Jane Addams and Hull House

1. Jane Addams and Hull House

2. 19th Century Reform • The late 19th century was a period of intense social reform movements, particularly in the realm of women's issues, of which the settlement houses were a product. • An example of this trend that is Jane Addams' Hull House in Chicago.

3. 19th Century Immigration • A primary catalyst of the settlement house movement, 19th century immigration concerned many who believed that American values were being diluted by foreigners who crammed into cities and refused to assimilate as quickly as many would have liked. • Josiah Strong was a prominent Congregationalist minister from Ohio, who published "Our Country" in 1885, which was a comprehensive critique of immigration and urbanization. • “The city has become a serious menace to our civilization. . . . It has a peculiar attraction for the immigrant.”

4. 19th Century Urbanization • Another primary catalyst for the beginning of the settlement house movement was the rapid urbanization and increasing population evident in American society combined with problems such as overcrowding, filth, and disease. • This illustrations and excerpt are from Jacob Riis' famous book, "How the Other Half Lives," which outline the miserable conditions of many living in the growing cities. “decency and morality which society erects, the saloon projects its colossal shadow, omen of evil wherever it falls into the lives of the poor. “

5. Founding of Hull House • Inspired by the first true settlement house, Toynbee Hall in London, Jane Addams and Ellen Starr founded Hull House in Chicago in 1889. • The excerpt is a piece by Addams stating the necessity of settlement houses in fostering democracy and bringing “the other half” into the fold of the human race. • “I have divided the motives which constitute the subjective pressure toward Social Settlements into three great lines: the first contains the desire to make the entire social organism democratic, to extend democracy beyond its political expression; the second is the impulse to share the race life, and to bring as much as possible of social energy and the accumulation of civilization to those portions of the race which have little; the third springs from a certain renaissance of Christianity, a movement toward its early humanitarian aspects.”

6. Children at Hull House • As time progressed, Addams and Hull House became increasingly concerned about the plight of children in the Chicago area. • In “Immigrants and their Children,” Addams outlines the importance of caring for immigrant children. • “The early immigrants had been so stirred by the opportunity to own real estate, an appeal perhaps to the Slavic land hunger, and their energies had become so completely absorbed in money-making that all other interests had apparently dropped away.”