Date: 1935

 

Description: This anniversary program celebrates the forty-sixth anniversary of the Wall Street Mission, a community and social service center once located on Wall Street (now Floyd Boulevard) in the South Bottoms neighborhood. The Mission began in 1891 as a center to house, feed, and clothe Sioux City’s low income and working class citizens. But the Mission was devoted to providing people more than just these basic necessities. Clubs were organized at the Mission to socialize and create activities for men, women, boys, and girls. The Mission also organized food and clothing drives, nurseries, and a medical dispensary where nurses cared for patients unable to afford hospital care. There was also an employment bureau to help unemployed people find work. Some of its largest contributions however were made in the classes that the Mission provided for all genders and age groups. Along with basic academics like reading and math, classes for basic life skills were also provided. Women and girls could take classes in sewing, housekeeping, and cooking, and men and boys could take industrial classes, from making basic home ornaments to more skilled tasks like carpentry and metalworking. While the adults attended the classes games and other classes were organized for the children to keep them occupied. People from all economic statuses all over the city could come to the Mission for these classes as well as music lessons and to even simply take a shower or bath if their homes had no clean water. It also offered religious services, including Sunday schools church sermons.

 

The Wall Street Mission moved to a new building called Hobson Hall in 1925 because the old chapel building where they had been operating was becoming unstable. The Mission often worked with the Community Center, also called the Mary Treglia Community House, another social service agency. The Treglia House was located in East Bottoms and mainly provided English classes for non-English speaking citizens. Though it has moved, the Treglia House still operates today, teaching English and other classes for Sioux City’s immigrants. The Wall Street Mission is now Goodwill Industries. Goodwill still continues to provide many of the same services that the Mission had provided, especially jobs and employment skills for handicapped individuals.

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Donor information not available

 

On display