In the cities female public activity often centred around charities, continuing their work done during the Civil War to help the poor.
The Charity Organisation Society became a major outlet for urban women’s energies.
- The experience of charity work led many states and cities to appoint women to administer public charities, giving them experience of influencing local government.
- Women were effective in persuading many states to pass pension legislation in the 1900s, giving assistance to mothers, widows, and wives whose husbands were unable to work through disability.
- Female graduates pioneered the settlement house movement in the late 1880s, establishing c. 400 settlement houses in cities.
These were where poorer people could find educational, recreational and cultural activities to relieve what were often bleak urban districts.
In some areas these took on a political aspect, providing meeting places for social reformers and offering rooms for trade union meetings.