Settlement houses were institutions that provided spaces and opportunities for college-educated people to research, work, and improve urban conditions. These people settled in poor urban areas in order to share, receive, and create knowledge and culture with their neighbors as interdependent communities. The settlement houses were a part of an international movement, that began with the 1884 founding of the first settlement house in London, called Toynbee Hall. Toynbee Hall served as an inspiration for hundreds of settlement houses including Hull-House. Settlements were instituted throughout the world, with prominent movements in Western Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan, and Russia. At the movement’s height in the United States, there were over 500 settlement houses across the country, and 43 of these were established in Chicago. Many of these institutions were religiously-affiliated; Hull-House was one of the less-common secular settlements.

Hull-House, Chicago's first social settlement house, was not only the private home of Jane Addams and other Hull-House Residents, but also a place where immigrants of diverse communities gathered to learn, to eat, to debate, and to acquire the tools necessary to put down roots in their new country. Hull-House offered new services for its surrounding urban communities, like health clinics, nutrition initiatives, sanitation reform, childcare, and citizenship and English-language classes. The settlement was also a hub of community growth and cultural celebration. Hull-House reformers were heavily invested in the arts and cultural clubs as a means of connection between people of different backgrounds. Hull-House's mission to address social inequity was a model for other settlement houses across the U.S. and internationally. Click here to learn more about Hull-House programs and initiatives.

Residents were people who came to Hull-House to work. They paid room and board for the privilege of working there and were voted in or out by the other Residents six months from their arrival. Residents met weekly to discuss household life: cost of meals, upcoming projects, and the assignment of everyday house tasks. They created and ran Hull-House's many programs and initiatives. Over the course of Hull-House's more than 70 years in operation, its Residents included ground-breaking sociologists, social workers, artists, writers, activists, and reform advocates. Counted amongst those are Alice Hamilton, Florence Kelley, Rachelle Yarros, Grace and Edith Abbot, Neva Boyd, Dewey Roscoe Jones, and Florence Scala.

Jane Addams was a reformer, activist, and pioneer in the field of social work during the late 1800s and the Progressive Era. She was born in Cedarville, Illinois, on September 6, 1860. She and her friend Ellen Gates Starr founded Hull-House Settlement on Chicago's Near West Side in 1889. From Hull-House, where she lived and worked until her death in 1935, Jane Addams fought for peace during war-time, advocated for women’s right to vote, and supported safety, education, and play for all, both in her neighborhood and around the world. In 1931, Jane Addams became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her advocacy. Click here to learn more about Jane Addams’ life and accomplishments.

Ellen Gates Starr (1859-1940) co-founded Hull-House with Jane Addams in 1889. Starr’s work at Hull-House initially focused on art, arts education, literature, and cultural experiences for immigrants from the surrounding neighborhoods. Incorporating ideas from the Arts and Crafts Movement, Starr started the Hull-House Book Bindery to offer the community relief from exploitative and harsh living and work conditions. She built Chicago’s first public art gallery, the Butler Art Gallery, at Hull-House and expanded her efforts to provide access to the arts and new forms of learning. She founded an art lending program for the Chicago Public Schools and initiated the Art Institute of Chicago’s school arts programs. Starr never lost focus on the harsh living and working conditions that stifled creativity among her neighbors. She was a passionate labor activist, helping to found the Illinois branch of the National Women's Trade Union League. She protested against police brutality and convinced wage-earning women to join her. Increasingly anti-Capitalist, she eventually joined the Socialist party. After a failed operation left her paralyzed in 1929, Starr left Hull-House for a convent in Suffern, New York where she continued her bookbinding practice. She died in 1940 at the age of 80.

Mary Rozet Smith (1868–1934) was Addams’ life companion and romantic partner. They were together from the early days of Hull-House until the end of their lives. The two met at Hull-House when Smith, a former student of Ellen Gates Starr, volunteered to teach kindergarten. Smith stayed at Hull-House for a week or two at a time and would have liked to become a Resident, but instead chose to live with and care for her elderly parents. With her family inheritance, Smith generously financed many endeavors at the Settlement. By 1891, their friendship had blossomed, with Smith becoming the primary source of emotional support, as well as critique, for Addams. The two were known to be almost inseparable, and friends believed that Addams could not have accomplished all that she did in her life without the support of Smith.

Hull-House was initially funded by Jane Addams, who had inherited $50,000 (the equivalent of $1.6 million today) from her father, John Addams, when he died in 1881. As Hull-House grew both in size and influence, its financial needs grew as well. Many Chicago socialites and philanthropists donated to specific programs and initiatives, and many wealthy Residents and Hull-House board members, like Mary Rozet Smith and Louise DeKoven Bowen, donated regularly. Additionally, Hull-House had assistance from and worked in collaboration with organizations who also often provided funding for specific programs. Today, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum is supported by philanthropy – learn more about how to support the work being done by the museum here: https://www.hullhousemuseum.org/donate

Contrary to popular belief, Hull-House was a not a shelter or halfway house. The only people who lived in the complex were the Residents who worked there. However, many neighbors spent so much time at Hull-House that they considered it a second home.

In 1961, as part of the city’s urban renewal plans, Mayor Richard J. Daley chose the Near West Side and the Harrison-Halsted Street corridor as the site for a new Chicago campus of the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). This project displaced many neighborhood families and dismantled the Hull-House settlement complex. Many activists and local residents protested the plan and the destruction of Hull-House. After a bitter debate that went to the United States Supreme Court, the court found in favor of the university, and the Hull-House Settlement was closed on March 28, 1963. The university razed 11 buildings to make way for the new student center. In the settlement that followed, the Hull home and the Residents’ Dining Hall remained as a permanent memorial to Jane Addams and the Hull-House Settlement under the care of UIC. The house itself was restored in 1963. The Hull-House Settlement became the Hull-House Association, a vibrant social service agency active until 2012. Jane Addams Hull-House Museum opened in 1967.

While the Hull-House Settlement complex closed and was demolished in 1963, the Hull-House organization continued as the Hull-House Association. The Hull-House Association opened over 30 locations around the city, where they provided and advocated for services that included child care, domestic violence prevention, economic development, family services, job training, literacy, and care for vulnerable groups (such as seniors or children in foster care). Unfortunately, due to their difficulties procuring adequate funding, the Association was eventually forced to close permanently in 2012.

At its height, Hull-House settlement served 10,000 people per week. Many people have fond memories, photo albums, letters, memorabilia, and family members that participated or helped manage Hull-House programs during its 122-year history. Records about who participated or who managed programs are not readily available and museum staff, due to the volume of requests, cannot perform this research. A place to start looking is the University of Illinois at Chicago Special Collections. Many biographies and primary documents of people connected to Jane Addams and Hull-House can also be found at Jane Addams Papers Project.