Jane Addams and the Successful Hull House

830 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essay on Jane Addams

Jane Addams and her colleague, Ellen Gates Starr, founded the most successful settlement house in the United States otherwise known as the Hull-House (“Settlement” 1). It was located in a city overrun by poverty, filth and gangsters, and it could not have come at a better time (Lundblad 663). The main purpose of settlement houses was to ease the transition into the American culture and labor force, and The Hull-House offered its residents an opportunity to help the community, was a safe haven for the city, and led the way through social reform for women and children.
Laura Jane Addams was born in Cedarville, Illinois on September 6, 1860. Addams lost her mother to childbirth at the age of two, and her father, John Addams, was a prominent politician as the state senator of Illinois and friends with Abraham Lincoln. Addams attended Rockford Seminary at her father’s insistence to stay close and graduated valedictorian with the intention to work with the poor and study medicine (“About Jane” 1). Jane spiraled into depression when she abruptly lost her father in 1881, and she gave up her pursuit of studying medicine and traveled through Europe twice in six years. It was in London that Addams witnessed an auction of spoiled food that spurred her into social work. She was sickened by the sight of the poor eagerly bidding for garbage, and she hoped of establishing a settlement house in Chicago similar to the Toynbee Hall in London. When Addams discussed her plans to Ellen Gates Starr, a college friend, she was surprised Starr was interested. Together, they rented a mansion built by Charles Hull which was located on the west side of Chicago, and when the Hull-House’s doors opened, the neighborhood and Chicago were overrun by poverty (Lundb...

... middle of paper ...

...se." Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. UIC College of Architecture and Arts,
n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2014
"About Jane Addams." Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. UIC College of Architecture and
Arts, n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2014
"Hull House." Social Welfare History Project. SocialWelfareHistory.com, n.d. Web. 29 Jan.
2014.
Johnson, Mary Ann. "Hull House." Hull House. Chicago Historical Society, n.d. Web. 26 Jan.
2014.
Lundblad, Karen Shafer. "Jane Addams and Social Reform: A Role Model for the 1990s."
Social Work 40.5 (1995): 661-669. Academic Search Complete. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.
"Settlement House Movement." Open Collections Program: Immigration to the US. The
President and Fellows of Harvard College, n.d. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
Webber, Tammy. "Jane Addams Hull House Closes Doors After More Than 120 Years." The
Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 27 Jan. 2012. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.

Show More
Related

  • Mary Surratt: An American Secret

    1804 Words  | 4 Pages

    Volume III: P-Z. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. Print. The. James, Edward, Janet James, and Paul Boyer. Notable American Women, 1607-1950.

    Read More

  • Grace Abbott: The Mother of America's Forty-Three Million Children

    1725 Words  | 4 Pages

    Grace Abbott was born November 17, 1878 in Grand Island, Nebraska. Grace was one of four children of Othman A. and Elizabeth Abbott. There’s was a home environment that stressed religious independence, education, and general equality. Grace grew up observing her father, a Civil War veteran in court arguing as a lawyer. Her father would later become the first Lt. Governor of Nebraska. Elizabeth, her mother, taught her of the social injustices brought on the Native Americans of the Great Plains. In addition, Grace was taught about the women’s suffrage movement, which her mother was an early leader of in Nebraska. During Grace’s childhood she was exposed to the likes of Pulitzer Prize author Willa Cather who lived down the street from the Abbott’s, and Susan B. Anthony the prominent civil rights leader whom introduced wom...

    Read More

  • Biography of Lillian Wald

    2134 Words  | 5 Pages

    Lillian Wald: A Biography is the gripping and inspiring story of an American who left her mark on the history of the United States. Wald dedicated herself to bettering the lives of those around her. She was the founder of The Henry Street Settlement along with the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. She worked with politics around the world and tried to bring healthcare and reform to people around the world. Using the lessons she learned in her childhood she worked closely with people from all backgrounds to fight for “universal brotherhood”. Wald was a progressive reformer, a social worker, a nurse, a teacher, and an author. Notably Lillian Wald, unlike many of the other women involved in the progressive movement such as Jane Adams, never received the same acknowledgement in the academic world.

    Read More

  • Linda Scott's Reading the Popular Image and Kathryn Kish Sklar's Hull House in the 1890’s

    859 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sklar, Kathryn Kish. “Hull House in the 1890’s: A Community of Women Reformers.” In Women and Power in American History, 3rd edition, edited by Kathryn Kish Skylar and

    Read More

  • Madam C. J Walker: Madam C. J Walker

    1519 Words  | 4 Pages

    Sarah Breedlove “Madam C.J Walker” was born in Louisiana to former slaves on December 23, 1867. She was the first member of her family to be born “free,” and used this opportunity to have a better life. She married Moses McWilliams and gave birth to her first daughter, Lelia, on June 6, 1885. Unfortunately, soon after her daughter’s second birthday her husband was killed in an accident. She found a job as a laundress in St. Louis, Missouri and thus provided her daughter with an education that she never had the chance to get.

