CONTENTS:

PREFACE ... vii 
I. EARLIEST IMPRESSIONS ... 1 
II. INFLUENCE OF LINCOLN ... 23 
III. BOARDING-SCHOOL IDEALS ... 43 
IV. THE SNARE OF PREPARATION ... 65 
V. FIRST DAYS AT HULL-HOUSE ... 89 
VI. THE SUBJECTIVE NECESSITY FOR SOCIAL SETTLEMENTS ... 113 
VII. SOME EARLY UNDERTAKINGS AT HULL-HOUSE ... 129 
VIII. PROBLEMS OF POVERTY ... 154 
IX. A DECADE OF ECONOMIC DISCUSSION ... 177 
X. PIONEER LABOR LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS ... 198 
XI. IMMIGRANTS AND THEIR CHILDREN ... 231 
XII. TOLSTOYISM ... 259 
XIII. PUBLIC ACTIVITIES AND INVESTIGATIONS ... 281 
XIV. CIVIC COOPERATION ... 310 
XV. THE VALUE OF SOCIAL CLUBS ... 342 
XVI. ARTS AT HULL-HOUSE ... 371 
XVII. ECHOES OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION ... 400 
XVIII. SOCIALIZED EDUCATION ... 427 


PLATES [not in WebRoots online version]

Jane Addams, from a photograph taken in 1899 ... Frontispiece 
John H. Addams, from a photograph taken in 1880 ... 22 
Ellen Gates Starr, from a photograph taken in 1906 ... 64 
A Hull-House Interior ... 88 
A View from a Hull-House Window ... 112 
A Spent Old Man ... 154 
Sweatshop Workers ... 198 
Chicago River at Halsted Street ... 258 
Polk Street opposite Hull-House ... 280 
Julia C. Lathrop ... 310 
A Studio in Hull-House Court ... 370 
A View between Hull-House Gymnasium and Theater ... 426 


ILLUSTRATIONS [not] IN THE TEXT

Birthplace, Jane Addams, Cedarville, Illinois ... 4 
Jane Addams, aged Seven, from a Photograph of 1867 ... 7 
Mill at Cedarville, Illinois ... 10 
Stream at Cedarville, Illinois ... 22 
Old Abe ... 42 
Rockford College, Rockford, Illinois ... 44 
Porto del Popolo, Rome ... 76 
View of St. Peter's ... 88 
Polk Street opposite Hull-House ... 95 
South Halsted Street opposite Hull-House ... 96 
Consulting the Hull-House Bulletin Board, from a Photograph by Lewis W. 
Hine ... 104 
A Boy's Club Member ... 105 
An Italian Woman with Grandchild ... 111 
Portrait, Jane Addams, from a Charcoal Drawing by Alice Kellogg Tyler of 
1892 ... 114 
Main Entrance to Hull-House ... 128 
Head of Slavic Woman ... 134 
Head of Italian Woman ... 135 
A Doorway in Hull-House Court ... 149 
Woman and Child in Hull-House Reception Room ... 154 
In a Tenement House, Sick Mother and Children ... 164 
A Row of Nursery Babies ... 168 
A Neighborhood Alley ... 181 
Hull-House on Halsted Street, Apartment House in Foreground ... 197 
An Italian Sweatshop Worker ... 208 
Out of Work, from a Drawing by Alice Kellogg Tyler ... 220 
Head of Immigrant Woman ... 226 
Aniello ... 235 
Irish Spinner in the Hull-House Labor Museum ... 238 
Scandinavian Weaver in the Hull-House Labor Museum ... 239 
Italian Spinner in the Hull-House Labor Museum ... 241 
An Italian Grocery opposite Hull-House ... 258 
Sketches of Tolstoy Mowing ... 271 
Head of Russian Immigrant ... 275 
Rear Tenement in Hull-House Neighborhood ... 282 
An Alley near Hull-House ... 293 
A View from Hull-House Window ... 314 
Alley between Hull-House Buildings ... 321 
A Window in the Hull-House Library ... 346 
An Italian Mother and Child ... 354 
Facade of Bowen Hall ... 363 
A Club Child listening to a Story ... 367 
In the Hull-House Studio, from a Photograph by Lewis W. Hine ... 374 
Exterior Hull-House Music School ... 379 
In the Hull-House Music School ... 383 
Terrace in the Hull-House Court ... 398 
South Halsted Street ... 401 
Russian Immigrant on Halsted Street, from a Photograph by Lewis
W. Hine ... 416 
Entrance to Hull-House Courtyard ... 426 
Boy at Forge, Hull-House Boy's Club, from a Photograph by Lewis
W. Hine ... 439 
Steps to Hull-House Terrace ... 447 
Waiting in the Hull-House Hall ... 453 




