Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T16:01:32.508Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Education in a Multi-Ethnoracial Setting: Seattle's Neighborhood House and the Cultivation of Urban Community Builders, 1960s–1970s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2017

Eileen H. Tamura
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

During the mid-1960s, the War on Poverty ushered in a change in outlook on the poor and stimulated Neighborhood House (a social service agency that began as a settlement house) to focus on educative, community-building initiatives. Yet ironically, while staffers offered educational programs for residents, they were themselves becoming educated. The space Neighborhood House provided emerged as a powerful venue in which staffers developed their talents to become socially minded civic leaders. This study of the post–World War II transformation of settlement work in a city in the Pacific Northwest reveals commonalities with other places as well as distinctiveness to Seattle conditions. The article expands the extant scholarship on multi-ethnoracial communities, War on Poverty programs, and settlement house responses to societal changes. In doing so, it reveals the ways in which Neighborhood House provided an important educative space for those who worked there, a place that nurtured their growth as civically minded community builders.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , February 2017 , pp. 39 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © History of Education Society 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The field of women's history provides many examples of such studies on the progressive era. For example see Muncy, Robyn, A Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890–1935 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Lagemann, Ellen Condliffe, A Generation of Women: Education in the Lives of Progressive Reformers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sklar, Kathryn Kish, “Hull House in the 1890s: A Community of Women Reformers,” Signs 10, no. 4 (Summer 1985), 658–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Carlton-LaNey, Iris, “The Career of Birdye Henrietta Haynes, a Pioneer Settlement House Worker,” Social Service Review 68, no. 2 (June 1994), 254–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rynbrandt, Linda J., “The ‘Ladies of the Club’ and Caroline Bartlett Crane: Affiliation and Alienation in Progressive Social Reform,” Gender and Society 11, no. 2 (April 1997), 200–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Ethnoracial refers to “both an ethnic and racial identity and can be seen as a naturalized identity of groups who are seen or see themselves as culturally and racially unique people,” Woldemikael, Tekle, “Eritrea's Identity as a Cultural Crossroads,” in Race and Nation: Ethnic Systems in the Modern World, ed. Spickard, Paul (New York: Routledge, 2005), 340 Google Scholar. Allison Varzally uses the term to indicate the “perceived biological, historical, and behavioral qualities by which groups bounded themselves and were bound by others,” Varzally, Allison, Making a Non-White America: Californians Coloring Outside Ethnic Lines, 1925–1955 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 9 Google Scholar. Ethnic groups (for example, Han, Hmong, Ilokano) are identified within racial categories (for example, Asian). Works using “ethnoracial” include Hollinger, David, Cosmopolitanism and Solidarity: Studies in Ethnoracial, Religious, and Professional Affiliation in the United States (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006)Google Scholar; and Wild, Mark, Street Meeting: Multiethnic Neighborhoods in Early Twentieth-Century Los Angeles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005)Google Scholar.

3 Lewis, Linda H. and Williams, Carol J., “Experiential Learning: Past and Present,” in Experiential Learning: A New Approach, ed. Jackson, Lewis and Caffarella, Rosemary S. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994), 5 Google Scholar.

4 Bourdieu, Pierre, “The Forms of Capital,” in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, ed. Richardson, John G. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 243, 246Google Scholar; Bourdieu, Pierre, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Nice, Richard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 82–95 Google Scholar; Swartz, David, Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 102–05Google Scholar.

5 Yosso, Tara J., “Whose Culture Has Capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth,” Race, Ethnicity and Education 8, no. 1 (2005), 70–80 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Dwayne Evans, interview by author, Seattle, WA, May 25, 2013; Judi Carter, interview by author, Seattle, WA, Sept. 29, 2013; and “School Survival Workshops,” Rainier Vista Views and News (Seattle, WA), Jan. 1981 Google Scholar.

7 Cazenave, Noel A., Impossible Democracy: The Unlikely Success of War on Poverty Community Action Programs (Albany: State University of New York, 2007)Google Scholar; and Stricker, Frank, Why America Lost the War on Poverty and How to Win It (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Trolander, Judith Ann, Professionalism and Social Change: From the Settlement House Movement to Neighborhood Centers, 1886 to the Present (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; and Orleck, Annelise and Hazirjian, Lisa Gayle, eds., The War on Poverty: A New Grassroots History, 1964–1980 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011)Google Scholar.

