Settlement House Scenes: Migrants and the Performing Arts in Transatlantic Perspective

Abstract

This dissertation examines the transatlantic history of the settlement house movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It has two foci. The first is the origin of the settlement movement, in Britain; its spread to countries such as France, Germany, Russia, Japan, and, especially, the United States; and the connections — in the form of the movement of ideas and people — among the settlement movements in various countries. The second focus is on U.S. settlement houses as performance spaces, particularly in regards to migrants (immigrants). In that context, this dissertation examines in detail the kinds of activities that migrants engaged in while at settlement houses and interactions between migrants and settlement house workers (residents). This dissertation argues for settlement houses as places of cultural production, consumption, or both, in some ways similar to, but also distinct from, ethnic theater and cinema. Among the key issues discussed are the degree of control that migrants exerted in each type of venue and the cultural confrontations that took place in each type of venue between migrants and members of the native-born middle class, including residents and film censors.