The essay reprinted here was
originally delivered as a lecture by Jane Addams at the 1892 summer session of
the School of Applied Ethics in Plymouth, Massachusetts. At the time, Hull-House
was nearly three years old, having been founded on September 18, 1889. Both
Jane Addams and Julia Lathrop from Hull-House amended this session of the new
School of Applied Ethics. Opened in July of that year, the school was based on
the principle that the social, industrial, and intellectual questions of the
day had an ethical basis. In 1892, individuals representing various social
settlements in America including Vida D. Scudder, Helena Dudley, Emily Batch
and Jean Fine from the college settlement association in New York, and Robert
A. Woods, head resident of Andover House in Boston, came together in Plymouth
to discuss the general topic of social progress.
Jane Addams gave two lectures at the session that summer: "The Objective Value of a Social Settlement" and its companion "The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements." Enthusiastically received by those in attendance, these two lectures helped to establish Jane Addams as a national leader in the settlement house movement. At Julia Lathrop's urging, the two lectures were subsequently published by "The Forum" magazine under the titles "Hull-House Chicago: An Effort Toward Social Democracy" and "A New Impulse to an Old Gospel."
In 1893, they were again printed as part of a
collection of essays titled Philanthropy and Social Progress by Thomas
Y. Crowell and & Company.
In "The Objective Value
of a Social Settlement" Jane Addams paints a vivid portrait of industrial,
immigrant Chicago in the 1890s, describing the neighborhood as she saw it from
her vantage point at the corner of Polk and Halsted Streets. She then goes on
to describe in moving detail Hull-House's interaction with the people of the
surrounding community, organizing the settlement's many programs into four
general lines of activity: the social, the educational, the humanitarian, and
the civic.
One hundred years ago
Hull-House in Chicago was a dynamic center of activity and a gathering place
for individuals dedicated to developing new solutions to the social problems of
the day. Today we face social issues very similar to those of Jane Addams'
time. Presently our world is undergoing dramatic transformations that will
effect every aspect of our culture and life. Taken together "The Objective
Value of A Social Settlement" and its companion piece "The Subjective
Necessity for Social Settlements" represent a clear and thorough
presentation of Jane Addams' thought and work one hundred years ago. They have
been reprinted by the Jane Addams' Hull-House Museum at the University of
Illinois at Chicago, not only because of what they tell us about Jane Addams
experiences and times, but because of their potential to reveal much about our
own.