Page vii

PREFACE

EVERY preface is, I imagine, written after the book has been completed and 
now that I have finished this volume I will state several difficulties 
which may put the reader upon his guard unless he too postpones the 
preface to the very last. 

Many times during the writing of these reminiscences, I have become 
convinced that the task was undertaken all too soon. One's fiftieth year 
is indeed an impressive milestone at which one may well pause to take an 
accounting, but the people with whom I have so long journeyed have become 
so intimate a part of my lot that they cannot be written of either in 
praise or blame; the public movements and causes with which I am still 
identified have become so endeared, some of them through their very 
struggles and failures, that it is difficult to discuss them. 

It has also been hard to determine what incidents and experiences should 
be selected for recital, and I have found that I might give an accurate 
report of each isolated event and yet give a totally misleading impression 
of the whole, solely by the selection of the incidents. For these reasons 
and many others I have found it difficult to make a

Page viii

faithful record of the years since the autumn of 1889 when without any 
preconceived social theories or economic views, I came to live in an 
industrial district of Chicago. 

If the reader should inquire why the book was ever undertaken in the face 
of so many difficulties, in reply I could instance two purposes, only one 
of which in the language of organized charity, is "worthy." Because 
Settlements have multiplied so easily in the United States I hoped that a 
simple statement of an earlier effort, including the stress and storm, 
might be of value in their interpretation and possibly clear them of a 
certain charge of superficiality. The unworthy motive was a desire to 
start a "backfire," as it were, to extinquish two biographies of myself, 
one of which had been submitted to me in outline, that made life in a 
Settlement all too smooth and charming. 

The earlier chapters present influences and personal motives with a detail 
which will be quite unpardonable if they fail to make clear the 
personality upon whom various social and industrial movements in Chicago 
reacted during a period of twenty years. No effort is made in the recital 
to separate my own history from that of Hull-House during the years in 
which I was "launched deep into the stormy intercourse of human life" for, 
so far as a mind is pliant under the pressure of events and experiences, 
it becomes hard to detach it. 

It has unfortunately been necessary to abandon

Page ix

the chronological order in favor of the topical, for during the early 
years at Hull-House, time seemed to afford a mere framework for certain 
lines of activity and I have found in writing this book, that after these 
activities have been recorded, I can scarcely recall the scaffolding. 

More than a third of the material in the book has appeared in The American 
Magazine, one chapter of it in McClure's Magazine, and earlier statements 
of the Settlement motive, published years ago, have been utilized in 
chronological order because it seemed impossible to reproduce their 
enthusiasm. 

It is a matter of gratification to me that the book is illustrated from 
drawings made by Miss Norah Hamilton of Hull-House, and the cover designed 
by another resident, Mr. Frank Hazenplug. I am indebted for the making of 
the index and for many other services to Miss Clara Landsberg, also of 
Hull-House. 

If the conclusions of the whole matter are similar to those I have already 
published at intervals during the twenty years at Hull-House, I can only 
make the defense that each of the earlier books was an attempt to set 
forth a thesis supported by experience, whereas this volume endeavors to 
trace the experiences through which various conclusions were forced upon 
me. 

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