32A HISTORY OF US

Hull House wascalled a settlementhouse.

---~

"The city is a gran-ite garden," says land-scape architect AnneSpirn. Do you agree?

What is a polygon? Whatis a glossary? See if youcan find other poly andglossa words.

"Nosensible andresponsible womanwants to vote," said for-mer president GroverCleveland in an interviewpublished in the Ladies'Home Journal in 1905.

170

Jane Addams,Reformer

There is a dandy word to describeAmerica's cities in the 19th century.The word is polyglot, and it comesfrom two Greek roots: poly, meaning"more than one," and glossa, meaning"tongue." A polyglot city is one wheremany tongues (languages) are heard.

America's cities were polyglotbecause they were filled with immi-grants-people from around theworld. If all those diverse peoples,with their different languages andcustoms, could live together in acrowded city, perhaps they wouldfind a way to teach the diverse peo-ples of the world to get along.

But they weren't having an easytime of it. To begin, they didn't un-derstand American democracy. Many

of the immigrants had come to America to escape oppressive rulers.They thought of government as the enemy. They didn't realize that inAmerica the government is supposed to be the people. That was whythey often let city bosses control their lives. The boss answered theirquestions, helped them find jobs, or did other things to ease their ad-justment to the new country. Bosses did do many worthwhile things.

But most of them paid themselves for those worthwhile things bystealing from the people. In Chicago a boss named Johnny Powers passedout free chickens and turkeys on holidays, so everyone loved him. Hardlyanyone knew that he bought those turkeys with city money that was in-

At Hull House, Jane Addamslearned of "the struggle for exis-tence which is so much harsheramong peoplenearthe edgeof pau-perism." She said that privatechari-ty was "totally inadequate" to dealwith the problemsof the city's poor.

/AN AGE OF EXT

Harper's Weeklymade the gulf betweenAmerica's rich and poor very clear withthis 1915collage of newspaper articles.

tended for schools.' Powers also usedcity money to buy a house for himselfand diamonds for his fingers. Sincemany of Chicago's citizens couldn'tread English, it was difficult for themto know what was happening.

So when reformers tried to im-prove life in the cities, they had a fighton their hands. The bosses were pop-ular. Many reformers were wealthypeople who wouldn't live in the innercities. They didn't know its polyglotpopulation the way the boss did.

Jane Addams was the best-knownreformer of her day. She became themost admired woman in America. Avisitor called her "the only saint theUnited States has produced." Well,she wasn't a saint, but she was an in-telligent, determined, college-edu-cated woman who got things done.

Addams's ancestors had come toPennsylvania in the days of WilliamPenn. By the time she was born thefamily had moved west, to Illinois.Her father, an Illinois state senatorand friend of Abraham Lincoln, wasa wealthy man. But that didn'tmean she had an easy childhood.Jane's mother died when she wastwo. Then Jane got tuberculosis, acommon disease in those days. Itleft her with a crooked spine. Thathandicap helped her understandpeople who had problems.

Still, Jane Addams could havehad a life of parties and ease. Shechose not to. She chose to do

~OO,OOO IN GEMS \:Dm OF STARYATlON,·IG~~:.~ ::;~1~~1;.~.7""-ON MRS. LEEDS Al \ TOO PROUD TO BEG I ~~;:::::E~~~~~~:!;!.~~

P~NTOMIME BAllI Steven Farley and Wif. Foun~ ~"::.::.m;'~il::::;:Uo~,..:. ot ••.•. dle4-" the home. ot frlenda l;

Wh&nTheir Passaic Home }~:~d...11~ t~04"ii~o ~:.r~I I . B kit which II In t.n lltOl&t~11part ot th

~ S ro en n o. vlllal'e. Both were 1,lal': upon th• £111It St t j ·11001'. barely eenectoua. AU etforta t·MaXlne 0 .a a uesque1 . revlvel the lIutrerer. ft-Ued 'and the:

Bluebeard Wife - Craig HERDEADBODYIN HIS ARMS DltlfJ1RESS OF POOR. ••Wadsworth Appears In III

Couple,. Once Chureh Worken, Had C tm 11tm BV "OLDPersian Attlrp. Rcfuaod Friend,' Offen of Aid RE I IU\JJW 11 V

_Man Lonll Unempll>)'_d.

