Social actionA stress on social action that developed in the 1880s, was pioneered by the Settlement house movement.[19] This Movement (creating integrated mixed communities of rich and poor) grew directly out of Octavia Hill's work. Her colleagues Samuel and Henrietta Barnett, founded Toynbee Hall, Oxford House[20] in 1884 in Bethnal Green as the first university-sponsored settlement. Another early organization was Mansfield House Settlement, also in east London. In America, the settlement movement was established by Jane Addams, a young medical student, and Ellen Gates Starr after Addams visited Toynbee Hall and was impressed by the system. She founded Chicago's Hull House in 1889, which focused on providing education and recreational facilities for European immigrant women and children.[20] By 1913, there were 413 settlements in 32 states.[21]
The concept of the Settlement house movement was to bring upper and middle class students into lower-class neighbourhoods, not only to provide education and social aid, but to actually live and work together with their inhabitants. This soon inspired a worldwide movement of university settlements. The idea was to help members of the future elite understand the problems of wider society; this was especially important at a time when class divisions were much stronger, social mobility was minimal, and the living conditions of the poor were completely unknown to many members of the upper class.[22]