Jane Addams was born in Cedarville, Illinois on September 6, 1860, and when she was four, she contracted Pott disease, which is tuberculosis of the spine. This caused a curvature in her spine and led to lifelong health problems.
Source: (Library of Congress/colorized).
She read Charles Dickens, which was part of her inspiration to become a doctor and help the poor. In 1881, she graduated from Rockford Female Seminary, and her father died that summer. After this, she moved with her family to Philadelphia so that she could pursue her medical education, but because of health issues, was unable to complete her degree. Her stepmother also became ill, so the family returned to Cedarville.
After her brother-in-law surgically straightened her back, he advised her to travel instead of returning to her studies, and so, in 1883, she embarked on a two-year tour of Europe with her stepmother, which helped her to realize that she didn’t need to become a doctor to help the poor. Upon her return to Cedarville, she began to be inspired by Democracy as a whole and began to question the pressures on women to marry and care for a family.
Source: (Library of Congress).
She Was Inspired By Other Settlement Houses
In 1887, after reading about settlement houses, she visited the world’s first, Toynbee Hall in London. The settlement houses were meant to alleviate the problems that urban areas were facing. Middle- and upper-class men and women, who were called “residents”, lived or settled in poor urban areas to help with the problems that immigration, urbanization, and industrialization created. While some of these settlement houses were connected to religious institutions, others, including Hull-House, were secular. Addams discovered that the settlement house was a place where boundaries of class, culture, and education could be expanded because it was a neutral space that allowed people to come together and learn from each other and discover common grounds. After sharing her idea with Ellen Gates Starr, Starr agreed to work with her on it.
By 1889, Addams and Starr co-founded Hull House in a run-down Chicago mansion that had been built by Charles Hull in 1856. It was located in a densely populated urban neighborhood that was home to immigrants from Italy, Ireland, Greece, Germany, Russia, and Poland, and in the 1920s, they were joined by African Americans and Mexicans.
Postcard for the Hull House by V.O. Hammon Publishing Co. Source: (Wikipedia).
They Started Modest And Grew
Addams and Starr came up with three “ethical principles” to guide their settlement: “to teach by example, to practice cooperation, and to practice social democracy, that is egalitarian, or democratic, social relations across class lines.” Addams paid for the repairs to the mansion and bought furniture, but after its first year, she received outside contributions to reduce the amount she spent. She and Starr became the first occupants of the house which would eventually become the residence of about 25 women with the core being well-educated and connected by their commitment to labor unions, the suffrage movement, and the National Consumers League.
One of Addams’ passions was the Art Program. She envisioned it as a way to provide people with a way to think independently and to challenge the education system which attempted to shape the individual to fit a particular job or position. Art, she thought, could help create a healthy community. Because of her interest in art, one of the first additions to Hull House Addams opened was an art exhibition and studio space. In this addition, the first floor had a branch of the Chicago Public Library, and the Butler Art Gallery, which featured recreations of famous works as well as the work of local artists. It also provided studio space for residents and the community.
Source: (Wikipedia/colorized).
Eventually, She Won A Nobel Peace Prize For Her Work
In time, Hull House also provided a night school for adults, which was a forerunner of the continuing education classes many universities offer today. The settlement house also had a public kitchen, a gym, a bathhouse, a book bindery, a music school, a library, a theater, meeting rooms, apartments, an employment bureau, and a lunchroom. Eventually, Hull House expanded to become a 13-building settlement complex. It also pioneered the use of statistical mapping to study a number of issues, including midwifery, typhoid, garbage collection, and truancy with the goal of improving the neighborhood. They also provided health care to the poor through the services of one woman, Dr. Harriett Alleyne Rice. Their mission eventually extended beyond the neighborhood, as they became involved in city and statewide campaigns for a variety of social issues, including the protection of working women and improvements in public welfare. Her work helped to inspire additional settlement houses; in 1911, there were 35 settlement houses in Chicago and 100 in the U.S.
As she worked to protect immigrants and those who were suffering, she became the “mother to the nation,” and in 1931, after her wide-reaching work, she won the Nobel Peace Prize. She lived and worked in the social settlement until she died in 1935.
