My dear Miss Addams,
It is not likely that I shall be fortunate enough to find you in New York. My steamer, the United States of the Scandinavian Line, may pass yours coming up the river. So I am sending you a note to meet you on your arrival in Chicago and report progress. First of all, welcome home to the land that needs you most. The Social Insurance Congress seemed queer without you. Mrs. Simkhovitch and Dr. Hamilton had promised five minute addresses but neither appeared, and I was the only woman to speak and I had not much to say, being a mere tyro in this subject. However, Mr. Dawson and Mr. Andrews and Mr. Devine were most illuminating, and they are giving me all the help they can in my project. My plan is to spend the Summer in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. One of my students is going along to do the hard work. She is already studying Swedish, poor child! Her name is Olga Halsey, and she looks Scandinavian but is not. We propose to send back items of interest to the Survey for publication, also to an especially intelligent literary agent who will place articles where they will do the most good, regardless of profit! She is Miss F. M. Holly, 156 Fifth Ave, New York City. Please send her any suggestions that may occur to you. I am allowed $100 by the Progressive Service for such books and pamphlets as may seem best suited to propaganda.
As to the International Institute, I have missed your cooperation very much. I have not been able to reach Mrs. Emmons Blaine, for Example. But Mrs. Wilmarth is a trump, and Miss Elizabeth Wallace has helped as far as she could. We have organized a [committee] to carry on the campaign in this interest. I enclose the list of members. Miss Wallace and Miss Shirley cannot serve as chairman and secretary beyond this Summer. I am on a still hunt for people of leisure and executive ability who will consent to serve. We are proposing various entertainments for next Winter with the hope of raising money and at the same time developing an interest. This may take the shape of a reading from Mr. Alfred Noyes, or a representation of the Prado pictures in tableaux, or a Spanish feria. Mr. Gordon Stevenson is much interested in the second project, and Mrs. Frederic A. Delano has promised to assist him. He is a very nice fellow, by the way, a graduate of the Art Institute, who went abroad on the Prix de Rome and studied with Sorolla. He has done several good mural paintings here, one in the Lane Technical High School. He tells me that he would be glad to do some work at Hull House with evening classes. He has had experience in teaching at the Art Institute. Being a young genius, he is very poor and could not do this permanently without some salary, but he would like to try his hand this Summer for nothing.
My address will be Brown, Shipley. Let me hear from you.
Your devoted friend and fellow laborer,
Katharine Coman [signed]
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