    Read More

  • A Midwife’s Tale by Martha Ballard

    1088 Words  | 3 Pages

    The small community of Hallowell, Maine was no different than any other community in any part of the new nation – the goals were the same – to survive and prosper. Life in the frontier was hard, and the settlement near the Kennebec Valley was no different than what the pioneers in the west faced. We hear many stories about the forefathers of our country and the roles they played in the early days but we don’t hear much about the accomplishments of the women behind those men and how they contributed to the success of the communities they settled in. Thanks to Martha Ballard and the diary that she kept for 27 years from 1785-1812, we get a glimpse into...

    Read More

  • Jane Addams and Hull House

    1560 Words  | 4 Pages

    With limited career opportunities for women, she began searching for ways to help others and solve the country’s growing social problems. In 1888, Addams and her college friend, Ellen Gates Starr, visited Toynbee Hall, where the two women observed college-educated Englishmen “settling” in desperately poor East London slums where they helped the people. This gave her the idea for Hull House. In the years from 1860 through 1890, the prospect of a better life attracted nearly ten million immigrants who settled in cities around the United States. The growing number of industries produced demands for thousands of new workers and immigrants seeking more economic opportunities.

    Read More

  • A Feminist in Action in The Yellow Wallpaper

    1794 Words  | 4 Pages

    Ann Charters. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, a 2011 book. Print. The. Gilman, Charlotte.

    Read More

  • Catharine Maria Sedgwick’s A New-England Tale and Hope Leslie

    3303 Words  | 7 Pages

    Kelley, Mary. Introduction. The Power of Her Sympathy. By Catharine Maria Sedgwick. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1993.

    Read More

  • Australian Social Workers Must Uphold Ethics and Values

    2031 Words  | 5 Pages

    ...atly, was undoubtedly ruined by the diet and stress she experienced as a result of forcible removal by welfare workers not dissimilar to myself. Yet, this inescapable dilemma only reinforces my striving to achieve the ideals demonstrated by my profession. These ethics, complex and often at conflict with the reality of welfare are the light that guides my professional practice through the perils of historic white shame.

    Read More

  • Hull House: Settlement House Co-Founded By Jane Addams

    295 Words  | 1 Pages

    Hull House was the settlement house co-founded by Jane Addams in 1889.  The Hull House attracted male and female basically european immigrants.It was basically like school or a place where they held their meetings. The house held over 2,000 people every week. The hull house provide education to those who couldn’t afford to in the Chicago. Ellen Starr and Jane Addams was the founders of hull house; they were inspired by visiting Toynbee Hall in london. They moved into the house on September 18,1889 were they invited people to come and live in there. The hull house was just a house to other people who really didn’t care about the poor. Hull house simply provided education, a nursery, a play area (playground or gym). Over the years, Hull House

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Jane Addams And The Hull House

    510 Words  | 2 Pages

    Born as Protestant reform, the ideas behind the Social Gospel movement exploded in the United States among America’s Christians and more. The concept of Social Gospel applied Christian ethics like charity and justice, to society’s growing issues, poverty, lack of education, malnutrition, particularly in poverty stricken neighborhoods. One of the most prominent examples displaying Social Gospel was Jane Addams and the Hull House. Addams’s goal was to bring culture and a better quality of life to those living in the slums, although not everyone was truly included, “in light of Addams’s apparent dislike of the Irish, it is a mystery why she opened her settlement just blocks from Holy Family, the most prominent Irish Catholic Church in the city”(Skerrett 35). Whereas the Addams’s had persuaded wealthy donors to sponsor an art gallery, Skerrett describes Holy Family as successful in the same task of bringing art to the city, as the church was filled with beautiful stained glass

    Read More

  • The Role Of Settlement Houses In The Twentieth Century

    1093 Words  | 3 Pages

    The end of the nineteenth century paved the way to the beginning of Progressivism; a time of reforms to change American life. Although politics were changing during this time, many sought to focus public concern on improving living conditions of poor urban communities. Settlement houses, an approach to social reform, was an establishment created by philanthropists whom first lived besides the residents in the communities they directly help. These houses created a plethora of programs to assist poor families by giving them the opportunities they needed for success in their fast evolving world. The settlement houses of the twentieth century, not only changed the lives of the individuals it hosted and the lives of the house staff but the houses

    Read More

  • Mary Ellen Richmond's Contribution To The Social Work Career

    1195 Words  | 3 Pages

    Murdach (2011) wrote that Mary Ellen Richmond was not wealthy like most of the charitable people of her time. Both of her parents died of tuberculous before she was seven years old, and she was raised by her maternal grandmother and two aunts (Pumphrey, 1961). Richmond attempted to live in New York City

    Read More

  • Katherine Mansfield And Sexuality

    1598 Words  | 4 Pages

    Nothing that she has achieved in her entire working life has resulted in the acquisition of such a private place. Instead, she has buried her husband, a baker who died of "white lung disease" and those children who survived the high rate of infant mortality fell victim to other ills of the late-Victorian underclass: immigration, prostitution, poor hea...

    Read More

More about Jane Addams and the Successful Hull House

Open Document