Hull House
Also called Hull-House.
Hull House was a settlement house founded by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr in 1889 in Chicago, Illinois. It was one of the first settlement houses in the United States. The building, originally a home owned by a family named Hull, was being used as a warehouse when Jane Addams and Ellen Starr acquired it. The building is a Chicago landmark as of 1974.
At its height, "Hull House" was actually a collection of buildings; only two survive today, with the rest being displaced to build the University of Illinois at Chicago campus. It is today the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, part of the College of Architecrure and the Arts of that university.
When the buildings and land were sold to the university, the Hull House Association dispersed into multiple locations around Chicago. The Hull House Association closed in 2012 due to financial difficulties; the museum, unconnected to the Association, remains in operation.
The settlement house was modeled on that of Toynbee Hall in London, where the residents were men; Addams intended it to be a community of women residents, though some men were also residents over the years. The residents were often well-educated women (or men) who would, in their work at the settlement house, advance opportunities for the working class people of the neighborhood.
The neighborhood around Hull House was ethnically diverse; a study by the residents of the demographics helped lay the groundwork for scientific sociology. Classes often resonated with the cultural background of the neighbors; John Dewey (the educational philosopher) taught a class on Greek philosophy there to Greek immigrant men, with the aim of what we might call today building self-esteem. Hull House brought theatrical works to the neighborhood, in a theatre on the site.
Hull House also established a kindergarten for children of working mothers, the first public playground and first public gymnasium, and worked for many issues of social reform, including juvenile courts, immigrant issues, women's rights, public health and safety, and child labor reform.
Hull House Residents
Some women who were notable residents of Hull House:
- Jane Addams
- Ellen Gates Starr
- Edith Abbott
- Grace Abbott
- Ethel Percy Andrus
- Neva Boyd
- Sophonisba Breckenridge
- Alice Hamilton
- Florence Kelley
- Mary Kenney
- Julia Lathrop
- Mary McDowell
- Frances Perkins
A few of the men who were residents of Hull House:
- Robert Morss Lovett
- Willar Motley
- Gerard Swope
