material compiled by Kennedy, and the correspondence of the residents and staff with headworkers regarding their qualifications and work at the Society, 1894-1945.
Arranged by subject, and chronologically thereunder.
Series 6--Volunteers
Much of the University Settlement Society's club work, fund raising, and publicity depended on volunteer help. Documenting the role of the volunteers of time and money from 1886 to 1941 is a small amount of correspondence of the headworkers with volunteers, lists of volunteers and their addresses, and biographical material compiled by Kennedy.
Arranged by subject and chronologically thereunder.
Series 7--Clubs
The Society sponsored countless clubs appealing to such diverse interests of the tenement house dwellers as debate, literary criticism, citizenship, athletics, and embroidery. Material on this multi-faceted activity of the Society includes correspondence, membership lists, minutes, club publications, and Kennedy's notes and statistics, 1886-1929. For most clubs only a few pages of documentation survive, but this series accurately reflects the wide range of Society clubs.
Arranged by subject, and chronologically thereunder [but order is confusing].
Series 8--Charles B. Stover Papers
Charles B. Stover contributed time and money to many reform projects in New York City. He was one of Stanton Coil's earliest associates at the Neighborhood Guild and was an organizer and prominent member of the University Settlement Society. This series contains his personal papers, which include correspondence, minutes, reports, and articles on New York City's Outdoor Recreation League and other recreational programs, area redevelopment, and rapid transit systems. There is also some Stover biographical material prepared by Kennedy. Additional Stover correspondence can be found in Series 4 and 5.
Arranged by subject, and chronologically thereunder.
Series 9--Camps
The Society sponsored camps to give children and young adults of the tenement district an opportunity to relax and escape from the city. This series contains correspondence and reports from staff and benefactors of the camps, as well as staff lists, camp programs, building plans, financial reports, and records of fund raising campaigns, 1898-1942. There are also Kennedy's notes, which he compiled from council minutes, annual reports, and his unpublished history of the summer camp at Beacon, New York.
Arranged by subject, and chronologically thereunder.
Series 10--Cultural Activities
This series is comprised of correspondence of the headworkers and directors of the University Settlement Society, announcements, plans, programs, financial statements, and Kennedy's notes concerning the wide range of cultural activities sponsored by the Society, 1886-1942. These activities included art exhibits and classes, concerts, dance and music recitals, drama programs, and lectures and forums. There is also some material on the role of the Women's Auxiliary in organizing events.
Arranged alphabetically by subject, and chronologically thereunder.
Series 11--University Settlement Who's Who
This series contains biographical questionnaires completed by former staff or neighborhood children. The information on each questionnaire includes name, address, occupation, education, details of the person's participation in the Society, and a brief description of how contact with the Society had benefited him.
Arranged alphabetically, with an index of names preceding the questionnaires.
Series 12--2010 Additions
This series is comprised of additional records received via Society historian Max Meyer in 2010, and were probably reviewed by Kennedy for his history, but rejected for inclusion. None of these papers are available on microfilm. Although the content is similar to that of the microfilmed papers, the new material contains information on the personal political and social reform activities of headworkers Robbins Gilman, James H. Hamilton, Robert Hunter, and James B. Reynolds. These activities include involvement with the Citizens Union of the City of New York, Legal Aid Society, New York Tenement House Commission, and the School Committee of the New York City Club. Among their prominent correspondents are Nicholas Murray Butler, Seth Low, George B. McClellan, Jr., Theodore Roosevelt, Carl Schurz, James Speyer, Lawrence Veiller, and William English Walling. There are also additional papers of Charles B. Stover. The photographs include settlement house and camp activities, turn-of-the-century New York City street views, and recreational activities at city parks. For research convenience, the addition has been arranged to parallel the arrangement of the microfilmed records.