LADY DIANA MANNEfiS A( Thousands Out of EmplQymiht

A DA_NC_'N_G_COLUMBINE.! SAYSLAGK OF WORK ~pp.~ ;':,:~ and

Brilliant Proceasions In Great'GILDED ROOM FOR ._. IS GROWING PROBLEM IMANY FAMILIES ASK Ale

, R ort U nproco

TOY SPANIEL SHOW" Chamberlain Sruare Asks 'Help I'Charity 'Worker. .p . "• ! of. Jewi.h Women at Emanu.... I d.nted condlt,' ••,•••._OIle to

t.\ Warborn • •I HI;~'~I EI Ma•• M•• tina;., .rEleventh Annual 'iJitlon at.. 1 \ T. ••". ,bo'd_ dO;:'~t ~a.!!l~f.A.toria.}.~~" PlAN TO'AIDJOBLESS QlRLS, ••.,- .00" ~J':fu•••••••.•••.[OUNG ASTOR'S LANDS\" - ~~!. r:l"O!.e._t~~ t

. Oommltt ••• f 0 •• Hun ••••• Nam".i.1 fiNIl FIVE "rAIIVING 'dWORTH '160000000 to Oevlee Meana for Glv- -1M t ;-- •

., ~~ I I ~.4'.In, ~!I.tane~: •.•• f cr.,~"~~..::;:~~.:~-=,~r~_.~Chicago, Chicago

Chicago stood in the borderland between the westernprairies and eastern oak-hickory forests, and the lake

gave it access to the white pines and other coniferoustrees of the north woods. Grasslands and hardwood andsoftwood forests were all within reach," wrote WilliamCronon in a book called Nature's Metropolis.

Carl Sandburg described the windy city differently in afamous poem called "Chicago." Here is part of it:

Hog Butcher for the World,Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,Player with Railroads and the Nation's

Freight Handler;Stormy, husky, brawling,City of the Big Shoulders.

Muckraker Lincoln Steffens wrote: "First in violence, deepestin dirt, lawless, unlovely, ill-smelling, irreverent, new; an

overgrown gawk of a-village, the 'tough' among cities, a spec-tacle for the nation....Chicago likes audacity and is always will-ing to have anybody try anything once; no matter who you are,where you come from, or what you set out to do, Chicago willgive you a chance. The sporting spirit is the spirit of Chicago."

171

A HISTORY OF US

something important with her life.She chose to help others.

She bought a red brick house,with white columns on the porch,in Chicago, right in the middle ofthe slums. Then Jane and herfriend Ellen Starr got to work withpaintbrushes and rags and cleanedup the house. It had been built bya Mr. Hull, so they named it HullHouse. All the neighbors were curi-ous. Why would anyone live in the

slums if they didn't have to? Chicago's slums were dirty and full ofcrime. But Addams didn't want to be an outsider. If she was to helppeople she needed to know them; she needed to be a neighbor.

Jane Addams turned Hull House into a place where people couldlearn to speak English, get care for their children, take paintinglessons, go to a concert, exercise in a gym, or act on a stage. It was aplace where they could get together with friends and take pride intheir heritage. There were German nights at Hull House when Germannewcomers sang and danced and put on costumes from the old coun-try. There were Polish nights, and Italian nights, and Russian nights.

Hull House was so successful that it grew until there were13 buildings and a staff of 65. About 50 people lived there.Some of them were writers or artists. Some were homeless.At dinnertime, the dining room might be filled with neigh-bors and political leaders and renowned philosophers.

Addams started clubs so that working boys and girlscould have fun and learn, too. She worked to get child-labor laws passed to make it illegal for children to worklong days. Chicago built its first public playground be-cause of her efforts. She served on the Chicago schoolboard and got new schools built.

When children committed crimes in the 19th century,they were treated like adults. Few people understoodthat children's problems are different from grown-ups'.Jane Addams understood. She helped establish the firstjuvenile court in the United States.

