Jane Addams Essay

Jane Addams is recognized as a social and political pioneer for women in America. In her biography, which later revealed her experiences in Hull House, she demonstrates her altruistic personality, which nurtured the poor and pushed for social reforms. Although many of Addams ideas were considered radical for her time, she provided women with a socially acceptable way to participate in both political and social change. She defied the prototypical middle class women by integrating the line that separated private and political life. Within these walls of the settlement house, Addams redefined the idea of ?separate spheres,? and with relentless determination, she

By starting the tenement houses in Chicago through the Hull Houses, Jane Addams and Ellen Starr had already begun their journey into the public sphere. Through opening the tenement houses and allowing people to see them and come live in them helped the two women make a name for themselves, with the more well-known woman of the pair being recognized for much more, was Jane Addams herself. Addams saw rights and freedom for women as a “perfectly possible” thing to attain, as she was optimistic and very assertive on her way to work for women’s equality and rights. The optimism that Jane Addams had was not without a price to pay on her part, as there were many negatives that had to be dealt with along the way like setbacks in acting, legislation, supporters, etc.7

“She turned to private study and was taught anatomy at the London Hospital and general medicine under the tuition of professors at St Andrews University and Edinburgh University Extra-Mural School”(Brooks 13-15). None of this would have been possible without the continued financial and moral support of her father. In order to practice medicine, Garrett had to gain a qualifying diploma. London University, the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons and other examining bodies refused to allow her to sit their examinations, but she discovered that the Society of Apothecaries did not specifically ban women from taking their exams. “In 1865 Elizabeth went on to pass the

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.

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.

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.

Jane Addams was a prominent female reformer who waste daughter of an Illinois businessman. After she graduated from college, she never married and resented the idea of the expectation that a woman’s life should be governed by the “family claim” and decided to devote herself instead to improving the lives of those less fortunate. She opened Hull House, which was one of the first settlement houses. Using capital from families and from the local businessmen, women such as Addams

During the start of the 1800s major poor citizens of New York City outer the South bears a resemblance to poor of Europe. These people were majorly widows, orphans, seasonal workers out from season, or persons too sick or too old to do work. Local governments provide them “Outdoor relief” comprising of firewood, food, or slightest amount of cash named as alms, initially from an intellect of communal responsibility or paternalism. State poor Laws innate from customs of English, necessitates cities to care for their poor citizens.

The death rate was so high in this area that they needed a constant influx of immigrants. The average life expectancy was around thirty years old. Children would, grow up without knowing their parents. This led to the formation of kin networks. Anyone from aunts, uncles to friends would raise orphaned children. There was an uneven gender ratio in this region. For every six men, there was one woman. This made finding a spouse scarce and, it was difficult to start a family and have second and third generations born on this land. The most improved men to woman ratio on this land was three mean to one woman. This poor ratio and high death rate led to women marrying anywhere from ten to fifteen times. Their new spouse would acquire the one third of land their wife was left by their deceased husband. Seventy-five percent of the population was made up of indentured servants. The middle class made up a slim ten percent of the population. Seventy percent of the population lacked necessities. For example, unlike the New England region, chairs were scare and the middle class was lucky to have chairs, pewter ware and linins. However, the upper class such as Governor William Berkley had a nice brick house. Most people lived in a twelve by twelve shack that would last for roughly only ten years. Eighty percent of the land was owned by ten percent of the population. Instead of forming closely knit towns

In this case, Hull House started out as a place for poor people to come and relax. The founders invited people to listen to books, look at slides of paintings, or just sit and talk. Furthermore, Hull House might not seem like much to the modern day person, but most immigrants during that time were poor and lived in crowded tenements with poor sanitation, no heat in the winter and often no running water (Fradin 63). In fact, most neighborhoods suffering from poverty had a very high death toll in Chicago during the late 1800s and were rich with gambling, drug dealing and stealing. Soon after, Hull House opened a day nursery and a kindergarten were added where children could play and learn while their parents worked.

Can you imagine living in a run-down neighborhood, with streets full of garbage? How about having to watch young 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.

An American pragmatist and feminist, Hull-House founder Jane Addams (1860-1935) came of age in time of increasing tensions and division between segments of the American society, a division that was reflected in debates about educational reform. In the midst of this diversity, Addams saw the profoundly interdependent nature of all social and political interaction, and she aligned her efforts to support, emphasize and increase this interdependence. Education was one of the ways she relied on to overcome class disparity, as well as to increase interaction between classes. Her theories about the interdependent nature of living in a democracy provided a backdrop for her educational theory. Education, she thought, needed to produce people who

To establish ways to, subsequently, Americanize immigrants, according to Daniel E. Bender’s, Perils of Degeneration, Reform, the Savage Immigration, and the Survival of the Unfit, settlement houses and reform organizations demonstrated ways to Americanize new immigrants and encourage the elimination of the unfit. Established by the upper middle class, appropriately, settlement homes were placed in the immigrant neighborhoods. The environment that a person resided in determined the success or degeneration of new immigrants. Therefore, it seemed only appropriate that settlement houses and reform organizations “prevent the inheritance of degenerate traits” (Bender, 14). Fundamentally, degeneracy was viewed as a disease that could be cured.