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“Not Merely for the Sake of an Evening's Entertainment”: The Educational Uses of Theater in Toronto's Settlement Houses, 1910–1930

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Cathy L. James
Cathy L. James*
Affiliation:
Mount Saint Vincent University
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Extract

It is only recently that the power of the drama as a living force in daily life has been appreciated. Not only is it an educational force along intellectual and spiritual lines, but it offers first hand to the individual, a vision of the possibilities of self development and self equipment for the positive business of everyday existence…. It is of great educational value to witness the acting of a good play, but to walk upon the stage, to speak to hushed audiences is to awake to a consciousness of power generally unsuspected within the self.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , Fall 1998 , pp. 287 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 by New York University 

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References

1 Holden, Arthur C., The Settlement Idea [1922]; (New York, 1970), 54.Google Scholar

2 Sperdakos, Paula, Dora Mavor Moore: Pioneer of the Canadian Theatre (Toronto, 1995).Google Scholar

3 City of Toronto Archives (hereafter CTA), SC5 Box 5, file 2, “Drama and Music: Programmes,” “The Blue Bird for the CNH”; Box 11, file 1, “Newsclippings, 1911–1930,” “Where We Found the Blue Bird,” “Blue Bird Draws 500,” “Settlement House Success,” “Making Canadians of Little Foreigners,” uncredited press clippings, January 1916.Google Scholar

4 See, for example, Blair, Karen J., The Torchbearers: Women and Their Amateur Arts Associations in America, 1890–1930 (Bloomington, 1994), for an account of the range of community theatre ventures which local women's art associations undertook. For a discussion of the Little Theatre movement in English Canada see Sperdakos, Paula, “Dora Mavor Moore: Before the New Play Society,” Theatre History in Canada 10, 1 (Spring 1989): 43–64, and Murray, Heather, “Making the Modern: Twenty Five Years of the Margaret Eaton School of Literature and Expression,” Essays in Theatre 10, l(November 1991): 39–57.Google Scholar

5 See Davis, Allen F., Spearheads for Reform: The Social Settlements and the Progressive Movement 1890–1914 (New York, 1967), 8; Woods, Robert A. and Kennedy, Albert J., eds., Handbook of Settlements [1911] (New York, 1970), vi. There may have been more than 46 settlements in Britain, since some observers considered British women's settlements to be less ‘genuine’ than those run by their male counterparts, and this sentiment may have resulted in an under-reporting of their numbers. For more on British women's settlements, see Vicinus, Martha, Independent Women: Work and Community for Single Women, 1850–1920 (Chicago, 1985), Chapter Six.Google Scholar

6 See James, Cathy L., “Gender, Class and Ethnicity in the Organization of Neighbourhood and Nation: The Role of Toronto's Settlement Houses in the Formation of the Canadian State, 1902 to 1914” (Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 1997).Google Scholar

7 It is interesting to note that the Canadian settlement movement did not produce a spokesperson of the prominence of either Canon Barnett or Jane Addams. This characteristic explains, in part, why the Canadian movement is not as well known as its British and American counterparts, and it also suggests the degree of influence that British and particularly American settlement leadership wielded in Canada. See James, , “Gender, Class and Ethnicity,” Chapter One.Google Scholar

8 The architectural forms that these institutions took were significant; according to Deborah Weiner, many of the British men's settlements, including Toynbee Hall, were designed to look like Gothic manorial residences. Martha Vicinus, on the other hand, notes that British women's settlements were usually large neighbourhood homes which had been converted to provide living quarters for the settlers on the top floor and institutional space on the lower levels. The majority of settlements established in North America resembled the latter rather than the former. See Weiner, Deborah E.B., “The Architecture of Victorian Philanthropy: The Settlement House as Manorial Residence” Art History 13, 2(June 1990): 212–227. I am grateful to Lisa Panyotidis for pointing out this reference to me. See also Vicinus, Martha Calloway, Colin G., Independent Women, 216; Rousmaniere, John P., “Cultural Hybrid in the Slums: The College Woman and the Settlement House 1889–1894” American Quarterly 22 (Spring 1970): 45–66.Google Scholar