9 Wild, Street Meeting; Lee, Shelley Sang-Hee, Claiming the Oriental Gateway: Prewar Seattle and Japanese Americans (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011)Google Scholar; Brilliant, Mark, The Color of America Has Changed: How Racial Diversity Shaped Civil Rights Reform in California, 1941–1978 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; and Lasch-Quinn, Elisabeth, Black Neighbors: Race and the Limits of Reform in the American Settlement House Movement, 1890–1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

10 Devine, Jean Porter, From Settlement House to Neighborhood House: 1906–1976 (Seattle: Neighborhood House, 1976), 5–7 Google Scholar. In 1910 Deaconess Settlement (later Atlantic Street Center) opened in Rainier Valley. Regarding the twenty-four Jewish settlements in 1910, see Davis, Allen Freeman, Spearheads for Reform: The Social Settlements and the Progressive Movement, 1890–1914 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1984), 15, 20Google Scholar.

11 Devine, From Settlement House to Neighborhood House, 8–13.

12 Lasch-Quinn, Black Neighbors, 1–3; and Trolander, Professionalism and Social Change, 22, 94.

13 Devine, From Settlement House to Neighborhood House, 23; Trolander, Professionalism and Social Change, 217. The national trend in the late 1940s was to use “neighborhood” instead of “settlement” to avoid a paternalistic connotation. See Bryan, Mary Lynn McCree and Davis, Allen F., 100 Years at Hull-House (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 281 Google Scholar.

14 Devine, From Settlement House to Neighborhood House, 23–25; and Lasch-Quinn, Black Neighbors, 23–46.

15 Devine, From Settlement House to Neighborhood House, 25; Mrs. Carl Koch to Mrs. Lewis Wilcox, Oct. 30, 1955, file 39, box 17, National Council of Jewish Women, Seattle Section, 1900–2009, Special Collections, Allen Library, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, hereafter NCJW; from Mrs. Lewis Wilcox to Mrs. Carl Koch, May 8, 1956, file 40, box 17, NCJW.

16 Trolander, Professionalism and Social Change, 31, 49, 65; and Devine, From Settlement House to Neighborhood House, 25.

17 Harry Thomas, interview by author, Seattle, WA, Oct. 30, 2013; Jerry Janacek, interview by author, Seattle, WA, May 27, 2013; and Trolander, Professionalism and Social Change, 82–83, 90–91.

18 Trolander, Professionalism and Social Change, ix, 1–2, 99.

19 Population Trends by Race in the Seattle Area, 1900 to 1976 (Seattle: Office of Policy Planning, 1977), Table 1, n.p.Google Scholar; Taylor, Quintard, The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle's Central District from 1870 through the Civil Rights Era (Seattle: University of Washington Press), 108, 116–18, 238Google Scholar; and Lee, Claiming the Oriental Gateway, 42.

20 Taylor, The Forging of a Black Community, 107, 128–30; and Brilliant, The Color of America Has Changed, 13.

21 Taylor, The Forging of a Black Community, 159–61; and Johnson, Marilynn S., The Second Gold Rush: Oakland and the East Bay in World War II (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 2–8 Google Scholar.

22 Taylor, The Forging of a Black Community, 134, 159; Greer, James, “The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation and the Development of the Residential Security Maps,” Journal of Urban History 39, no. 2 (March 2013), 292–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hillier, Amy, “Residential Security Maps and Neighborhood Appraisals: The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation and the Case of Philadelphia,” Social Science History 29, no. 2 (Summer 2005), 226–28Google Scholar.

23 From 1940 to 1950, the white population went from 354,101 to 440,424, while the nonwhite population went from 14,201 to 27,167, Population Trends by Race in the Seattle Area, table 1, n.p.; Kerr, Clark, Migration to the Seattle Labor Market Area, 1940–1942 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1942), 137–39Google Scholar; Taylor, The Forging of a Black Community; and Droker, Howard A., “Seattle Race Relations during the Second World War,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 67, no. 4 (Oct. 1976), 163–74Google Scholar.

24 Jesse Epstein, interview report by Howard Droker, March 13, 1973, 1, Howard Droker Papers, Special Collections, Allen Library, University of Washington; Taylor, The Forging of a Black Community, 6, 196; Pearson, Rudy, “‘A Menace to the Neighborhood’: Housing and African Americans in Portland, 1941–1945,” Oregon Historical Quarterly 102, no. 2 (Summer 2001), 159–79Google Scholar; Books, Charlotte, Alien Neighbors, Foreign Friends: Asian Americans, Housing, and the Transformation of Urban California (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 144 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Lee, Claiming the Oriental Gateway, 42.

