Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr (Boston: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1895), pages 207-230.
The two original residents of Hull-House are entering upon their sixth year of settlement in the nineteenth ward. They publish this outline that the questions daily asked by neighbors and visitors may be succinctly answered. . . . It aims not so much to give an account of what has been accomplished, as to suggest what may be done by and through a neighborhood of working-people, when they are touched by a common stimulus, and possess an intellectual and social centre about which they may group their various organizations and enterprises.
The original residents came to Hull-House with a conviction that social intercourse could best express the growing sense of the economic unity of society. They wished the social spirit to be the undercurrent of the life of Hull-House, whatever direction the stream might take. All the details were left for the demands of the neighborhood to determine, and each department has grown from a discovery made through natural and reciprocal social relations. . . .
All the residents of Hull-House for the first three years were women, although much valuable work has always been done by non-resident men. During the last year men have come into residence in a cottage on Polk Street, dining at Hull-House, and giving such part of their time to the work of the settlement as is consistent with their professional or business life.
It is estimated that two thousand people come to Hull-House each week, either as members of clubs or organizations, or as parts of an audience. One hundred of these come as teachers, lecturers, or directors of clubs. The house has always had much valuable assistance from the citizens of Chicago. This voluntary response to its needs perhaps accounts for the fact that it has never found it necessary to form an association with chapters in colleges, as other settlements have done.
The Jane Club, a co-operative boarding-club for young working-women, had the advice and assistance of Hull-House in its establishment. The original member of the club, seven in number, were a group of trades-union girls accustomed to organized and co-operative action. the club has been from the beginning self-governing, without a matron or outside control, the officers being elected by the members from their own number, and serving for six months gratuitously. . . .
The club now numbers fifty members, and the one flat is increased to five. The members do such share of the housework as does not interfere with their daily occupations. There are various circles within the club for social and intellectual purposes; and while the members are glad to procure the comforts of life at a rate within their means, the atmosphere of the club is one of comradeship rather than thrift. The club holds a monthly reception in the Hull-House gymnasium.
meets in the Hull-House Art Gallery at two o’clock every Sunday afternoon. The club was fully formed before it asked for the hospitality of Hull-House. It is well-organized, and each meeting is opened by presentation of two sides of a question. Occasionally the various economic clubs meet for a common discussion. One of the most successful was led by Father Huntington, on the subject, “Can a Freethinker believe in Christ?” An audience of four hundred people followed closely the two hours’ discussion, which was closed by Mr. Henry George.
The Nineteenth Ward Improvement Club meets at Hull-House the second Saturday evening of each month. The president is the district representative in the Illinois State Legislature, and one of the ward aldermen is an active member. The club is pledged to the improvement of its ward in all directions. It has standing-committees on street-cleaning, etc., and was much interested in the efforts of the Municipal Order League to secure public baths.
which now numbers ninety of the most able women in the ward, developed from a social meeting for purposes of tea-drinking and friendly chat. Several members of this club have done good work in street and alley inspecting through the Municipal Order League. The club has also presented to a public school in the neighborhood a fine autotype of Millet’s Knitting Shepherdess, and hopes to do more in future for the art-in-schools movement. They have been active in the visiting and relief work which has taken so large a share of the energies of the settlement during the hard times. One winter they purchased a ticket to the lectures given to mothers in the Kindergarten College. One member attended each week, and reported to the club. They are in touch with some of the vigorous movements of the city, and have frequent lectures on philanthropic and reform questions.
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