Our primary documents are a set of reports and minutes from the organizations adolescence cross-referenced with a secondary source; Dorothy Beckers “50 Years of Service – A History of the Educational Center” written in 1975. These reports outline the goings-on within the organization and provide veins of context which we can follow using secondary sources.
Information such as which kinds of organizations they received money from, which organizations they collaborated with over time are included in these reports. From the services provided and descriptions of the populations they served we can glean a clearer picture of the situation of immigrants and low income families during this time period in Seattle.
Sewing and other basic vocational skills were emphasized at this point and young families and “foreigners” were the primary groups using these services. By 1912 the settlement house in Seattle was performing services not similar to DSHS today. While the services provided are beneficial to the community, it is easy to see a slight undercurrent of ethnocentrism in these reports.
Many services are focused on incoming immigrants and poor Jewish families, the intention to ultimately protect the American status of the established Jewish population. While this is not a case of whether the organization’s intentions or actions were good, it is interesting to learn about the dynamics and interactions of the pre-existing Jewish population and those that arrived later in larger numbers.
An interesting phenomenon to note that is relevant is the “Jewishness” of the organization and how it fluctuated during their early years. Early on the organization collaborated with Temples such as Temple de Hirsch, however by 1916 it was not uncommon to collaborate with churches or groups such as the Red Cross and lend services to non-jewish populations.
The 1910’s and later were a formative time for the United States and the Settlement house, as they progressed the number of services expanded and the organization became more secular.