Jane Addams and Chicago South Suburbs Healthcare

Jane Addams was born in 1860 in a Chicago south suburbs hospital of an upper-class family. She studied at Rockford College, and was one of the first women in America to graduate from a college. Because she was frustrated by the dearth of opportunities which were available to ambitious and intelligent young ladies, she journeyed to Europe with a friend she knew in college, Ellen Gates Starr. In 1887, as their trip was ending, they paid a visit to Toynbee Hall, which was located in the Whitechapel district of London (the place where Jack the Ripper committed his crimes one year later). Toynbee Hall was the very first settlement house: a house located in an impoverished neighborhood in which people who had been educated in college could settle and work together to help improve the lives of the poor. Jane Addams and Ellen Starr were impressed by what they saw and they determined to start a settlement house when they returned to Chicago. They rented a house on Halsted St. in Chicago's poorest, toughest neighborhood which had formerly been owned by Charles Hull, and called it Hull House.

Hull House was opened in 1889. Its earliest offerings included classes about Shakespeare, discussions about fine art, and classical music concerts. Jane Addams and Ellen Starr and their associates found collaborators among their elite friends in Chicago south suburbs healthcare. The University of Chicago began to offer extension school coursework at Hull House (the first time this had been done outside of the University). A trustee from the Chicago Art Institute donated an art gallery which put on regular shows which frequently brought hundreds of visitors. The Chicago Public Library opened a branch at Hull House. Among the famous lecturers who spoke at Hull House were educator / philosopher John Dewey, the suffragist Susan B. Anthony, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and star lawyer Clarence Darrow. All of these cultural events were offered to help immigrants to adjust to America and to help educate lower-class Americans.

Jane Addams was not so naïve as to believe that her work was merely altruistic. She saw that Hull House was as much for the benefit of the upper-class volunteers who manned it - giving socially-conscious upper-class women a way to channel their energy - as it was for the poor. As the project grew her approach changed: she began to try to improve the quality of life in the neighborhood and south Chicago Illinois hospital. Because the putrid garbage in the streets and alleys bred rats where the local children played, she had a garbage incinerator installed at Hull House. When the city government ignored her complaints about the garbage conditions in the neighborhood, she attempted to obtain a job as a garbage collector. In 1895 the city did appoint her inspector of garbage, which job entailed making sure that garbage bins were emptied and that trash was burned. Eventually Hull House included a museum of labor, a day care center, and a theater. It also offered classes on electricity, sewing and mending, and mathematics as well as the original arts curriculum.

Jane Addams became a well-known advocate for the poor and disadvantaged and a leader of the progressive movement. She was a spokesperson for the National Federation of Settlements, the National American Women Suffrage Association, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the American Civil Liberties Union. A pacifist and internationalist at a time when most Americans were isolationists, she was a founder of the International League for Peace and Freedom after World War I and was its president for ten years. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931; she died four years later. The Hull House is presently part of the University of Chicago and is a museum of Jane Addams work and life.

Chicago south suburbs healthcare owes a debt to the pioneering work of Jane Addams. The Chicago south suburbs hospital sees fewer cases of rat-bite and malnutrition; and south Chicago Illinois hospital is more conscious of the problems of the poor. To find more information about Chicago South Suburbs Healthcare, visit Riverside Medical Center today!

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