Jane Addams And The Hull House

Chicago from the1920s through the 1940s was the melting pot of America, with its multitude of vastly different people and different types of housing and living conditions. Around the early 1920s in Chicago, 80 percent of the undeveloped city were immigrants from Europe and their children. A majority of the houses in Chicago in the 1920s were set up to improve immigrants’ living conditions. These houses were often large complexes in which immigrants lived together in and were provided meals and tutoring in English. After World War I ended in 1918, many people moved from small rural communities in the Midwest to Chicago. This resulted in the construction of many large apartment buildings in place of old townhouses. In large cities like Chicago,

In Round-Trip to America: The Immigrants Return to Europe 1880-1930, Mark Wyman argues that many new immigrants that migrated to America from 1880-1930 never intended to make America a permanent residence and many of them returned home to their native countries. He claims that this phenomena is important to the history of American Immigration and is important to the histories of the home land in which the immigrants returned to. In his book, Wyman explores some key ideas such as the reason immigrants decided to voyage to a new land, across the ocean, to what was known as the “land of milk and honey” only to return to their small, and a lot of the time rural village. He also discusses American labor movement and what impact that had on

Addams toured in Europe in 1883 and was impressed by Toynbee Hall, which was a charity workers’ residence situated deep in a London slum. When Addams returned to Chicago in 1889, they purchased and refurnished Charles J. Hull’s mansion and opened the Hull House, in a settlement approach.

The life of living as a poor settler or an immigrant was a problem in the urban life. Most of the immigrants faced poverty that needs to be secured with food, shelter, healthcare, and money. For example, if there were no food for the immigrants to eat, they will starve to death. A shelter was one of the most important things they need because it keeps them securities from harm and it is a cozy place for them to sleep. Another source they need was health care because without medical attention most of them had the disease. The disease like cholera, yellow fever, and typhoid came from bad hygiene which was preventing bad sanitation. The health factor was

many of the wealthy families although aware of the reality most ignored it. The new incoming immigrants were not as aware of the actuality of western life. Despite their lack of knowledge, in their native countries their lives apparently were much worse when compared to America. There were many reasons that native Europeans left, the lack of democracy was one. As stated earlier a majority of Europe was a monarchy at the time; the commoners had no free will basically. An insignificant amount of people who left for religious freedom. This book shocked society into facing these problems. The fact that Riis did not paint some pretty story for the reader to read and be happy; he stated the facts. He did this to clarify the need for reform throughout the city. Although Riis showed prejudice against certain members of the slums. Riis’s novel sparked interest in the readers the nation called for reforms. His book was written near the start of the Progressive Era. New reforms for the betterment of society were being made. One that helped tenements was the Tenement House Act of 1867 which clearly defined what a tenement must and must not have. Riis’s friendship with Roosevelt helped him to bring upon changes like the park that is now named after him; he said that crime would drop if only the kids who lived in the slums were able to have fresh air away from temptation. With Roosevelt’s

Jane went to Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia in the fall of 1882. Later in the 1880’s Jane traveled to Europe where she visited a settlement house by the name of Toynbee Hall. Settlement houses were the country’s way of providing community services to the poor. Addams and her friend, Ellen Gates Starr, the Hull House in the lower income section of Chicago in 1889. Most of the residents who lived there were from countries such as Italy, Russia, Poland, Germany, Ireland, and Greece. Hull House provided a day care center for children of working mothers, a community kitchen, and visiting nurses. Addams and her staff gave classes in English literacy, art, and other subjects. Hull House also became a meeting place for clubs and labor unions. Most of the people who worked with Addams in Hull House were well educated, middle-class women. Hull House gave them an opportunity to use their education and it provided a training ground for careers in social work.

Although Addams has done many impeccable things, one of her most distinguishable actions was co-founding Hull House with her friend Ellen Gates Starr in 1889. Hull House is a settlement house in Chicago, Illinois, inspired by the Toynbee Hall she visited in England. Opening Hull House, Addams expected the settlement to be a place where the poor could attend cultural programs, such as art, however her ideas changed as she explored the city and got to know her neighbors. While walking down the streets of Chicago, the reformer noticed all the poor immigrants residing in the cramped and dirty tenements, which led to her newfound passion to help

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.

