TWENTY YEARS AT HULL-HOUSE

WITH AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

BY JANE ADDAMS

HULL-HOUSE, CHICAGO

AUTHOR OF "DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL ETHICS," "NEWER IDEALS OF PEACE," "THE
SPIRIT OF YOUTH AND THE CITY STREETS," ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
NORAH HAMILTON

HULL-HOUSE, CHICAGO

TO
THE MEMORY OF
MY FATHER

PREFACE

CONTENTS

Preface vii
I. EARLIEST IMPRESSIONS 1
II. INFLUENCE OF LINCOLN 23
III. BOARDING-SCHOOL IDEALS 43
IV. THE SNARE OF PREPARATION 65
V. FIRST DAYS AT HULL-HOUSE 89
VI. THE SUBJECTIVE NECESSITY FOR SOCIAL SETTLEMENTS 113
VII. SOME EARLY UNDERTAKINGS AT HULL-HOUSE 129
VIII. PROBLEMS OF POVERTY 154
IX. A DECADE OF ECONOMIC DISCUSSION 177
X. PIONEER LABOR LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS 198
XI. IMMIGRANTS AND THEIR CHILDREN 231
XII. TOLSTOYISM 259
XIII. PUBLIC ACTIVITIES AND INVESTIGATIONS 281
XIV. CIVIC COOPERATION 310
XV. THE VALUE OF SOCIAL CLUBS 342
XVI. ARTS AT HULL-HOUSE 371
XVII. ECHOES OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 400
XVIII. SOCIALIZED EDUCATION 427

PLATES

Jane Addams, from a photograph taken in 1899 Frontispiece
John H. Addams, from a photograph taken in 1880 22
Ellen Gates Starr, from a photograph taken in 1906 64
A Hull-House Interior 88
A View from a Hull-House Window 112
A Spent Old Man 154
Sweatshop Workers 198
Chicago River at Halsted Street 258
Polk Street opposite Hull-House 280
Julia C. Lathrop 310
A Studio in Hull-House Court 370
A View between Hull-House Gymnasium and Theater 426

ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT

Birthplace, Jane Addams, Cedarville, Illinois 4
Jane Addams, aged Seven, from a Photograph of 1867 7
Mill at Cedarville, Illinois 10
Stream at Cedarville, Illinois 22
Old Abe 42
Rockford College, Rockford, Illinois 44
Porto del Popolo, Rome 76
View of St. Peter's 88
Polk Street opposite Hull-House 95
South Halsted Street opposite Hull-House 96
Consulting the Hull-House Bulletin Board, from a Photograph by
Lewis W. Hine 104
A Boy's Club Member 105
An Italian Woman with Grandchild 111
Portrait, Jane Addams, from a Charcoal Drawing by Alice Kellogg
Tyler of 1892 114
Main Entrance to Hull-House 128
Head of Slavic Woman 134
Head of Italian Woman 135
A Doorway in Hull-House Court 149
Woman and Child in Hull-House Reception Room 154
In a Tenement House, Sick Mother and Children 164
A Row of Nursery Babies 168
A Neighborhood Alley 181
Hull-House on Halsted Street, Apartment House in Foreground 197
An Italian Sweatshop Worker 208
Out of Work, from a Drawing by Alice Kellogg Tyler 220
Head of Immigrant Woman 226
Aniello 235
Irish Spinner in the Hull-House Labor Museum 238
Scandinavian Weaver in the Hull-House Labor Museum 239
Italian Spinner in the Hull-House Labor Museum 241
An Italian Grocery opposite Hull-House 258
Sketches of Tolstoy Mowing 271
Head of Russian Immigrant 275
Rear Tenement in Hull-House Neighborhood 282
An Alley near Hull-House 293
A View from Hull-House Window 314
Alley between Hull-House Buildings 321
A Window in the Hull-House Library 346
An Italian Mother and Child 354
Facade of Bowen Hall 363
A Club Child listening to a Story 367
In the Hull-House Studio, from a Photograph by Lewis W. Hine 374
Exterior Hull-House Music School 379
In the Hull-House Music School 383
Terrace in the Hull-House Court 398
South Halsted Street 401
Russian Immigrant on Halsted Street, from a Photograph by Lewis W. Hine 416
Entrance to Hull-House Courtyard 426
Boy at Forge, Hull-House Boy's Club, from a Photograph by Lewis W. Hine 439
Steps to Hull-House Terrace 447
Waiting in the Hull-House Hall 453

[Editor: Mary Mark Ockerbloom]

This book has been put on-line as part of the BUILD-A-BOOK Initiative at the
Celebration of Women Writers through the combined work of: Adrienne
Fermoyle, Andrea Jeddi, David Cheezem, Diana Camden, Flo Carriere, Jill
Thoren, Judi Oswalt, Margaret Sylvia, Samantha M. Constant, Terri Perkins,
and Mary Mark Ockerbloom.

[Editor: Mary Mark Ockerbloom]


"Preface." by Jane Addams (1860-1935)
From: Twenty Years at Hull-House with Autobiographical Notes. by Jane
Addams. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1912 (c.1910) pp. vii-ix.

[Editor: Mary Mark Ockerbloom]

PREFACE

Every preface is, I imagine, written after the book has been
completed and now that I have finished this volume I will state
several difficulties which may put the reader upon his guard
unless he too postpones the preface to the very last.

Many times during the writing of these reminiscences, I have
become convinced that the task was undertaken all too soon.
One's fiftieth year is indeed an impressive milestone at which
one may well pause to take an accounting, but the people with
whom I have so long journeyed have become so intimate a part of
my lot that they cannot be written of either in praise or blame;
the public movements and causes with which I am still identified
have become so endeared, some of them through their very
struggles and failures, that it is difficult to discuss them.

It has also been hard to determine what incidents and experiences
should be selected for recital, and I have found that I might
give an accurate report of each isolated event and yet give a
totally misleading impression of the whole, solely by the
selection of the incidents.  For these reasons and many others I
have found it difficult to make a [Page viii]  faithful record of
the years since the autumn of 1889 when without any preconceived
social theories or economic views, I came to live in an
industrial district of Chicago.

If the reader should inquire why the book was ever undertaken in
the face of so many difficulties, in reply I could instance two
purposes, only one of which in the language of organized charity,
is "worthy." Because Settlements have multiplied so easily in the
United States I hoped that a simple statement of an earlier
effort, including the stress and storm, might be of value in
their interpretation and possibly clear them of a certain charge
of superficiality.  The unworthy motive was a desire to start a
"backfire," as it were, to extinquish two biographies of myself,
one of which had been submitted to me in outline, that made life
in a Settlement all too smooth and charming.

The earlier chapters present influences and personal motives with
a detail which will be quite unpardonable if they fail to make
clear the personality upon whom various social and industrial
movements in Chicago reacted during a period of twenty years.  No
effort is made in the recital to separate my own history from
that of Hull-House during the years in which I was "launched deep
into the stormy intercourse of human life" for, so far as a mind
is pliant under the pressure of events and experiences, it
becomes hard to detach it.

It has unfortunately been necessary to abandon [Page ix]  the
chronological order in favor of the topical, for during the early
years at Hull-House, time seemed to afford a mere framework for
certain lines of activity and I have found in writing this book,
that after these activities have been recorded, I can scarcely
recall the scaffolding.

More than a third of the material in the book has appeared in The
American Magazine, one chapter of it in McClure's Magazine, and
earlier statements of the Settlement motive, published years ago,
have been utilized in chronological order because it seemed
impossible to reproduce their enthusiasm.

It is a matter of gratification to me that the book is