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21 Strange, Carolyn, Toronto's Girl Problem: The Perils and Pleasures of the City, 1880–1930 (Toronto, 1995), 117.Google Scholar

22 Strange, , Toronto's Girl Problem, 122–23.Google Scholar

23 Addams, , The Spirit of Youth, 84.Google Scholar

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25 See Hartt, Rollin Lynde, The People at Play (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1909; repr. New York: Arno Press, 1975), especially chapters IV and V.Google Scholar

26 Peiss, Kathy, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York (Philadelphia, 1986), 144.Google Scholar

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32 Strange, , Toronto's Girl Problem, 59; Peiss, , Cheap Amusements, 180.Google Scholar

33 University of Toronto Archives (hereafter UTA), Student Christian Movement, B79-0059, [Ware, Norman J.], “The ‘Futurist’ Number: University Settlement Review” (n.p., n.d., [September 1913]).Google Scholar

34 CTA, SC484, I B 1, Box 1, St. Christopher House, Headworker's Report, April 13, 1926. According to Ruth Crocker, settlements in Indiana also screened motion pictures, but for them it was intended not so much to lure existing members away from commercial movie theatres as to draw in new members. According to the attendance figures for one settlement in Indianapolis, these films were second only to the playground in popularity. See Crocker, Ruth, Social Work and Social Order: The Settlement Movement in Two Industrial Cities, 1889–1930 (Urbana, 1992), 62–63, 128.Google Scholar

35 See, for example, “The University Settlement,” [Annual Report, February 1925], p. 7; CTA, SC5 Box 11, file 1, “Newsclippings, 1911–1930,” “Settlement House Success,” (n.p., n.d., [January 1916]).Google Scholar

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37 Holden, , The Settlement Idea, 54.Google Scholar

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40 CTA, SC5, Box 11, file 1, “Newsclippings, 1911–1930,” “‘Peter Pan’ Produced At Orde Street School,” (n.p., n.d., [Spring 1917]). The “Allies ward” was, of course, St. John's Ward, more often simply known as “The Ward,” which was Toronto's most notorious slum and the city's most cosmopolitan district. It is significant that the reporter introduced the article by emphasizing that most of the Ward's residents originally hailed from nations which were allies of the British in the First World War.Google Scholar

41 CTA, SC5, Box 11, file 1, “Newsclippings, 1911–1930,” “Making Canadians of Little Foreigners,” and “Settlement House Success,” (n.p., n.d., [January 1916]).Google Scholar

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43 In his meticulously researched and wonderfully evocative novel, In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondatjee tells of many non-Anglo-Celtic immigrants in Toronto who attended the commercial theatre in order to learn English; they would mimic the actors on stage, often repeating the lines after they were spoken in an effort to get the pronunciation right. Many would choose one actor as a model and attend his plays as frequently as possible, and thus would often pick up his peculiarities of speech. In a recent interview, Lillian Petroff of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario noted that this was a common practice among many immigrants, although I have found no reference to it in historical accounts of the immigration experience. See Ondatjee, Michael, In the Skin of a Lion (Toronto, 1987; repr. Toronto, 1988), 47. See also this author's notes from an interview with Lillian Petroff, April 18, 1996.Google Scholar

44 “The Melting Pot,” Canadian Churchman (April 7, 1910), 216.Google Scholar

45 Unlike Jane Addams, Canadian settlement workers did not acknowledge, at least in print, that the popular theatre could also afford urgently needed pleasure to its audiences. See Addams, , The Spirit of Youth, 75.Google Scholar

46 CTA, SC5 Box 11, file 1, CNH “Newsclippings, 1911–1930,” “Kiddies Much Enjoy,” “Where We Found the Blue Bird,” “Central Neighborhood Children and Their Play.” Google Scholar

47 Addams, Jane, The Spirit of Youth, 75–77.Google Scholar

48 Addams, , The Spirit of Youth, 77.Google Scholar

49 Addams, , The Spirit of Youth, 89.Google Scholar

50 CTA, SC5 C Box 1, file 1, CNH Correspondence, [Mary Joplin Clark] to F.L. Riggs, secretary of the Toronto Playground Association, June 19, 1917.Google Scholar

