The Settlement House Movement Revisited: A Transnational History has explored the past place of the Settlement House Movement within social work and social welfare. In this concluding chapter, the themes from each of the book's chapters are drawn together. First, we reflect on the place of the Settlement House Movement as it has developed in different national contexts, signifying a more complex perspective than that which has been traditionally afforded. The chapter then goes on to examine the role of historical research and, particularly, the contribution that this methodological approach can have within social work and social work education, by highlighting the different examples provided within the individual chapters. It ends with a discussion of some cross-cutting insights that emerge from this volume and an exploration of the unique role that the Settlement House Movement held, and still holds, in the continued development of social work, social welfare and other fields of knowledge and practice.

This volume is divided into four parts, each of which has a distinct yet connected theme. Part I explores the transnational transfer of knowledge. The Settlement House Movement is shown to be a transnational endeavour, emerging in London at the beginning of the 1880s with the foundation of Toynbee Hall in London by Samuel and Henrietta Barnett. Toynbee Hall attracted many reform activists from continental Europe, and also inspired Stanton Coit, Lillian Wald and Jane Addams to establish the first settlement houses in the New York and Chicago, spreading after that to the rest of the US and later to other Western, industrialised countries and even beyond. The transfer of the settlement house model, particularly between the UK and the US, is the well-known legacy of the Settlement House Movement. However, this book suggests that our understanding of the transnationalisation of the Settlement House Movement is restricted, due to the overwhelming success story of settlements in the first decades of the 20th century and the repetition of stories told by their founders. Yet, there is a lack of historical research on this topic. As such, Part I starts from the argument that it is not possible to understand why settlements were so influential without considering broader transnational connections and dimensions.