Endowments; Social settlements; Community centers; Pittsburgh (Pa.); Kingsley Association; Hodges, George, 1856-1919
Format
correspondence
Genre
Business correspondence
Date
[between 1907 and November 17, 1921]
Physical Description
microfilm, 16 mm, b&w
Note (Reel no.)
Reel 79
Note
PDF may contain multiple grant documents.
The Kingsley Association, organized in 1893, began as a single settlement house located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, named the Kingsley House. It has since relocated its settlement house to East Liberty (Pittsburgh) where it continues to operate today . It has also expanded to operate the Lillian Taylor Camp, an open air farm in Valencia, Pennsylvania and the Morgan Memorial House in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. The Kingsley Association seeks to create new and innovative, neighborhood-based programs in accordance with the changing needs of residents, with particular attention to young people. The Kingsley Association was formed by the Reverend Dr. George Hodges (theologian) from Cambridge, Massachusetts as a Pittsburgh settlement house...He named the house in honor of Charles Kingsley, a very popular English Christian Socialist and author. ...Andrew Carnegie also had a vested interest. The Kingsley Association became one of the many charities he contributed to after retiring from the steel business. On the 15th of January, 1913, in a letter to the Kingsley Association, the steel magnate wrote, 'Dear Friend, I find I have contributed in the naborhood of $20,000 to Kingsley House and am now paying $3,000 a year. I do not wish to increase this amount of $50,000 I have promist for I feel I have done my part and that liberally….Please consider this and do not press me further and oblige. Very Truly Yours, Andrew Carnegie.'" [SOURCE: "Kingsley Association (Pittsburgh, PA)." Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsley_Association_(Pittsburgh,_PA). Accessed 1 Oct. 2018.] "The Kingsley Association was first named Kingsley House, a settlement house founded in 1893. As a result of the industrial revolution, immigrant workers bound to the mills and factories found themselves poor and in tremendous need. These conditions precipitated a movement of human service and social reform lead by privileged university graduates. Leaders of the reform movement, living in the community, organized social, educational, and recreational programs. These individuals believed that partnership with the community as an equal participant, sharing its issues and concerns, would bring solutions to the new problems of urban life, a way of operating that the Kingsley Association of today strives to maintain. The Kingsley House was and continues to host an abundance of cultural, educational, and social programming. The House was so successful, that in 1900 it became necessary to expand. It was then that H.C. Frick gifted the Montooth Mansion at Bedford and Fullerton, in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, to the Kingsley House Association. Growth continued, and in 1917 the Kingsley House Association became the Kingsley Association." [SOURCE: "History" The Kingsley Association, http://kingsleyassociation.org/about/history. Accessed 1 Oct. 2018.]