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The Settlement Idea
 he settlement movement
had roots in earlier American charities and
urban missions. However, like the charity
organization societies, they were directly
tied to a similar movement in England. The
first settlement house, Toynbee Hall, was
established in 1884. It was located in the
slums of London. Founded by Samuel Barnett
and John Ruskin, Toynbee Hall was established
to help bridge the gap between London's rich
and poor. The Toynbee model provided a
residence where university men settled. This
provided an outpost of culture and education
in the poverty neighborhood. The original
organizers of Toynbee believed that
university students could learn as much from
the poor as the poor could learn from the
university students.
 A group of college-educated
Americans visited Toynbee Hall in the
mid-1880s. A few were sufficiently impressed
that they created similar establishments in
American cities. The American institutions
were even more ambitious than their English
models. In America the problems of
urbanization and poverty were further
complicated by the dynamics of mass
immigration.
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n 1886, Stanton Coit established a settlement house in New York (later to be known as University Settlement). In 1889, Vida Scudder opened another New York settlement staffed with recently graduated college women. In that same year, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr began what was to become the most famous American settlement, Hull House.
