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Organised charity at the county seat begins in 1902, incorporates in 1906, and is running a federation drive by Christmas 1916. The Associated Charities of South Bend — organized 1902, incorporated 1906 — stands in the 1921 Polk South Bend city directory's Miscellaneous Societies listing (Thaddessa Taylor, general secretary) as carried in the directory transcription; by 1908 it was publishing as the "Associated Charities and Philanthropies of South Bend," its annual report The Charities surviving in the HathiTrust copy the University of Pennsylvania's Online Books Page indexes. Federation follows in the press record: the South Bend News-Times of 24 December 1916 reports the "Federation for Social Service" Good Will Week fund past $17,000 — $17,053.89 after the drive's fourth week — the county seat's charities already raising money jointly a century ago. The ethnic and religious benevolent-society limb (the Polish, Hungarian, German, and parish societies of the west side) was not dug society by society and prints as the row's residue: settlers, the Polk directories' society listings read whole, and the parish histories.
Principal sources: Polk's South Bend city directory (1921), Miscellaneous Societies, via the directory transcription (ldsgenealogy); the Online Books Page (University of Pennsylvania) for The Charities (1908); South Bend News-Times, 24 December 1916, as carried in the newspaper record.