Jane Addams Hull House

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When Jane Addams was born, females were likely and expected to turn out to be wives and mothers, or perhaps a nurse or a schoolteacher. Women did not have the power or right to vote or any real political rights. One of Addams' earliest memories was being appalled by the effects of poverty, which made her determined to help the waves of immigrants flowing into the country (Jackson, 1967 p 14). Together with Ellen Starr, she founded Hull House, the first “settlement” house in the US. Patterned after a British settlement house (Jackson 1967 p 18). Addams enlarged greatly on this model and offered Chicago immigrants around Hull House services that included everything from day care to acting as an employment bureau. As this implies, “Addams, with her colleagues at Hull House, more or less, invented what today is referred to as a community center” ( Jackson p 21), that is, a place where residents of a neighborhood can come for social services. While today the idea that certain services should be available is taken for granted, when Addams opened Hull House, it was a radical notion. The following examination of Addams' account is very interesting. I am going to tell you the ideas of how the Hull House got started, to the events that went on in the Hull House. Although the sociological influence part of this paper does not quite go along with Addams’ Hull House events, I fill that it is a very essential topic that needs to be addressed.
Aspects of Jane Addams’s Biography
Jane Addams was born in Cedarville, Illinois, on September 6, 1860. Her father was a wealthy miller and a local political leader who served for sixteen years as a state senator and fought as an officer in the Civil War; he was a friend of Abraham Lincoln whose letters to him began “My Dear Double D-‘ed Addams” (Davis 1973, p. 7). Because of a spinal defect that was given to her at birth, Jane was not physically vigorous when young nor truly robust even...