51 CTA, SC5 B, Box 1, file 3, CNH Headworker's Report, May 1915.Google Scholar

52 CTA, SC484, Box 2, file 9, “St. Christopher House: Duties of Staff, January 1925”; United Church Archives, (hereafter UCA), Parker, Ethel Dodds, “St. Christopher House: Stories of My Times,” typescript, p. 11–12 (library); “The University Settlement” [Annual Report, 1925]; Canadian Baptist Archives (hereafter CBA), vertical files, “Memorial Institute Annual Report, 1920,” p. 5.Google Scholar

53 Holden, Arthur C., The Settlement Idea, 54; Addams, , Second Twenty Years, 369.Google Scholar

54 In Second Twenty Years Addams gives two examples of former Hull-House theatre participants who went on to professional careers, one as a dancer and the other as a drama professor at Yale University. They were, apparently, only two of many; see 368–69. A few Toronto settlement members also went on to stage careers. Two who immediately come to mind are Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster, former St. Christopher House regulars who gained national fame as comedians on both the stage and in television from the 1950s through the 1970s.Google Scholar

55 Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library – Baldwin Room (hereafter B.R.) S54, “History of Canadian Settlements,” Notes, Book B, Reminiscences of Carol Stanton Hogg; CTA, SC5, Box 5, file 2, “Drama and Music Programmes,” programmes for “The Blue Bird,” “Peter Pan,” and “The Doll's Wedding.” See also Box 11, file 1, “Newsclippings, 1911–1930.” Google Scholar

56 See Sperdakos, Paula, “Dora Mavor Moore: Before the New Play Society,” 43–64, and Murray, Heather, “Making the Modern,” 39–57. For a discussion of the American movement, and settlement workers' participation therein, see Blair, , The Torchbearers, Chapter Six.Google Scholar

57 CTA, SC5 D, Box 1, CNH Annual Reports, 1921 and 1923.Google Scholar

58 B.R., Carol Stanton Hogg reminiscences; CTA, SC484, I B 1, Box 1, St. Christopher House, Headworker's Report, November 22, 1921.Google Scholar

59 CTA, SC5 Box 11, file 1, “Newsclippings, 1911–1930,” “Delightful Concert at Central N. House: Community Theatre Will Develop Artistic Talent of Ward Children,” “Aim is to Develop Community Theatre,” (n.p., n.d., [March 30, 1927]); SC24 Z, Box 5, file 1, “University Settlement – History, Scrapbook 1918–1959.” Google Scholar

60 For example, one year a group of older children at Evangelia put on As You Like It as a part of the settlement's Christmas celebrations. See BR S54, “History of Canadian Settlements” Book B, Evangelia, notes compiled by H.J. and C. Hogg. On another occasion, in 1912, some of CNH's older girls put on an (unnamed) play in the front room of the settlement for CNH's first Spring Festival; the play drew an audience of 110 children. CTA, SC5 B, Box 1, file 1, CNH Board of Director's minutes, Headworker's Report for April, [May 1912]. In her report for December 1913 CNH's headworker, Elizabeth Neufeld, wrote that all the children were taking part in preparing entertainments, plays and pageants for mid-winter celebrations, which would take place in the first week in February. Subscribers and friends of the settlement were invited to attend. CTA, SC5 B, Box 1, file 2, CNH Board of Director's minutes, Headworker's Report for December 1913. See also Headworker's Report, February 11, 1914. At University Settlement, Milton B Hunt instituted “dramatic and musical programmes” soon after he arrived in the fall of 1911. UTA, B78-1395, University Settlement (Ephemera), Some Facts About the University Settlement (Toronto, [1911]). University's Annual Report for 1921 noted that plays were produced for special holidays like Easter, St. Valentine's, and so on. St. Christopher House and Memorial Institute also staged plays on Christian holidays and for their quarterly club meetings.Google Scholar

61 CTA, SC5 B, Box 1, file 3, CNH Headworker's Report, March 1915; SC5 A, Box 1, CNH Annual Report, 1923; SC14, Toronto Association of Neighbourhood Services (TANS), Federation of Settlements, Minutes, April 7, 1920; SC484, I B 1, Box 1, St. Christopher House Headworker's Report, April 17, 1923.Google Scholar

