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(Union Settlement Association ) is one of the oldest settlement houses in New York City, providing community-based services and programs that support the immigrant and low-income residents of East Harlem. Children as young as six months, teens, adults, seniors in their 90s and entire families of all cultures and backgrounds participate in Union Settlement programs. One of East Harlem’s largest social service agencies, Union Settlement reaches more than 13,000 people annually at 17 locations throughout East Harlem, through a range of programs, including early childhood education, youth development, senior services, job training, the arts, adult education, nutrition, counseling, a farmers' market, community development and neighborhood cultural events. ==History== Union Settlement was founded in 1895 by members of the Union Theological Seminary Alumni Club. After visiting Toynbee Hall in London, and inspired by the example of Hull House in Chicago, the alumni decided to create a settlement house in the area of Manhattan enclosed on the north and south by East 96th and 110th Streets and on the east and west by the East River and Central Park. Known as East Harlem, it was a neighborhood filled with new tenements but devoid of any civic services. The ethos of the settlement house movement called for its workers to “settle” in such neighborhoods in order to learn first-hand the problems of the residents. “It seemed to us that, as early settlers, we had a chance to grow up with the community and affect its development,” wrote William Adams Brown, Theology Professor, Union Theological Society (1892–1930) and President, Union Settlement Association (1915–1919).〔A Teacher and His Times, William Adams Brown, Scribner, 1940.〕 With millions of immigrants arriving in the Union States in the late 19th century as the two elevated subway lines were completed, East Harlem quickly equaled the Lower East Side as Manhattan’s predominantly immigrant community. Until the 1920s, it was New York’s true "Little Italy," claiming the largest population of Italians outside of Italy.〔The Golden Door: Italian and Jewish Immigrant Mobility in New York City, 1880-1915, Thomas Kessner, Oxford University Press, 1977.〕 The neighborhood had, of necessity, a progressive, reformist commitment: Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia lived in East Harlem, spoke often at Union Settlement, and personified the political activism of the area. From the Irish, German, Eastern European and Italian immigrant populations of the early 20th century, to the large numbers of African Americans and immigrants from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean who moved to East Harlem in the mid-20th century, to recent immigrants from West Africa, South Asia and the Middle East, Union Settlement has served many waves of immigrants. Union Settlement’s work has helped tens of thousands of children, youth and adults, many of whom have gone on to become leaders in the community and beyond. For example, New York Secretary of State Lorraine Cortes-Vazquez and City Council Member Robert Jackson are both Union Settlement "alumni." Hollywood movie star Burt Lancaster played sports, acted in theater productions and learned circus arts at Union Settlement as a boy. He credited Union Settlement for "saving him from the streets," and supported the organization all his life. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Union Settlement Association」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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