Jane Addams, Of Hull House, Seen As One Of America's Immortals
Writer Tells Of Recent Trip To Famous Chicago Institution
BY MRS. W. L. MURDOCH
Written Expressly for The Birmingham News
TRULY a dream come true, is the way I felt as I started on my pilgrimage to the shrine of many Americans, Hull House and Jane Addams.
If one is a hero worshipper, surely a visit to a hero is a thrilling experience and to thousands in America as well as over the world, Jane Addams is a super-hero.
The place is so replete with atmosphere, so filled with great associations, so overflowing with the spirit of Jane Addams, that to give a readable description of this visit is no easy task.
The exterior of Hull House is not especially attractive although in [Halsted] Street which is, as you know, the tenement district of Chicago, a not especially pleasing part, the building stands out among its fellows for its unusual architecture. Its tall and rather forbidding English contours, its great size, and the plain brick doorway, do not especially invite, but after one has entered the door, then indeed is a feeling of home. Here a lovely, inviting living room meets one at once with a wealth of beautiful old furniture, pictures, and so on which we may all look upon with envy.
The house reminds one of the old Southern mansions for the ceilings are very high and have the old plaster decorations, beautiful ornate woodwork and great fireplaces with elaborate mantels which so many of our old homes had.
One gets a vista here of the library, so home-like looking, of the several reading rooms and of the small office, all with nothing to suggest an institution, just a lovely large home is the feeling you have.
Furniture Beautiful
Almost every piece of this beautiful furniture and all of these pictures have a history and one could fill a book with just tales of the belongings of Hull House.
The building covers an entire block and is not only the original home of Mr. Hull but the Bowen Hall, Smith Hall, the gymnasium, and the Mary Crane nursery, so that the block is covered by Hull House as it is today; the additions have been so wisely added that the lovely old English lines have been kept and so the whole is perfectly symmetrical. The inside court is just lovely; I wish I could show it to you.
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The preamble to the year book of Hull House says it exists for the purpose of "providing a center for higher civic and social life, instituting and maintaining educational and philanthropic enterprises, and investigating and improving the conditions of industrial districts of Chicago," and as one glimpses the varied activities of the house one is sure that it has lived up to all which its founders intended.
Offers Open Forum
A forum for discussion of every known type; this is what its great hall becomes; any group wishing to hold a meeting holds it here; a school for the teaching of English to thousands or foreigners; a club for the girls, for the women, for the boys, for the men, and a great recreational center; all of this and then, an art school, a music school, a school of expression, a wonderful labor museum, a fine gymnasium. One could go on endlessly telling of what this block of buildings offers. Certainly it is true that only the children of the very rich could find what Hull House offers its children. The music school, for example, where the very best of teachers are to be found and where many a very talented young Greek or Italian has been discovered.
The art school, with all the fine teachers here, too, has been a means of finding much of talent among the neighbors. It was Miss Addams who found the women of the old countries still longing for their primitive looms and who started the labor museum which is today one of the show parts of the house. There was found four distinct methods of spinning among the neighbors and so today in the labor museum you may see the orderly evolution of the present factory spinning and a most interesting exhibit is shown of the spinning and weaving industry from early times until today. Here the foreign women are using their old looms and making lovely articles, many of which are for sale.
The classes in pottery, in metal work, in enamel work, and in wood carving are all doing beautiful work.
Then the drama which all these foreigners so love and in which they are frequently so proficient, is studied and plays are given which we are told are wonderfully done. The Little Theater is beautiful. It will seat about 500. The walls are done in murals which are exquisite and the lighting and scenery are as fine as one could wish. The Greeks are especially interested in this phase of the house and we were shown some programs of plays which they have given this past season.
Many Are Aided
Classes in typewriting have been a very great help to many and of course the domestic science classes are a real aid to a better standard of living to the neighborhood. You should see the room where these classes are given, rows and rows of lovely dishes, lovely attractive pictures on the wall, fine porcelain tables with the little cooking outfits, but best of all a great fireplace where one just feels one could sit and dream; this is a real kitchen of the old type one reads about. Miss Addams' idea is always beauty where it is possible and in no place is this better shown than in this "heart of the house," the domestic science room. Here the mothers come and have little meetings at which they prepare and serve lunch. Here the girls who soon will be home-makers come and learn to really budget a family on what the husband earns (we might as well send some of our girls there).
Every day and every hour there is something going on at Hull House, and the interesting thing about it is the fact that nearly all these clubs and classes are [conducted] by the residents who come to Hull House to live and know that service is required of them in this way, the house being conducted on a cooperative plan.
Every resident gives service for a [page 2] [image: Jane Addams] certain number of hours a week and it is said that artists find in the atmosphere here something of the quality which the Americans find in the Latin quarter of Paris; they like to teach these talented people.
The music, art, and all the varied activities, are taught by residents and the classes in English, too, have college professors for the most part. Indeed the residents are a thrillingly interesting group of Americans.
Many Activities
Let me give you a glimpse of what is called "door duty;" that is, [answering] the door. A resident sits at the small desk in the front living room and an endless stream of people pour through this door, all of whom want something. There comes, for example, a small Italian mother, distress in her voice, "Me daughter, she no come home, where is she?" The resident finds that the daughter has gone with a girls club on a picnic and will not be home before 8 o'clock and so carefully this is explained to the anxious mother who smilingly leaves. A young Italian enters speaking almost no English but one makes out he wants lessons in this and he is turned over to a teacher. Enters a group of noisy boys about 12 to 14 years of age. Some have not removed their hats, are sharply admonished by the leader. "What you'se thinking of? You ain't to home," and all crowd about the doorkeeper to say they have saved up their money and want their baseball leader to buy suits for them.
