Ending Poverty in One Helpful House
The Story of Jane Addams
Two very different women met up in Chicago, Illinois to build the first major settlement house, the Hull House. In 1889, Jane Addams and Ellen Starr founded the infamous Hull House. Jane Addams is the head of Hull House and Ellen Starr remains just a worker and a helper around the house. Different people from all around the world come to the Hull House because they need a place to stay for a while. Women are the biggest group of people that come to the Hull House, mainly because they did not have a place to go. Many diverse programs occur inside this magnificent house including school, libraries, and even a post office. Parents take their young children here to pursue an education; something that they probably did not get. The neighborhood around the Hull House joined up with the residents of the Hull House and helped the United States and Chicago substantially. In the neighborhood that the Hull House was in, the residents built the city’s first public playground. On the municipal level, they built the first juvenile court in the United States, fought for neighborhood parks and playgrounds, agitated for branch libraries, and introduced house reform. At the state level, the residents fought for equivalent rights for women and for child labor laws. The residents in the Hull House believed in a big change not just for Chicago, but also for the United States of America. In addition, they wanted Immigration laws to be made. Sources from the Hull House say that in a few decades the Hull House will be renovated into a museum. Nevertheless, it will remain almost the same design and almost the same architecture within the museum.