What's online?
The Kingsley Association online collection contains images from about 1900 through 1969 showing many views of the Hill District and East Liberty and various activities as well as construction projects at the Lillian Home and the Kingsley House. Images were selected that focus on the Hill District neighborhood and its children, quality of life for city residents, including educational aspects.
What's in the entire collection?
The collection, held by the Archives Service Center (ASC) at the University of Pittsburgh, comprises approximately one thousand photographs taken between 1900 and 1970 of from various Lillian Taylor Camp outings in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as portraits of Thomas Bigelow, Joseph Guffey, and H. J. Heinz, a signed engraving of John A. Brashear, and a signed print of Judge Joseph Buffington. William H. Matthews, Kingsley House Director, created one of the photograph albums included in this collection. In addition to photographs, the collection includes various administrative (annual) reports, brochures, budget information, by-laws, case studies, clippings, a constitution, correspondence, directories, inventories, minutes, publications, scrapbooks, and surveys.
About the Kingsley Association
The Kingsley Association, named in honor of Charles Kingsley, an English Christian Socialist and author, was formed in 1893 as the result of efforts by Reverend Dr. George Hodges to establish a Pittsburgh settlement house on Penn Avenue in East Liberty. In 1901, house operations were transferred to a mansion purchased by industrialist Henry Clay Frick to Fulton and Bedford Streets in the Lower Hill District. In 1903, the Association opened a fresh air farm in Valencia, Pennsylvania on land purchased by industrialist Charles L. Taylor. This farm, known as the Lillian Taylor Camp, remains in operation today.
When the Hill District began to experience population growth during the migration of blacks from the South, settlement house operations were the responsibility of the American Baptist Association, which became known as Morgan Memorial House. The results of a 1919 survey conducted by the University of Pittsburgh recommended that the Kingsley Association relocate its settlement house to East Liberty, where it continues to operate.
For more information on the Kingsley Association, see Thirty Years at Kingsley House by Phillip Rosen (MPub 200), Study of Social Settlement Workers in Pittsburgh, 1893 to 1927 by Elizabeth A. Metzger (Mms 30), Neighborhood Centers Association (AIS 64:28), African Service Institute (AIS 63:1) and Eliot Papers (AIS 69:2), available at the Archives Service Center.
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