26 Annual Population Report, Dec. 31, 1980 (Seattle: Housing Authority of the City of Seattle, 1981), 10 Google Scholar; and Taylor, Forging of a Black Community, 238.

27 Bill Francis, interview by author, Seattle, WA, May 22, 2013.

28 Ibid.

29 Evans, interview by author.

30 Jean Harris, phone interview by author, Sept. 20, 2013.

31 Thomas, interview; Neighborhood House Annual Report (Seattle, Neighborhood House, 1977)Google Scholar, Seattle Room, Seattle Public Library Special Collections, Seattle, WA,  6, hereafter NH Annual Report.

32 Thomas, interview; Devine, From Settlement House to Neighborhood House, 37; Fisher, Robert and Fabricant, Michael, “From Henry Street to Contracted Services: Financing the Settlement House,” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 29, no. 3 (Sept. 2002), 10–15 Google Scholar; Trolander, Professionalism and Social Change, 185, 205; and Bryan and Davis, 100 Years at Hull-House, 281.

33 Janacek, interview.

34 Steve Fisher, interview by author, Seattle, WA, May 20, 2013.

35 Annelise Orleck, “Introduction,” in Orleck and Hazirjian, The War on Poverty, 10; NH Annual Report 1977, 16; Janacek, Jerry, “Community Councils,” Yesler Happenings (Seattle, WA), October 1980, 4Google Scholar; and “Yesler Terrace Community Council,” Yesler Happenings (Seattle, WA), March 1981, 1Google Scholar.

36 Thomas, interview; and Fisher and Fabricant, “From Henry Street to Contracted Services,” 17.

37 “Report 1965,” Housing Headlines, Seattle Housing Authority 16, no. 4 (June 1966), 1; Devine, From Settlement House to Neighborhood House, 37; and NH Annual Report, 1966–67, p. 7.

38 Janacek, interview; Kristin O'Donnell, interview by author, Seattle, WA, May 26, 2013.

39 Terri DiJoseph, interview by author, Seattle, WA, May 27, 2013.

40 Beth Pflug, interview by author, Seattle, WA, May 23, 2013.

41 Fisher, interview.

42 Thomas, interview.

43 Mark Wild, Street Meeting, 6.

44 O'Donnell, interview.

45 Ibid.

46 Janacek, interview.

47 Pflug, interview.

48 Clark, Robert F., The War on Poverty: History, Selected Programs, and Ongoing Impact (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2002), 5, 13Google Scholar; Orleck, “Conclusion,” in Orleck and Hazirjian, The War on Poverty, 438–40; NH Annual Report, 1977, 10; NH Annual Report, 1978, 2–3; Harry Thomas Appointment as Interim Director, Seattle Human Rights Department, Nov. 22, 1985. Seattle Room, Seattle Public Library Special Collections, Seattle, WA; and Pflug, interview.

49 Karen Ko, interview by author, Seattle, WA, Nov. 12, 2012.

50 For Yosso's five forms of capital that have been included in this essay, see Yosso, “Whose Culture Has Capital?,” 77–81.

51 Moriwaki, Lee, “Thinner Budgets Will Change Many Lives: CETA Workers Out in the Cold,” Seattle Times, May 17, 1981, 30Google Scholar; Clark, The War on Poverty, 70–71; “Neighborhood House in Trouble,” Park Lake Express (Seattle, WA), April–May 1981, 1; “Service Cuts Hit Holly Park,” Holly Park Grapevine (Seattle, WA), May 1981, 1, 3; and Moon, Robert, “Viewpoint,” The Voice (Seattle, WA), May 1985, 2Google ScholarPubMed.

52 Robert Moon, “Viewpoint,” The Voice, Aug. 1985, 2; and Fisher and Fabricant, “From Henry Street to Contracted Services,” 18–22.

53 Seattle Housing Authority Report, 1942 (Seattle: Seattle House Authority, 1943), 30–31 Google Scholar; Seattle Housing Authority Report, (Seattle: Seattle Housing Authority, 1957), n.p.Google Scholar; Seattle Housing Authority Report (Seattle: Seattle Housing Authority, 1966), 1 Google Scholar; and Seattle Housing Authority Report (Seattle, Seattle Housing Authority, 1980), 10Google Scholar.

