HistoryImmigrant NeighborhoodImmigrationNeighborhood LifeSchools & Education Photograph of a group of men and women posing on the steps of a brick and glass building.

The Settlement Movement

The settlement movement was an attempt by scholars and social reformers on both sides of the Atlantic to address the problems caused by industrialization, urbanization, and, in America’s case, the mass immigration of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Settlement Houses were important institutions in Boston’s West End, assisting families with a wide range of educational and social services.

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Art & LiteratureImmigrant NeighborhoodNeighborhood Life Photograph of Hyman Bloom.

Hyman Bloom and the West End Community Center

Hyman Bloom is remembered as a key figure from the Boston Expressionist movement, praised for his mystical and vibrant paintings. Bloom, in addition to being a visionary artist, offers us a window into Boston’s settlement houses in the 1920s and ‘30s. The West End Community Center, and its artist-teacher Harold Zimmerman, nurtured the creativity of a generation of future artists, from Bloom to Jack Levine.

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