Civic Service House

Civic Service House was an American social settlement and a school for citizenship,[1] located at 110-112 Salem Street, Boston, Massachusetts.

Improvement clubs, educational classes for men and women, occasional concerts and recreational features were available, but these were subordinate to the effort for civic betterment.

Shaw saw the opportunities for civic service in this field and dedicated the House at the very outset to the constructive citizenship of adult immigrant wage earners.

Later, when the public night schools began to function in the neighborhood, it was able to contribute not only interpreters and teachers specially trained for the new task, but new textbooks designed to meet the particular needs of adult immigrants.

The docks and warehouses, the wholesale groceries and fruit establishments, the immense candy and cigar factories, the furniture shops,—these were a few among the countless industries fast developing in what was once the residential part of Boston.

Almost all the old residences were demolished or altered into stores or shops, where dress goods were made and sold on an enormous scale, while Polish families in the side streets were conveverting old tenements into teeming boarding houses.

Education.-A resident holds the position of Supervisor of Licensed Minors, and has developed among some three thousand boys who sell papers a unique and far-reaching plan of self-government.

Civic Leadership.-In cooperation with its neighbors, has taken a keen interest in various city and state measures affecting the welfare of the district, and has given of its strength and experience as opportunity arose.

Summer Work.–Roof garden; night school for immigrants; picnics and excursions; dances; club meetings; vacations at the House Camp at West Gloucester, Massachusetts.