This rapid and unparalleled transfer of people from rural to urban conditions gave rise to problems in social adjustment of immense range and complexity. Accompanied by the progress of democracy, the advance of popular education, the increasing sense of civic responsibility, the application of scientific methods and, above all, the ever-widening permeation of the humani tarian spirit, these social transformations formed the background for the development of the great outstanding philanthropies of our time. Most notable among the results of the philanthropic spirit were the great advance in industrial welfare, the abolition of human slavery, improved housing in cities, enlightened care for the defective classes, immense extension of free public education, the organization of the Red Cross society, the charity organization movement, the social settlement movement, the child welfare movement and the establishment of scientifically equipped hos pitals.
Among the most notable philanthropists (on each of whom will be found a biographical article under his name) were : Robert Owen, famous for his model mills at New Lanark and later for his communities in England and America; Jeremy Bentham and the Quaker educator, William Allen (177o-1843). Other leading figures were William Wilberforce whose life-effort was finally crowned in 1833 by the passage of an act abolishing slavery in the British dominions, and Elizabeth Fry, in England, who carried on the cause of prison reform initiated by John Howard.
In the United States Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe advanced the education of the blind, and Thomas Gallaudet, with his sons Thomas and Edward Gallaudet, performed equally conspicuous service in the training of the deaf and dumb. In 1833 Anton Frederic Oxinam, a zealous Roman Catholic student at the Sor bonne, with the aid of Pere Sylvain Bailly, organized in Paris the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Within the century this society expanded into a world-wide agency of Catholic beneficence, whose principles and practices of poor relief influenced the charitable practice of our time, in Protestant as well as in Catholic countries. In the same year (1833) Theodor Fliedner, a pastor in Rhenish Prussia, established the Protestant order of Deaconesses, at whose first school in Kaiserswerth Florence Nightingale was trained as a nurse. Shortly before (1827) Miss Catherine McAuley estab lished in Dublin the Sisters of Mercy, whose hospitals and schools have become widespread in English-speaking and other countries.
Lord Shaftesbury's long life is the continuous story of factory acts, child labour acts, mining reform, lunatic asylum reform, pub lic health improvement and housing reform. In 1856 Baroness Burdett-Coutts, who devoted a long life and a large fortune to many-sided philanthropy, began building model lodging-houses at Bethnal Green. In 1862 George Peabody, an American banker liv
ing in London, gave a fund of II sopoo, later enlarged to Lsoo,000, for the construction of dwelling houses for London working men. In 1864 Octavia Hill began her remarkable housing work at Marylebone with funds advanced by John Ruskin.
The English nurse, Florence Nightingale, by heroic service with the British army in the Crimean War (1854-56), revolutionized the care of sick and wounded soldiers in military hospitals. Fur ther reflecting the humane spirit of the age, the Swiss philanthro pist, Henri Dunant, provided aid for wounded soldiers on the bat tlefield by organizing, in 1864, the Red Cross Society. Under the leadership of Clara Barton the American Red Cross Society was established in 1881 and its function later extended (1906) to pro vide relief in natural calamities. Henry Bergh, of New York, founded, in 1874, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. In 1853 Charles Loring Brace founded the Children's Aid Society of New York city, a pioneer organization in the child welfare movement. In 1867 Dr. Thomas John Barnardo opened in Stepney Causeway, London, the first of the so-called "Barnardo homes" for destitute children.
In 1869 a group of prominent men in England, including the earl of Shaftesbury, J. H. Newman and Wm. E. Gladstone, formed in London the first Charity Organization Society in the world. With a group of Oxford men, Canon S. A. Barnett in 1885 founded in Whitechapel, London, the first university settlement, Toynbee Hall. Dr. Stanton Coit in 1886 established in New York the Neighborhood Guild which later became the University settle ment. In 1889 Jane Addams began her work at Hull House, Chi cago, and in 1893 two nurses, Lillian D. Wald and Mary M. Brew ster, established in New York city the now widely known Henry Street settlement.
In the 19th century, also, the political and economic emancipa tion of the Jewish peoples of western Europe led to a complete reorganization of Jewish benevolence, accompanied by many out standing achievements in modern philanthropic endeavour. Among these were the notable activities of Sir Moses Montefiore, of Eng land, in ameliorating the lot of unfortunate co-religionists in lands where they were still oppressed, and also the munificent bene factions of Baron Maurice de Hirsch. The latter established the Jewish Colonization Society, which he endowed with some 1,- 000,000, making it one of the greatest modern philanthropic trusts; in addition, he contributed extensively to hospitals and other charities in London and elsewhere, the total of his bene factions amounting to about £18,000,000.