Americanization and Cultural Preservation in Seattle\u27s Settlement House: A Jewish Adaptation of the Anglo-American Model of Settlement Work

This article examines the dual agendas of Americanization and preservation of Ashkenazic Jewish culture through an historical analysis of the work of Seattle\u27s Settlement House, a social service center founded in 1906 by elite, Americanized Jews to serve poorer, immigrant Jews of Ashkenazic and Sephardic origin. Such analysis is set against the ideological backdrop of Anglo-Americanism which pervaded the field of social work in its early efforts at self-definition and professionalization.P articulara ttentioni s paid to the role of the arts at Settlement House, with comparisons to Chicago\u27s Hull-House, the prototypical American settlement operating at the turn of the century. This case study analyzes a German Jewish adaptation of an Anglo-American, Christian model of social work