Hull House

           Last week’s tour of the Hull House was a great experience. Even though I have been there once before, I really enjoyed the tour this time around as well. Jane Addams is an admirable woman who decided to make a true difference in the Chicago area. Addams and Starr, along with many other women, established a place where those in desperate need were able to receive guidance and resources to better their lives.

            Addams’ approach to dealing with Chicago’s problems of population growth is very different when compared to Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago. Instead of focusing on restructuring Chicago’s built environment, Addams’ Hull House focused on providing “a center for 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.112). Her approach dealt with the issues at hand rather than at large. On the other hand, Burnham was involved with the City Beautiful movement, so he and his followers believed that a “bad urban environment brought out the worst in people,” and in order to fix people’s behaviors a more beautiful city was needed. This would then “inspire a sense of community among a city’s heterogeneous population” and Chicago’s problem would slowing disintegrate (Smith, 2006, p.15). Burnham’s contributions to the city of Chicago are outstanding; however, his plan did not take into consideration the actual needs of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods. Addams and the other residents of Hull House took the time to understand what the people living on Halsted Street needed and provided them with services, such as night schools for adults, bookbinding work, a music school, a library, an art gallery, playground, a day-care, and so many other services. All of these facilities were used by the residents in the neighborhood, and they truly helped immigrant and low-income families better their living conditions.

            The works of Addams and Starr are remarkable, and it is interesting that we do not see any settlement houses today. If there were a settlement house today, what would it be like? Would it work today? It is hard to answer these questions. However, it is obvious that we see many of the same problems in certain neighborhoods of Chicago today that Addams and Star encountered when living on Halsted Street. So, maybe establishing settlement houses today could really work. There are professional social workers today who do the kinds of work that Addams and Starr did, but they do not live in a settlement house or even sometimes they do not live in low-income neighborhoods. So,  maybe settlement houses could truly work today, we just need to try it out.