The Hull House neighborhood was full of garbage.Garbage stinks and brings rats. What did Addams doabout it? She got herself appointed a city garbage inspec-tor. Then she got up every morning at 6 A.M. and rode on

These nursery-school chil-dren lined up for a racewere lucky to be at HullHouse. Most of Chicago'Spoor children weren't asfortunate. What kind ofchild care is available tnyour community today?

Settling Down

SomeSmith C?ollegegraduates metin New York in 1887.They wanted

"to do something concrete to solvesocial problems." They establishedthe College Settlement in a New Yorktenement district. (They didn't yetknow about JaneAddams in Chicago.)~tanton Coit, an Amherst graduateWwho earned a Ph.D.at the Univer-sity of Berlin, decided to use his train-ing to help others. Hecame home andopened the Neighborhood Guild onNewYork's Lower EastSide,and later,with Lillian Wald, founded the HenryStreet Settlement in New York. By1910,there were about 400 settlementhouses in cities across the country.

172

\\

a garbage truck, making sure the streets were clean. Well-to-doGilded Age women were expected to stay at home. Addams wasbreaking society's rules; that took courage. She had plenty of it. Shealso had intelligence and energy. Maybe that's why she attracted somany thinking people to Hull House. A historian has written that"the Hull House community was perhaps the most formidablegroup of intellectuals and social activists gathered in this countrysince Jefferson's dinners at the White House."

There was one battle that Addams didn't win. Hull House was inChicago's 19th ward, and the 19th ward was run by popular JohnnyPowers. Powers was an alderman with a salary of three dollars aweek. He grew rich, which meant that he must have been stealingfrom the city. Jane Addams tried to get an honest alderman elected.

-J;iJf<vPik5JOfl

IMMIGRANT NEIGHBORIIOODS-k\, CHICAGO/. 1890.

AN AGE OF EXTREMES

Do you wish you couldhave had dinner at HullHouse? What would youhave talked about?Suppose Jane Addams werehere now-what problemsdo you think she would at-tack? How can you setabout improving life inyour community today?How can people on ourpolyglot planet learn tolive together in harmony?

A HULL HOUSE

Childrenin a makeshiftplaygroundin a neighborhoodknownas "PovertyGap"on NewYorkCity'sWestSide.

Prairie Town BoyMost Americans didn't live in cities; they lived on farmsor in small towns. Carl Sandburg was born in 1878 inGalesburg, Illinois. Here is part of his autobiography,Prairie-TownBoy.

Walking between rows of houses, many of themset widely apart-wider lots than at a latertime-I came to know yards and trees-trees

that I had seen in sun and rain in summer,and cloud and snow in winter, branchesbending down with ice on them. Hereandthere in a backyard would be a tomatopatch and carrots asking to be pulled outof the ground. Some yards had appletrees, and I helped myself to the windfalls.

For the little building in every backyardsome said "backhouse," some said

"privy." Carrying newspapersand later sling-ing milk I sawall the different styles of back-

houses-the clean, roomy, elegant ones with latticeworkin front, those with leaky roofs and loose boards wherethe cold rain and wind came through, a few with softpaper that had no printing, but mostly it was newspapersneatly cut, or catalogues. When you had to go to thebackhouse you stepped out into the weather-in rain orsleet. If the thermometer said zero you left your warmspot near the stove and the minute you were out the backdoor the cold put a crimp and shiver in you.

174

She couldn't. Powers tried to closedown Hull House. He couldn't. Theybattled, and learned from eachother. Powers was forced to bemore honest: voters began watch-ing him. Addams learned that re-formers need to get involved in poli-tics. She did. That wasn't easy; afterall, women couldn't vote or hold of-fice. Still, she became active in pres-

. idential campaigns and in a worldpeace movement. In 1931,when shewas 71, Jane Addams was awardedthe Nobel Peace Prize-the firstAmerican woman to be so honored.

This boy is teaching his father En-glish. Learning a language is usuallyeasier for young minds than for olderones.