International Institute of Metropolitan Detroit
The international institute of metropolitan detroit
111 E Kirby Street
Detroit, MI 48202
Hours:
Currently closed in response to COVID-19
Highlights:
The International Institute of Metropolitan Detroit is located in the Cultural Center on Kirby Street, making neighbors with the Hellenic Museum of Michigan, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and College for Creative Studies
The International Institute of Metropolitan Detroit (IIMD) was founded, in 1919, by a group of YWCA volunteers who sought to help legal immigrants learn English, appreciate freedom and democracy, become citizens, be assimilated into their communities, and learn to understand each other's cultures. The International Institute of Detroit was one of 55 such institutes founded by the national YWCA in cosmopolitan cities all over the U.S., at a time of peak immigration into the U.S. The International Institute movement was inspired by Jane Addams' Hull House, in Chicago (1889), and the "settlement movement" in England, including Toynbee Hall in London, founded in 1884. The first such International Institute was founded in New York City by Edith Terry Bremer, in 1911. The original International Institute of Detroit, starting in 1919, was located in a brick cottage at the corner of Adams and Witherell, in Downtown Detroit (at the site of the current Comerica Park Detroit Tigers baseball stadium). Newly arrived immigrants to Detroit were welcomed at this building, as they sat around what became a familiar fireplace in the building's living room.