New Homes for Old was one of ten volumes published by the Carnegie Corporation on "Methods of Americanization." Reappearing near the end of four decades of massive immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, the volumes were "to give as clear a notion as possible of the methods of the agencies actually at work in this field." Breckenridge's volume considers the immigrant homes and family life.

Sophonisba Breckenridge was a major figure in the remarkable circle of women associated with Jane Addams's Hull House. She played a leading role in Progressive Era social research and in the...