Edith Terry Bremer

Born in Hamilton N.Y. and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1907. She pioneered immigrant social service work and had a major influence on the institute movement. She founded and led the International Institute movement, which was focused on improving the lives of female immigrants. The International Institute was a movement for cultural pluralism with efforts towards protection of immigrant girls in 1910. She was a resident at the University Chicago settlement as well as a researcher for the Chicago Women’s Trade Union League. She then became a special agent for the United States Immigration Commission and also worked as a field investigator for the Chicago Juvenile Court. These field works inspired her to focus on the problems of female immigrants. She believed that other immigrant social welfare agencies, both public and private, poorly served women.