Starr, Ellen Gates (1859-1940)

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Jane Addams to Vida Dutton Scudder, April 25, 1900

FirstReportOfTheLaborMuseumAtHullHouse1901_1902-page-002.jpg

First Report of the Labor Museum at Hull House, 1902

Helena Stuart Dudley to Jane Addams, April 30, 1902

Richard Theodore Ely to Jane Addams, July 5, 1902

Social Results of Charitable Effort, December 1, 1902

Jane Addams to Miss Browne, October 3, 1903

Degree for Jane Addams, May 31, 1904

Jane Addams to Lillian D. Wald, April 7, 1905

Social Settlements in Illinois, January 25, 1906

Jane Addams's Own Story of Her Work: Fifteen Years at Hull House (First of Three Installments), March 1906

Gustavus Tuckerman to Jane Addams, March 30, 1906

Jane Addams's Own Story of Her Work: The First Five Years at Hull-House (Second of Three Installments), April 1906

Jane Addams's Own Story of Her Work: How the Work at Hull-House Has Grown (Third of Three Installments), May 1906

Hull-House Year Book 1906-1907

Jane Addams to Helen Culver, March 12, 1908

Autobiographical Notes upon Twenty Years at Hull-House: The Snare of Preparation, May 1910

Autobiographical Notes Upon Twenty Years at Hull-House: Early Undertakings at Hull-House, June 1910

Dorothea Boettcher to Jane Addams, June 1, 1910

Jane Addams to Mary Rozet Smith, October 26, 1910

Jane Addams to Mary Rozet Smith, November 22, 1910

Alice M. Whitman to Jane Addams, December 12, 1910

Robert Hunter to Jane Addams, December 19, 1910

Mary H. Porter to Jane Addams, February 1, 1911

Jane Addams to Mary Rozet Smith, August 24, 1911

Jane Addams Relates the Steps by Which She Became a Progressive, October 12, 1912

Jane Addams to Louise Lindin, February 4, 1913

Jane Addams to Sarah Alice Addams Haldeman, March 6, 1914

Jane Addams to Mary Rozet Smith, May 16, 1915

Alice Stone Blackwell to Jane Addams, January 2, 1916

Wallace L. De Wolf to Jane Addams, July 17, 1916

Nellie Harris Baldwin to Jane Addams, February 26, 1918

Anna Marcet Haldeman-Julius to Jane Addams, ca. April 26, 1919 (fragment)

Henrietta Octavia Rowland Barnett to Jane Addams, March 1, 1920

Harold LeClair Ickes to Jane Addams, August 9, 1920

Jane Addams to Wilbur Kelsey Thomas, December 1, 1921

Julia Clifford Lathrop to Jane Addams, April 1922

Anna Mary Lloyd to Wilbur Kelsey Thomas, April 5, 1922

American Friends Service Committee to Anna Mary Lloyd, April 11, 1922

Interview with Jane Addams, August 30, 1923 (excerpts)

List of Hull-House contributors to the Barnett Memorial Fellowship, March 1925

Informal Address On The Life and Character Of Miss Jane Addams, May 19, 1925

Charles Frederick Bradley to Jane Addams, January 20, 1927

Hannah, May and Jennie Simon to Jane Addams, January 20, 1927

Martha Hillard MacLeish to Jane Addams, February 6, 1927

Walter A. Cutler to Jane Addams, February 15, 1927

Jane Addams to Henrietta Octavia Rowland Barnett, January 19, 1928

Jane Addams to Florence Kelley, January 22, 1928

Mary Rozet Smith to Florence Kelley, January 24, 1928

Mary Rozet Smith to Florence Kelley, April 3, 1928

Browse all documents that mention "Starr, Ellen Gates (1859-1940)"

Jane Addams to Ellen Gates Starr, September 14, 1907

Jane Addams to Ellen Gates Starr, July 18, 1913

Jane Addams to Ellen Gates Starr, July 20, 1913

Jane Addams to Ellen Gates Starr, August 1, 1913

Jane Addams to Ellen Gates Starr, June 17, 1915

Catherine Breshkovsky to Ellen Gates Starr February 12, 1919

Jane Addams to Ellen Gates Starr, December 18, 1922

Jane Addams to Ellen Gates Starr, March 12, 1923

Jane Addams to Ellen Gates Starr, March 19, 1928

Ellen Gates Starr to Helena S. Dudley, March 3, 1922

Hull-House Residents Protest, ca. November 1926

Ellen Gates Starr to the Editor of the Springfield Republican, August 15, 1927

Ellen Gates Starr to Jane Addams, August 17, 1927

Ellen Gates Starr to Jane Addams, March 27, 1928

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Birth Date

1859-03-19

Death Date

1940-02-10

Birthplace

Laona, IL

Biographical Text

Ellen Gates Starr was an American social reformer and activist. She was the third of four children to Caleb Allen Starr and Susan Gates Child. Influenced by her aunt, Ellen Gates Starr enrolled at Rockford Female Seminary. Upon leaving school due to limited financial assistance from her father, Starr went on to work as a teacher in the fall of 1878. On a tour of Europe in 1888, Starr and Addams visited and reflected upon the great success of the English Settlement Movement. After teaching for a significant 9 years and much self doubt in terms of career, she left teaching to start work on Hull House. At Hull-House, Starr created the Butler Art Gallery in 1891 and an arts and crafts school in her effort to promote arts and crafts as a means of reclaiming one's passion. Significantly, Starr also sought to bring the Arts and Crafts movement, which was an international movement in the decorative and fine arts, into Chicago. Other significant social prerogatives include her campaign to reform child labor laws, educational opportunities for the underprivileged and industrial working conditions in Chicago. In 1896, Starr began to express more strongly a concern with working women, and would continue to attend strikes for those protesting poorly run labor supervisors. Though she was arrested multiple times, she continued to aid the cause by supporting the striking of manual workers. After leaving Hull House, she joined the Women’s lay order, the Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross (SCHC). Due to a spinal operation left her paralyzed from the waist down, to which the Hull House could not support, Starr carried out the remainder of her life at the Convent of the Holy Child in Suffern, NY. She passed away on February 10th, 1940 at the age of 80.

Starr never married or had children.

Starr met Addams while studying at Rockford Seminary. Her continuous contact with Addams after school led them to begin work on Hull-House in Chicago in 1889. Starr's relationship toward others in Hull-House was stretched after 1900, especially with Addams. This was due to her Socialist beliefs that strayed away from any form of industrialization and the relationship between classes in the American Capitalist System. Many believe that an intimate relationship between the two, and Addams’s subsequent partnership with Mary Rozet Smith, was also a case for the disintegrating friendship.

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Edited By

Sciancalepore, Victoria

Rights

Public domain

Gender

Female

First appears

1902

Bibliography and Links

SNAC

Schultz, Rima Lunin, and Adele Hast. Women Building Chicago 1790-1990: A Biographical Dictionary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.

Wikipedia

Citation

“Starr, Ellen Gates (1859-1940),” Jane Addams Digital Edition, accessed August 5, 2025, https://digital.janeaddams.ramapo.edu/items/show/318.