While this stream of boys is all talking at once, suddenly the clear laughter of young girls is heard and a true picture is made as a group of young Italian girls enter and go on back to their [class]. They are beautiful, truly so, and so filled with the joy of youth that their laughter is contagious.
Then a gypsy enters with all the gay colors, the beads, and the neck cloths, a bright vivacious girl leading by the hand a blind brother. This is a girl whom one of the residents has rescued from bad conditions, taught her English, and truly given her a dream of life, so she asks for Miss Binford and chatters brightly to all in the hall as she waits. She has donned her gypsy costume just to show it and is a gay little figure.
So it goes, all the evening a steady stream of human beings pouring through the wide open door, all finding in Hull House just what they want. The resident who is on door duty is certainly not bored, he may be weary as the time for closing the house comes, but he could never fail to be interested.
Spirit Of The House
But all this is Hull House and still not a word of her who is the very spirit of the house.
I had breakfast first with Miss Addams in the lovely coffee room where all the residents have breakfast and lunch, and which is open to the neighborhood.
Is there a more lovely face, I wonder, anywhere than that of Jane Addams? Sad, yes, a little sad, but with such a charming smile, so interested in every one and so essentially a woman.
Then we went up to her apartment, such a delightful room with its rows and rows of books, its lovely old furniture, and its genuine atmosphere of home.
She talked to me so delightfully of her visit to Mexico; she told of how beautiful much of this country is and how eagerly they are trying to settle the agrarian question rightly. I wish there were space to tell of all she said of this interesting visit.
I asked her of her feeling about Japan knowing she had been there recently and she said of our immigration law that when we considered that under the new quota, there would have been only 49 a year coming to us, it did seem as if we might have avoided hurting so sorely the pride of this nation by our restriction law.
Miss Addams talked to me of the wretched situation in Mexico which Mrs. Evans' death brought about and said of course she heard this from both sides. I asked her if she thought England would do anything about this and she said no, but this brought up the subject of England's prime minister of last year, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, and she waxed most enthusiastic in speaking of him.
Interested in League
The Woman's International League, which is now definitely organized in 26 countries, is the main work which is engaging her attention just now but as she told of this she remarked, "I am still doing all my work here at Hull House and this I should never give up."
I realized how true this is as we sat at dinner that evening, this is the one meal at which all the residents meet and Miss Addams presides at the long table. The number is so large that there are now several long tables but always the center one is where she is, and the conversation at that dinner table, the personnel of those gathered there could be a most interesting story of itself.
Lovely Dr. Alice Hamilton sat at one end of our table and told us so much of the recent conference in Washington about the ethyl gas discussion. She has written about this for several magazines. All through the dinner, Miss Addams serving, spirited conversation about matters of great interest was kept up, but one could see the hostess spirit in Miss Addams as she watched to see if everyone was well served.
Let no one think Jane Addams is ever anything but a gracious, lovely woman with domestic standards, and a love of home-making. One of the residents had just returned from South America and gave us a vivid picture of that country and rather gave us pause too, as she told of how little they like us.
The next morning Miss Addams said at breakfast, "Come over to the kindergarten with me, I am going to fix it up a bit." I joined her, each of us carrying some gay cretonnes, and a few articles which she said would add a bit to the looks of the room and it was a joy to see her plan for the renovation of this room and the practical suggestions which she made to [the] painter, to the teacher and to the [illegible] of all work as to making this room not only attractive but truly sensible for the little folks.
Wonderful Home Maker
I think I shall always think of Jane Addams now, not as a speaker, fine as she is at that, not as a great public worker, but as a wonderful homemaker presiding over this real home in [page 3] a beautiful way. I think I shall see her in that wonderful dining room, a great room so beautiful with its beamed ceiling, its great fireplace, its collection of brasses from India, Japan, and other places, its wealth of lovely China, and best of all, its collected brain power. I think I shall remember her presiding there where every one about that board shows the love they feel for her, clearly. She is literally adored by all her associates. This is the picture I shall ever have in mind of Jane Addams.
She is a strong woman yet, despite physical difficulties, she does a day's work every day, and she is planning all the time for those forward looking adventures which mean peace, happiness and progress.
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I realize this does not tell half of the things which Hull House stands for; one article cannot do that. I have not told of how Miss Addams, realizing the difficulties of a foreign people at a post office, got the government to open a branch office right in Hull House. I have told nothing of the wonderful generosity of Mrs. Bowen, who has not only given the wonderful Bowen Hall where the boys club and all the great athletics of this neighborhood are held, but who has also given a wonderful piece of country property where now a country place with room for more than 200 is making summer recreations possible.
All this and much more have I omitted because space forbids. Truly, a trip to Hull House is an event and takes time, but it is after all Jane Addams I want to show you, to show you as she is today.
Peace is in her face, sadness, too, for she is meeting the world's problems every day, but a great spirit of calm receptiveness is so evident as one is with her that I felt it had been an epoch in my life to have had two days right with her.
No woman can attain the mountain tops as she has done and not make enemies. That is natural, but if people are to be judged by those who really know them, then the verdict of [Halsted] Street, and all under the roof of this great old house, is that Jane Addams is one of America's immortals.
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