Angel Island immigration station was on the San Francisco Bay. Another immigration station was Ellis Island and they had immigrants from the East and were mostly Europeans. Ellis Island was a small island in New York Harber. The Hull House is located in Chicago, which was founded by Jane Addams to help poor immigrants get steady there and find a job, a place to live, and then leave. The Chinese Exclusion Act worked on Railroads and mines (cheap labor source).The U.S. banned Chinese immigrants for 10 years possibly, and would probably renew it in about 10 years. A advantage is how immigrants could come to the U.S., but the disadvantage to this was how much time and effort it took to come to the U.S.

The Progressive Era began in the year 1890 through 1920; During this time many things in the country were evolving such as Social Justice, Government Efficiency, Suffrage Movements, Prohibition, and the list continues. Jane Adams being a fighter and standing up for what she believed in was described as being “bold as a lion” (20 yr) growing up and, through her adult years when initiating change in the way the government and society assist with the impoverished. Adams established the Hull House with Ellen Gates Star “on the 18th of September, 1889”(20 yr.). This started the movement that is know as the Settlement House Movement. “The purpose of the Hull House as stated in its character was “to provide a center for a higher civic and social life; to institute and maintain educational and philanthropic enterprises, and to investigate and improve the conditions in the industrial districts of Chicago”(Addams, 1910, p. 89)”(Jane addams and social reform a role model for the 1990s). Although Jane Adams was mainly known for her work in the Hull House and being the 'mother of social work ', she also caused many reforms that affected the entity of the way the United States went about reforming.

In the nineteenth century, families of all different kinds of races resided in tenements. The tenements I will be writing about are located on 96 Orchard Street in the lower east side of New York City. Every room tells a remarkable story of the lives

an you imagine living in a run-down neighborhood, with streets full of garbage? How about having to watch little children play in the streets wearing dirty, ragged clothes? Jane Addams grew up in a place like this, and she wanted to make changes in the world, so she founded the Hull House. How did the Hull House have a positive impact on people and America? It helped create new laws, teach immigrants important skills, improved education, and inspired others to fight for what is right.

The Hull House acted as an employment center, library, day care center, and school for the community, more aimed towards people who did not already have the resources to get the services listed. The main reasons why settlement houses were important was because it was one of the only working systems that could effectively help poor individuals and immigrants learn middle-class values, as well as American values involving literature, labor, and lifestyle. The settlement houses allowed for more wealth and resource distribution toward the lower class that heavily helped the economy in the nineteenth century. Most settlement houses also provided kitchens, bathing and hygiene stations, as well as centers for recreational activities involving dancing, arts, and sports. Overall, the settlement houses were a pivotal part in the economy during the nineteenth century because it provided a link between being an immigrant and being in the middle class while having financial stability.

After being very one of few women to graduate from a college she struggled to find her role in society. Addams searching for her role in society, she did some soul searching and went on a trip with friend Ellen Gates Starr (social reformer and activist). On the trip to London, England they visited Toynbee Hall, a facility established to help the struggling families of the area. Addams and Starr were so fascinated on the way people of the Toynbee hall were helping the people in this institution. This is where Addams got the idea of making a settlement house that would help people in need of basic needs such as food, water, and shelter. Addams and Starr were set to establish one of these types of institutions in Chicago. In 1889 Addams and Starr both co-founded the Chicago Hull House. At this institution services were provided for immigrants and struggling families of the Chicago

As Immigrants would come through Ellis Island and other places with a gleaming amount of hope, they would experience something totally different on the other side. Inside the US was this feeling of Anglo-Saxon superiority and therefore immigration was frowned upon in may areas. An immigration officer from this time period cited “early economic opportunity came to an end” as one of the major things that affected immigrant life. They [immigrants] were left to find day jobs working at the first opportunity that presented itself and then return to the tenement. Out of this pattern grew an extreme feeling of isolation. Immigrants lived in their own communities, socialized with their own, and slept with their own. Nativist feelings from the american-born community were real and present and ultimately the belief was to sleep, eat, and work for someone else and be content.