54 CARITAS and Neighborhood House Tutoring Programs: Final Report, 1968, Seattle Room, Seattle Public Library Special Collections, Seattle, WA; Carter, interview; and Clark, The War on Poverty, 29.

55 Evans, interview.

56 Interim Report, Central Area Motivation Program and Neighborhood House Service Centers, 1966, 56–60, Seattle Room: Seattle Public Library, Seattle, WA.

57 Susan Nakagawa, interview by author, Seattle, WA, May 23, 2013.

58 DiJoseph, interview; Yosso, “Whose Culture Has Capital?,” 77–81.

59 Ibid.

60 DiJoseph, interview.

61 Pflug, interview.

62 Interim Report, 1966, 58; Neighborhood House Tutoring Program, Preliminary Evaluation, 1965, p. 17, Seattle Room, Seattle Public Library, Seattle, WA.

63 DiJoseph, interview.

64 Nakagawa, interview.

65 Francis, interview.

66 Good, David, “Camp Orkila,” Holly Park Grapevine (Seattle, WA), July 14, 1977, 4Google Scholar.

67 Evans, interview; “Dwayne Evans Leaves High Point for Rainier Vista Center Director Position,” High Point Herald (Seattle, WA), Jan. 31, 1979, 1Google ScholarPubMed.

68 Carter, interview.

69 “Yesler Terrace,” The Voice (Seattle, WA), May 1985, 3Google ScholarPubMed.

70 Carter, interview.

71 Pflug, interview; Ko, interview; DiJoseph, interview; Fisher, interview; and Nakagawa, interview.

72 Ko, interview.

73 “School Survival Workshops,” Rainier Vista Views and News (Seattle, WA), Jan. 1981, 4Google Scholar.

74 “Youth Councils Build Success & Survival Skills,” Rainier Vista Views and News (Seattle, WA), May 1981, 3Google Scholar.

75 Ibid.

76 David C. Berliner, “Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform,” Teachers College Record, Aug. 2, 2005, http://www.tcrecord.org, ID Number 12106; and; Katz, Michael B., Improving Poor People: The Welfare State, the “Underclass,” and Urban Schools as History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

77 Trolander, Professionalism and Social Change, 159, emphasis added.

78 Davis, Spearheads for Reform, xiii.

79 Devine, Jean, “Of This and That,” Holly Park Grapevine (Seattle, WA), March 10, 1977, 4Google Scholar, emphasis in original.

80 Yosso, “Whose Culture Has Capital?,” 80.

81 NH Annual Report, 1978, 8, 10; Sally Temple MacDonald, “Elderly Protest Plans to Close Post-Office Branch,” Seattle Times South Times, Nov. 8, 1978, H1; David Suffia, “Patrons Singe Council Members over Proposal to Close Three Libraries,” Seattle Times, July 2, 1981, B2; and Susan Gilmore, “Compromise Saves Three Neighborhood Libraries,” Seattle Times, July 17, 1981, B2.

82 “Advocates for the Poor,” Rainier Vista Views and News (Seattle, WA), July 1980, 3Google Scholar.

83 Stricker, Why America Lost the War on Poverty, 2, 62–67, 72–75, 235–39; “Neighborhood House,” Housing Headlines, Seattle Housing Authority 17, no. 3 (Aug. 1967), 5 Google ScholarPubMed; and Katz, Michael B., Stern, Mark J., and Fader, Jamie J., “The New African American Inequality,” Journal of American History 92, no. 1 (June 2005), 88 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84 O'Donnell, interview.

85 Stricker, Why America Lost the War on Poverty, 235–39; Cazenave, Impossible Democracy, 171–81; Trolander, Professionalism and Social Change, 65, 130; and  Orleck, “Introduction,” 10–11, 16.

86 “Block Grant,” The Voice (Seattle, WA), Sept. 1981, 1Google ScholarPubMed.

87 Cazenave, Impossible Democracy, 171–81.

88 Fisher, interview.

89 Seattle Housing Authority, “Harry Thomas, Champion of Public Housing,” March 13, 2004, http://www.seattlehousing.org/news/releases/2004/harry-thomas-profile/; Harry Thomas Appointment as Interim Director, Seattle Human Rights Department, Nov. 22, 1985, Seattle Room, Seattle Public Library Special Collections, Seattle, WA.