Settlement House and Lending a Hand (1:08)

Joan Sullivan is played by Arielle Yoder

From the House of Seven Gables website: Emmerton used proceeds from museum visitors to fund The House of the Seven Gables Settlement Association. In the early 20th century, the settlement house movement was seen as the progressive method to help newly arriving immigrant families adapt to life in their new cities. Settlement houses offered a variety of services including classes, medical care, and recreational opportunities.

In Salem, the first settlement house was run by the YMCA. By 1908, the YMCA settlement house was located in the Seaman’s Bethel at the bottom of Turner Street where The Gables’ seaside lawn is today. The Bethel was a church for sailors associated with the Young Men’s Bethel Society that formed in the 1820s. In 1908, Emmerton assumed responsibility for the settlement house. She said the offerings included, “sewing…and some of the other handicrafts, dancing and gymnasium work.”

Emmerton expanded the programs and services of the settlement house to the point that they exceeded the capacity of the Seaman’s Bethel. When Emmerton learned that the neighboring Turner-Ingersoll Mansion was up for sale, she purchased it as the settlement’s practical and collective center.

Emmerton wrote of her choice: “If, as is generally conceded, the settlements do the best Americanization work, should not this settlement excel whose home is the ancient House of Seven Gables, the foundations of which were laid by the first immigrants who came here long ago, strangers in a strange land?”

Residents in the surrounding Derby Street neighborhood were the primary beneficiaries of the settlement house. The area was an enclave for Eastern European immigrants, especially from Poland and Russia. Other communities served by Emmerton’s work included the Irish, Italian, Syrian, and African. https://7gables.org/