Dana W. Bartlett

Who was Dana W. Bartlett?

Dana Webster Bartlett was an American Congregationalist minister, settlement house director, and writer. He was an early advocate of the City Beautiful movement.

He was born in Bangor, Maine, and educated at Iowa College in Grinnell, Iowa through 1882. He also attended Yale University and Chicago Theological Seminary. He was pastor of Phillips Church, Salt Lake City. He moved to Los Angeles in 1896, where he founded the Bethlehem Institute, also called the Bethlehem Institutional Church. The Institute was a non-denominational social, educational and social service center for working class and immigrant people which covered six city lots. He reached out to Chinese, Japanese and Molokan populations. He influenced social work education and research, helping organize field research by students from the University of Southern California and Occidental College who would visit the slums of Los Angeles and write up their findings. He is one of the honorees in the California Social Work Hall of Distinction. A Progressive, he campaigned for public baths, social reforms, and workers’ rights to organize. Bartlett died in Los Angeles.