Urbanization In The Late 1800s

In the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century, America was dominated by change. Expansion, urbanization, immigration, and capitalism swept the nation from coast to coast affecting every class, race and religion. The United States economy changed dramatically, as the country transformed from a rural agricultural nation to an urban industrial giant, the leading manufacturing country in the world. As this economic growth proliferated, Chicago was the epicenter in America. Travelers from Europe flocked to Chicago in search of opportunity. Meatpacking and steel were especially attractive for unskilled laborers from Europe.

Jane Adams and Ellen Gates Stars worked side by side in developing the concept of the Hull House in 1889. The Hull House residents provided many services to the urban Chicago neighborhood including day care services for the children of working mothers.

The Hull House was founded in Chicago and became the mecca for other settlement houses that was birth do to the success of the Hull House. This establishment operated by building a social bridge that connected social classes. “Addams believed the settlement house provided a service both yo the volunteer residence, who needed a purpose in life, and to an increasingly stratified society at large (Wendy L. Haight & Taylor, 2013).” There were three purposes the settlement house served which was to provided services and assistance to immigrants, policy advocacy, and an important piece that heightened national social reform to the next level; “Jane Addams noted social reform was imperative if the poor were to have any help (Dale &

Jane Addams and her colleague, Ellen Gates Starr, founded the most successful settlement house in the United States otherwise known as the Hull-House (“Settlement” 1). It was located in a city overrun by poverty, filth and gangsters, and it could not have come at a better time (Lundblad 663). The main purpose of settlement houses was to ease the transition into the American culture and labor force, and The Hull-House offered its residents an opportunity to help the community, was a safe haven for the city, and led the way through social reform for women and children.

Jane went to Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia in the fall of 1882. Later in the 1880’s Jane traveled to Europe where she visited a settlement house by the name of Toynbee Hall. Settlement houses were the country’s way of providing community services to the poor. Addams and her friend, Ellen Gates Starr, the Hull House in the lower income section of Chicago in 1889. Most of the residents who lived there were from countries such as Italy, Russia, Poland, Germany, Ireland, and Greece. Hull House provided a day care center for children of working mothers, a community kitchen, and visiting nurses. Addams and her staff gave classes in English literacy, art, and other subjects. Hull House also became a meeting place for clubs and labor unions. Most of the people who worked with Addams in Hull House were well educated, middle-class women. Hull House gave them an opportunity to use their education and it provided a training ground for careers in social work.

The Hull House acted as an employment center, library, day care center, and school for the community, more aimed towards people who did not already have the resources to get the services listed. The main reasons why settlement houses were important was because it was one of the only working systems that could effectively help poor individuals and immigrants learn middle-class values, as well as American values involving literature, labor, and lifestyle. The settlement houses allowed for more wealth and resource distribution toward the lower class that heavily helped the economy in the nineteenth century. Most settlement houses also provided kitchens, bathing and hygiene stations, as well as centers for recreational activities involving dancing, arts, and sports. Overall, the settlement houses were a pivotal part in the economy during the nineteenth century because it provided a link between being an immigrant and being in the middle class while having financial stability.

The Hull House was founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Star after Addams was inspired by Toynbee Hall during a trip to London. Both women were interested in social welfare and reform and decided to start a similar endeavor after the opportunity presented itself when Addams received a free 25 year lease on a mansion from Helen Culver. Culver had been gifted this mansion by her uncle, Charles Hull, due to the the deteriorating neighborhood which is why it was called the Hull House. The location was perfect for the social experiment Addams and Star had envisioned. It began as a small project to improve lives of local working-class people through educational and social opportunities. It quickly grew into something much larger and left a

The settlement house movement was a social movement that began in the late 19th century in the United States and the United Kingdom. The movement was based on the idea that the best way to help the poor and working class was to provide them with education, healthcare, and other social services. Settlement houses were established in poor neighborhoods, and they provided a variety of services, including childcare, after-school programs, and job training. The settlement house movement was founded on the belief that the best way to help the poor and working class was to provide them with education, healthcare, and other social services. Settlement houses were established in poor neighborhoods, and they provided a variety of services, including childcare, after-school programs, and job training.

To combat the problems of social inequality she had observed in U.S. society, in 1889 Jane Addams founded Hull-House, a progressive settlement house in Chicago. Hull-House was based on a European settlement house, Toynbee Hall, in London's East End, which she had visited in 1888. The next year, she leased and moved in a large home built by Charles Hull in Chicago. She publicized Hull-House and her causes by lecturing and writing. In addition to making speeches about the needs of the neighborhood, she published an autobiography 20 Years at Hull-House (1910), which asserted that society should respect the values of immigrants and assist them in adjusting to life in the U.S.

Hull House was established to give people food, a place to live and

The United States was undergoing great changes in the mid 1800's. Populations in both the North and the south grew tremendously. The main increase from the North was largely due to the many immigrants that flooded the coastal cities. Around 2.8 million immigrants came into the United States between 1850 and 1860. This great increase in immigrants further fueled the industrialization of the Northern states. The new source of labor

An outburst in growth of America’s big city population, places of 100,000 people or more jumped from about 6 million to 14 million between 1880 and 1900, cities had become a world of newcomers (551). America evolved into a land of factories, corporate enterprise, and industrial worker and, the surge in immigration supplied their workers. In the latter half of the 19th century, continued industrialization and urbanization sparked an increasing demand for a larger and cheaper labor force. The country's transformation from a rural agricultural society into an urban industrial nation attracted immigrants worldwide. As free land and free labor disappeared and as capitalists dominated the economy, dramatic social, political, and economic

The 19th century formed an era of industrialization and political change in the United States. New possibilities formed and new ideas inhibited the once agrarian country. New people came to America too as an effect of immigration. Immigrants from all over Europe and East and South Asia knew of the new opportunities available. Once they came to the United States, these people started congregating in cities. Here, they were close to the jobs and resources they needed, not to mention that it was a more efficient use of space compared to expanding outward. In the country, the demand for labor was increasing, and luckily there was a complementary increase in supply of it. The influx of immigrants was an influx of new ideas--ones that differed from pre-existing views in the United States. Good ideas came from good people, and their impressions and motivations were powerful, casting an image of wealth and awe-inspiring personality.

One important characteristic of the Settlement House Movement is that they wanted to reform existing social policy and offer services that would help the poor to “shake the bonds” of poverty and enjoy a better quality of life. Thus, settlement workers saw the need for a dramatic change in social, health and reactional services that were offered in slum areas in the large cities (Heinonen and Spearman, 2010, p. 15). Moreover, the settlement house workers believed that “problems people faced were due to deficiencies of the social structure; not due to character flaw” (Course Lecture Notes, PowerPoint Chapter 2). Contrary to the Settlement House Movement was the Charity Organization Society. The settlement house movement went against the beliefs of the Charity Organization Society because they believed that charity was a form of social control.

After a visit to Toynbee Hall, two friends Jane Adams and Ellen Gates Starr were inspired to open the Hull House in 1889 on the south side of Chicago. The objective of the Hull House was to promote education, and to help women break barriers which included transitioning women into traditionally male dominated occupations. Hull house helped produce many prominent and influential women reformers of the era. These women helped initiate social change and studied the sociological issues affecting the area. They developed programs that addressed issues that affected the poor such as malnutrition, working conditions, low wages, poor sanitation and other things that directly impacted the poor. (The Editors of the Encylopedia Britannica, 2016)