Drop the term “settlement houses” into conversation with most people, including political history buffs, and you’re likely to provoke furrowed brows or a cocked head. Yet these institutions numbered in the thousands in the first half of the twentieth century, spanning across the United Kingdom, North America, and beyond, giving rise to household names such as Clement Attlee and Jane Addams. The story of the settlement movement is a powerful one, intersecting as it does with the emergence of social work, the concept of universal welfare, free education, trade unionism, suffragism, and community organizing.

When I moved into a settlement house, I uncovered a fascinating 140-year history that is still strikingly relevant.