House on Henry Street

In this illustrated online talk, author Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier tells the sweeping story of the Lower East Side’s storied Henry Street Settlement and its enduring vision of a more just society. The settlement house movement, which also included Boston’s Denison House and The House of Seven Gables Settlement Association in Salem, was a Progressive Era crusade dedicated to tackling the problems of poverty by “settling” in and serving impoverished communities at a time of skyrocketing immigration, urbanization, and industrialization.

Henry Street serves as a window onto the movement. Founded in 1893 by twenty-six-year-old Lillian Wald, whose visit to the tenement bedside of a dying woman—abandoned by her doctor because she could not pay her fee—awakened her to the depth of poverty and inequality on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and the desperate needs of its immigrant population. Wald imagined a place where all have equal access to healthcare, and where divides of ethnicity, race, and class were bridged.

Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier is an award-winning curator and writer, and principal of REW & Co. She directs research projects, develops museum exhibitions, and writes on urban history, with a focus on social justice.

Note: The link for the webinar will be sent by email prior to the event. Please call 617-994-6679 for more information.

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