During the 1920s the Institute offered English and citizenship classes, casework, services, and activities for the nationality communities in St. Paul.  Sometime in the early 1930s, due to budget cuts, "Jake's Place" was closed and the Institute relocated in the basement of the YWCA with only one regular worker.  The first executive director, Alice L. Sickels, came in 1931.  Under her direction the Institute experienced much growth in casework, educational programs, and community activities.  This period also witnessed the emergence of the St. Paul Festival of Nations, later to become a symbol for what the Institute had been doing.

        In 1938 the St. Paul Institute broke away from the YWCA.  The reasons for this reflected national occurrences, as it was a time when International Institutes across the country were emerging from the YWCA.  This happened as a result of expanding their programs into casework and folk arts, including men in the program, and serving large numbers of non-Protestants.

        The St. Paul Institute defined itself as a non-political, inter-faith, inter-racial social agency with an open membership of both foreign and native-born.  It was primarily concerned with helping the foreign-born adjust to American life and preserve their cultural heritage for all America.  This was to be accomplished through an integrated program of casework, education, and groupwork.  The term "groupwork" referred to individual and group activities appropriate to the needs of the individual and group.

        Casework services were provided in the years before World War II for the resident foreign-born population of St. Paul.  The Institute helped many immigrants to complete the naturalization process.  In addition to the naturalization cases, the Institute's special expertise in immigration law was used to resolve questions of alienage, to help St. Paul's new arrivals obtain money deposited in foreign banks, and to assist in the disposition of inherited property.  Reunion of long-separated families was another area of Institute activity.  During the war years, casework services involved the initial settlement of displaced persons in the city.  The Institute became active in the relocation of Japanese Americans from the Pacific Coast.  In September 1942, with the help of the War Relocation Authority, the Institute established a city-wide committee to aid in the resettlement from the camps and serve as a clearinghouse of information about jobs, housing, and the attitudes of the city's residents.

        In the post-war years, casework services continued to involve settlement of displaced persons.  The Institute participated in the Special Project with the International Refugee Organization (SPIRO), helping displaced persons of mixed religious marriages find housing, jobs, and friends in St. Paul.  In the 1950s the Institute became active with Hungarian refugees and in the 1960s with the Cuban refugees.

        Closely related to casework services were educational classes and services offered by the Institute.  As early as the 1920s English classes and citizenship classes were offered.  By 1927 the Institute was sponsoring receptions for new citizens, often in conjunction with a civic organization.  In the 1950s the Institute began instruction in foreign languages.  Before this time, however, the Institute provided translation services for the foreign-born in St. Paul.  In the post-war years the Institute staff and community volunteers translated many letters to the local chapter of the Red Cross from the foreign-born in St. Paul providing information on friends and family.

        Groupwork services and activities include a variety of programs such as foreign film features, foreign food luncheons, the Street Party, the Pan-American Fiesta, folk arts fairs, and world acquaintance tours.  One of the most important activities was and is the Festival of Nations.  The Festival began in 1932, under the direction of Alice Sickels.  In thirteen years she helped to create six festivals, under her guidance the St. Paul Festival became one of three nationally-known community festivals, along with Cleveland and New York.  Other emphasis on the folk arts included folk crafters guilds and folk dance classes.  Annual events such as costume balls, nationality dinners, open houses, and concerts were also popular.  The Institute promoted the formation of many groups and clubs, and allowed other national and international groups to use their facilities.

        From 1938 to 1957 the responsibility for this integrated program of casework, education and groupwork lay with two governing bodies of the Institute: the Membership Council and the Board of Directors.  The Membership Council, consisting of representatives chosen by the nationality groups, was responsible for initiating and planning programs. The Board of Directors, elected by the Membership Council, was responsible for determining policies of the Institute.

        During the 1940s tension developed between the two bodies due to postwar problems and the shift of clientele to emphasize second and later generations.  With problems of funding during the 1950s, conflict between the two bodies increased.  Council members felt they were more concerned with fundraising than the needs of the groups.  Feeling they did most of the work, the Council desired more authority.  The solution for these problems came in a new set of by-laws in 1957.  The Membership Council was merged with the Board of Directors.  The Board was to be elected by the membership at large.

        The office files consist of correspondence, imprints, photographs, and miscellaneous papers beginning in the 1920s but concentrated from 1939 to 1971.  They document a wide range of Institute activities, but the Festival of Nations is underrepresented because most of those files remain in the Institute for continuing programmatic use.  This is the organization of the office files:

I.          Administrative Records (Folders 1-20)
II.         Educational Program (Folders 21-35)
III.        Department Records (Folders 36-68)
IV.       Group Services and Activities (Folders 69-179)
V.         Special Programs, Projects and Publications (Folders 180-227)
VI.       Community and National Contacts (Folders 228-343)
VII.      Publicity (Folders 344-351)
VIII.    Miscellaneous (Folders 352-382)