Twenty Years at Hull House

'Twenty Years at Hull-House, with autobiographical notes, the most well-known Settlement House in America is the novel of a 1910 book by Hull-House founder and prominent Progressive Era reformer Jane Addams. Her most popular book was Addams' autobiographical narrative of her efforts to ameliorate living circumstances for working-class immigrants in Chicago's West Side slums. This book, which is a new instructional version of Twenty Years at Hull-House, is a great opportunity to introduce students to one of America's most well-known women and a pioneer of the Progressive movement. In 1883, Jane Addams witnessed a distressing scene in London; she wanted to replicate the experiment in the U.S. In 1889, Addams and her friend Ellen Starr moved into a rundown mansion in Chicago's West Side. In the urban industrial areas, Hull-House was envisioned as a "hub for a higher civic and social life." The energy of the first generation of female college graduates found a home in Hull-House. Addams embraced the sexual stereotypes of her day and soothed public fears by acting primarily in the roles of nurturer and caregiver. Although Addams' writing can at times be challenging to understand, her beliefs and actions are genuinely admirable.