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225 stories matching chariti
- The Bureau of Associated Charities Launches Friendly Visitors Program
Eighty local women take up the task of 'personal charity,' aiming to uplift the poor through mentorship rather than simple handouts.
- Taxpayers Oppose 'Charity' Wages for Street Cleaners
A reform group challenges the city's plan to pay men $1.25 a day for street cleaning, arguing the city is exploiting laborers under the guise of charity.
- The Rise of Scientific Charity in 1890s Seattle
A crowded public meeting at Ranke's Hall seeks to formalize city charity, sparking a debate on 'worthy' versus 'unworthy' poor and the ethics of professionalized benevolence.
- Seattle Amateurs Raise Funds for Charity
A high-society theatrical benefit for the Bureau of Associated Charities draws a 'brilliant' audience and earns rave reviews.
- The Charity Bureau’s War on ‘Strawberry Jam’ Relief
A newly formed Associated Charities bureau boasts of cutting poor relief costs by policing the 'worthiness' of recipients and weeding out fraud.
- The Bureau of Charities Files for Guardianship of Five Children
A legal battle begins to rescue five children from a mother who allegedly forced them into begging and prostitution.
- The Cold Night’s Lesson: A Dream of Seattle Charity
In an 1889 holiday-season allegory, a young girl is taken on a spectral tour of Seattle's elite charity ball, only to discover the cruel indifference hidden beneath the city’s performative philanthropy.
- The Scientific Charity Movement Comes to Seattle
A report on the new organizational efforts to manage poverty in Seattle, modeled on European systems of 'friendly visitors'.
- Infant Abandoned at Sisters of Charity Academy
A newborn child discovered on the steps of a local school is sent to an orphanage in Vancouver.
- A Case of Heartless Ingratitude in Tacoma
A mother who sacrificed her farm for her son's move west is left destitute in Tacoma.
- The Science of Charity: Seattle’s 1892 War on Beggary
Before modern social safety nets, Seattle churches pushed a 'scientific' model of charity to distinguish between the 'deserving' poor and what they termed fraudulent street mendicants.
- The City Auctions Everything for Charity
Seattle residents gather at a South Second Street storefront to auction off household goods to aid the city's needy.
- The Price of Public Care
King County officials weigh competing bids for the medical and basic care of the county's poor in 1883.
- A Juvenile Maypole Dance for Charity
Four hundred attendees filled Ranke's Hall to watch a complex ribbon-weaving dance performed by local children for the Bureau of Associated Charities.
- The Council's Saloon Charity
Aberdeen’s city fathers are accused of legal gymnastics by granting a liquor license under the guise of helping a struggling mother.
- The 'Destitute' Widow Who Owned $20,000 in Property
A Snohomish woman on the county charity rolls turns out to hold a small fortune in King County real estate — and the commissioners want their money back.
- The Lonely Death of L. Larson
A friendless man from Snohomish dies of pneumonia at a local lodging house after refusing hospital charity.
- Mrs. Dine, Aging Teacher, Needs Community Support
An aging Seattle resident, who once helped build the foundations of the city, now struggles in penury—prompting a call for civic support.
- Children Perform 'Cinderella' for Orphans
Local children take the stage at the Seattle Theater for a charity performance to support the Orphans' Home.
- Seattle's Winter Crisis of 1892
Bureau of Associated Charities report reveals hundreds of desperate applicants and a city struggling to support its unemployed and sick during November.
- The Great Burbank Rabbit Drive
Nearly 300 hunters organized a massive cull to clear local agricultural lands, with the bounty destined for charity.
- The Birth of the Associated Charities
Seattle's civic leaders organize a modern 'clearing house' for relief to curb street beggary and provide professionalized aid.
- The Tragedy of a Deserted Mother on the Seattle Waterfront
A young woman, abandoned by an abusive husband, finds herself destitute and desperate for passage back home to Portland.
- The Price of Desperation
A robbery of a life savings and a bureaucratic failure in the county health system lead to tragic outcomes for Seattle's vulnerable.
- The Snow Came, but the Shoveling Jobs Didn’t
Seattle’s charity bureau reported a daily crush of destitute applicants, and even a snowfall failed to create the usual day labor—householders did the shoveling themselves.