Hull House as a Method of Communication

Hull House was founded in 1898 in Chicago by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr, after they saw the success of Toynbee Hall in England. While we often study the efforts made by the people who ran Hull House, one can also look at Hull House as a method of communication itself. Located in an immigration neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois, Hull House worked to transform the community surrounding it. It was a safe place for its neighbors to come to and to receive essential services that the government either could not or would not provide to them. Because of its location, Hull House knew what the community needed and it worked to provide as many services as possible, and where it could not provide services for the community, it advocated for change, such as improved labor conditions and improved housing conditions.

During a period of anti-immigration sentiments, Hull House was dedicated to helping better the conditions of immigrants living in Chicago, while also advocating for national improvements. One of the most powerful ways that Hull House put immigrants’ culture in the spotlight was in the Labor Museum, which highlighted the different crafting styles of European immigrants so they could be passed down to younger generations. Not only did this showcase important culture and crafts of the neighborhood, but it preserved them for the future and established a tradition that is being continued by the Hull House Museum to this day. For those looking to learn such skills, Hull House offered classes on sewing, embroidery, basket weaving, and more. Learning these skills opened up new fields to people in desperate need of work. Hull House also provided English-language classes and citizenship classes to help immigrants become integrated into American society. 

In addition to providing services specifically aimed at the Chicago immigrant experience, Hull House was consistently expanding to help women, children, labor groups, and the arts. While the women and men leading Hull House advocated for national change for a variety of causes, they also showed how these changes could work by showing them at Hull House. Working parents could take advantage of the child care services and kindergarten classes that were offered for their children. Unions and clubs were able to meet at Hull House. Theater, music, and art classes were offered, which complemented the settlement house’s art gallery. Because of the wide variety of programs offered at Hull House, it became a training ground for social workers in the early twentieth century. Through Hull House, Jane Addams was able to redefine social work - it was no longer about helping those who social workers felt deserved it for religious reasons, it was about helping everyone in need. 

As Hull House expanded in size, its influence expanded. Jane Addams was in constant communication with other people running settlement houses across the United States. Perhaps her largest involvement was with Lillian D. Wald at the Henry Street Settlement in New York City, which focused on improving health care, especially among children. If settlement houses were in communication, it meant that techniques could be shared across the country and more positive change could be implemented. Many settlement house residents were also able to make an impact in movements especially close to their hearts and by lecturing across the country. In addition to her own lecture work and published articles, Addams was able to reach the national public on the issue of settlement houses in 1910 after the publication of Twenty Years at Hull-House, which detailed how Addams’ life lead her to co-found Hull House and how the settlement house had developed over its first twenty years and discussed the social work field.

Recommended Primary Sources:

• Settlement Work in England and America, May 28, 1908
• What the Theater at Hull House Has Done for the Neighborhood People (Extract), March 29, 1902
• The Humanizing Tendency of Industrial Education, May, 1904
• Hull House and Its Neighbors, May 7, 1904
• Autobiographical Notes Upon Twenty Years at Hull-House: Problems of Poverty, July 1910
• A Plea for More Play, More Pay and More Education for our Factory Girls and Boys, 1914

Additional Resources:

• Social Welfare History Project Settlement Houses: An Introduction
• Photographs - Settlement Houses in the Progressive Era | DPLA
• Social Welfare History Project Hull House
• Jane Addams and Chicago · Jane Addams: Chicago's Pacifist
• Digital History
• To Be of Use: Women of the Settlement House Movement 

Suggested Search Subjects:

• Addams, Jane, and Hull-House
• Addams, Jane, Views on Social Work
• Addams, Jane, Writings, Twenty Years at Hull House
• Hull-House, Educational Programs
• Hull-House, Programs
• Settlement Movement

People and Organizations:

People Associated with Hull-House

Organizations Associated with Hull-House

Picture: Hull House Library, Swarthmore College Library.