62 See, for example, CTA, SC5, Box 11, file 1, “Newsclippings, 1911–1930,” “School Buildings for Social Uses,” and “Central Neighborhood Children and Their Play,” (n.p., n.d.).Google Scholar

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64 CTA, SC5 B, Box 1, file 1, CNH Board of Director's minutes, Headworker's Report for March 1913; see also Headworker's Report for April 1913; SC 5 D Box 1, file 5, Neufeld, E.B., “Head Worker's Report,” CNH Year Book , 1913; and SC484 I B 1, Box 1, St. Christopher House, Headworker's Report, February 15, 1921, and May 30, 1922.Google Scholar

65 CTA, SC5 Box 11, file 1, “Newsclippings, 1911–1930,” “Fine Social Centre Work,” (n.p., n.d., [spring 1917]).Google Scholar

66 See, for example, CTA, SC5 Box 11, file 1, “Newsclippings, 1911–30,” “Where We Found the Blue Bird,” and “Blue Bird Draws 500.” Google Scholar

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68 Lenskyj, Helen, Out of Bounds: Women, Sport and Sexuality (Toronto, 1986).Google Scholar

69 CTA, SC5 Box 5, file 2, “Drama and Music: Programmes,” “Peter Pan”; SC5 Box 11, file 1, “Newsclippings, 1911–30,” “‘Peter Pan’ Abroad in Toronto Again,” “Delightful ‘Peter Pan’ at Orde St. Centre,” “‘Peter Pan’ at Orde St. School,” and “Fine Performance By Clever Children.” Google Scholar

70 Due to gaps in the extant evidence, it is impossible to calculate how many settlement staff members and volunteers attended a school of expression, but the data which do exist appear to indicate that many had done so. See, for example, “Directress Needs Tact and Resource,” The Varsity XLIV, (February 25, 1925): 1; “Playlets Were Presented in Credible Manner,” Newsclippings, 1911–30, file 1, Box 11, SC5, CTA. See also Murray, , “Making the Modern.” Google Scholar

71 For more on the Margaret Eaton School of Literature and Expression, see Murray, Heather, “Making the Modern,” 39–57, and Sperdakos, Paula, “Dora Mavor Moore,” 43–64.Google Scholar

72 Baines, Carol T., “The Professions and an Ethic of Care,” in Women's Caring: Feminist Perspectives on Social Welfare edited by Baines, Carol, Evans, Patricia, and Neysmith, Sheila, (Toronto, 1991): 58–60. See also Hurl, Lorna, “Building a Profession: The Origin and Development of the Department of Social Service in the University of Toronto, 1914–1928,” Working Papers on Social Welfare in Canada 11 (Toronto: Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, 1983); and Burke, Sara Z., Seeking the Highest Good: Gender and Social Service at the University of Toronto, 1888–1937 (Toronto, 1996), Chapter Six.Google Scholar

73 CTA SC5, Box 5, file 10, “Script: A Midsummer Night's Dream.” Google Scholar

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75 See, for example, Draper, Paula J. and Karlinsky, Janice B, “Abraham's Daughters: Women, Charity and Power in the Canadian Jewish Community” in Burnett, Jean, ed., Looking Into My Sister's Eyes: An Exploration in Women's History (Toronto, 1986), 75–90.Google Scholar

76 CTA, SC5 Box 11, file 1, “Newsclippings, 1911–30,” “Wee Folk Entertain At Orde St. School.” Google Scholar

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78 Clarke, Mary Joplin, “Mental Milestones,” Canadian Conference of Charities and Correction Proceedings, 1916 (Ottawa: King's Printer, 1916); CTA, SC3, Bureau of Municipal Research, E2, Box 1, Papers, White, “Feeble-Mindedness,” White Paper Number 12.Google Scholar

79 See Weil, Elsie F., “The Hull-House Players,” in Eighty Years At Hull-House, edited by Davis, Allen F. and McCree, Mary Lynn (Chicago, 1969), 88–91.Google Scholar

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