Tuesday afternoons, members of the Schoolboys’ Club practiced reading aloud with books from Hull House’s circulating library. Monday evenings, young women in a club were reading “Romola,” their understanding of George Eliot’s historical novel enhanced by pictures of Florence at the mansion. They wanted the less fortunate to taste the fruits of affluence they themselves had inherited.
But not amid the wall-to-wall tenements of the immigrant woman’s world.Īddams and Starr moved into Hull House because they didn’t want to live among the rich who got to see roses that were invisible to the poor. Of course, roses could be seen in Chicago - in a lakefront park or a florist shop in an affluent part of town. “She said that she had lived in Chicago for six years and had never seen any roses, whereas in Italy she had seen them every summer in great profusion.” “She would not believe for an instant that they had been grown in America,” Addams wrote. In her autobiography, “Twenty Years at Hull-House,” Addams recalled an Italian woman thinking that the red roses at a Hull House reception were imported from Italy. Their guests could scarcely imagine the bucolic countryside of northern Illinois where Addams and Starr grew up. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain.The evening’s convivial atmosphere was remarkable, considering the different worlds from which the guests and hosts had come. View our full collection of podcasts at our website: or YouTube channel: is a Librivox Recording. This recording of her memoir Twenty Years at Hull-House commemorates the 100th anniversary of its publication, the 150th anniversary of Addams' birth, and was released on December 10th, the anniversary of Addams receiving her Nobel Prize. Addams became a role model for middle-class women who volunteered to uplift their communities. She emphasized that women have a special responsibility to clean up their communities and make them better places to live, arguing they needed the vote to be effective.
She was the most prominent woman of the Progressive Era and helped turn the nation to issues of concern to mothers, such as the needs of children, public health and world peace. In a long, complex career, she was a pioneer settlement worker and founder of Hull-House in Chicago, public philosopher (the first American woman in that role), author, and leader in woman suffrage and world peace. Jane Addams was the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
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