Jane Addams and Children: Educating the Future One Child at a Time

Transcription

1 Jane Addams and Children: Educating the Future One Child at a Time Jennifer Newby History 499: Senior Thesis June 13, 2011 Primary Reader: Dr. Jensen Secondary Reader: Dr. Geier. Jennifer Newby, 2011

2 Newby 1 Working in Chicago during the U.S. Progressive Era from the 1890s to the First World War, reformer Jane Addams of Hull House observed that children were being thrust into the working lives of adulthood as young as six years old. Jane Addams worked to create a life of learning, innocent exploration and play for children. There have been many interpretations on why Jane Addams had a certain idea of childhood and why she chose to help so many children while at Hull House. Many authors felt it that it was because she could not have children of her own and therefore she created a lifestyle where every child in the neighborhood would become her own. Some even felt that she saw a situation that needed to be changed, so she fought to change it. Some felt that her love for children was so immense that she felt children deserved the same childhood that she had once known, while others felt it was simply because she knew children were the future of the democracy and her ideology of childhood would create a lifestyle that would be satisfactory to the future of the democracy. While some authors have a more critical stance on why Addams helped children, in her own writing, she never truly explained why she focused on children. Yet is it overwhelmingly clear that Addams fought for children with good intentions through activities such as fighting for child labor laws and giving children a place to learn at Hull House. While Addams knew that some parents would disagree with her on raising children, especially since she had no children herself, she continued her efforts to recreate the childhood that she remembered and thought was best. Because of this, reformer Jane Addams used her love for children, her observation, and knowledge to help reform the ideology of childhood and create a better future for the nation. Many historians have studied Jane Addams to conceptualize why she would spend her life dedicated to the education of children. In 1935 her nephew James Weber Linn wrote Jane

3 Newby 2 Addams: A Biography. 1 Linn wrote this biographical text the same year of her death, and before she died she gave Linn all files of her own manuscripts, published and unpublished; letters, records, and clippings which she had preserved. 2 In fact, she read and made notes on the first eight chapters of this book and conversed quite thoroughly with him over the last part of the book. 3 This information is important to note, for it means that Addams provided information that she wanted the reader to hear. Chapter nine is dedicated to Addams s work with children. In 1882, when Addams was twenty-two, her brother-in-law, Dr. Harry Haldeman, told her that she could never have children. Linn concluded that was perhaps her greatest grief, though it may be the realization turned into an inspiration finally. 4 With this statement Linn infers that this greatest grief, paired with her deep love of children pushed her to work for America s children and her preserving the idea of family. It is important to note this because women of that time period had only two jobs in the public view. These jobs included getting married and having babies. If they could not have babies it was considered a great failure, for motherhood was considered one of the greatest gifts to a woman. Addams was both single and could not have children, and this passage suggests that her greatest grief was her failure to have any. Therefore, it can perhaps be concluded that Hull House was a way for her to live out motherhood and live up to the social norm of womanhood in that era. While at Hull House, Addams did an abundance of work for children, and Linn cites many examples. One example was her work as an interpreter between children and their parents. If children could learn about their parents and parents learn about their children, a connection 1 James Weber Linn, Jane Addams: A Biography (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1935). 2 Linn, Jane Addams, vii. 3 Linn, Jane Addams,viii. 4 Linn, 178.

4 Newby 3 between them could be made. Immigrant parents were Bohemian, Italian, Russian, Greek but their Children, born in this country, or with English as their first language, regarded themselves as Americans. 5 While Linn states that the children s view was obviously one to be encouraged, yet it inevitably brought about clashes in the family life. 6 To help preserve a solid family life without clashes between parents and their children, Addams maintained that perhaps the power to see the life as a whole is needed more in the immigrant quarters of a large city than anywhere else, and that the lack of this power is the most fruitful source of misunderstanding between European immigrants and their children. 7 Addams drew these families to Hull House, where she created a learning place where families could entertain themselves as families. There was a room where the parents could practice their traditional crafts and ways of life, while the children practiced their music, art and other skills. This slowly grew into a real exhibition place of industry a place that became known as the Labor Museum. 8 Addams s goal was to have Hull House families coming together to share their old traditions and begin their own. Addams hoped that sharing knowledge of other cultures would bring these citizens together in to one large American community. According to Linn, Jane Addams s interest in children led her into careful consideration of the problems of child labor and factories. 9 She would lead the forces of society to fight for labor legislation regarding children. She would even be offered bribes to discontinue her work. This did not dampen her efforts and right or wrong, she kept piling up information and organizing the women s clubs and urging the unions to fight. 10 Finally, in March of 1903, a bill 5 Linn, Linn, Linn, Linn, Linn, Linn, 184.

5 Newby 4 was introduced in the Illinois legislature that prohibited the employment of children under the age of sixteen to work over forty hours and only between the hours of seven in the morning and seven at night. 11 Addams and her peers worked hard for this legislation, and it was a triumph for America s children, her children. Linn suggests that the reason why Addams wanted to help children was because she could have none of her own. While this is not presented in the writings of Addams, this may have influenced her decisions on helping children to help the future. He felt that what she did for children was drawn from her innate love for children, not because she felt she was better or knew more than the immigrant parents that she helped. Since Linn had a close relationship with Addams, he was able to draw his conclusions from his personal relationship and experiences with her. He cared deeply for and respected his aunt which impacted his writing in a positive manner. Written in 1952 by close a friend and peer of Jane Addams and Hull House, Edith Abbott, The Hull House of Jane Addams 12 describes social history or the history of everyday people, through the work of Jane Addams, Julia Lathrop and Florence Kelley. According to Abbott, within Hull House, Addams brought together the two women who were to be her great associates, Julia Lathrop and Florence Kelley. Working from this center, they established the first juvenile court in the world, the first kindergarten for Chicago, the first day nursery 13 These women looked at history and current life, and did not like what they saw when it came to social issues such as children lack of sanitary conditions, forced child labor, and lack of education and what they felt was a true childhood-- therefore, they worked to improve the life of the child not only in the present day, but also for the future. 11 Linn, Edith Abbott. The Hull House of Jane Addams. The Social Service Review 26, no. 3 (1952): Abbott, 334.

6 Newby 5 According to Abbott, these women created a particular reform campaign for children in the Progressive Era. Addams, an authority on children, encouraged Governor John P. Altgeld to support reform measures and then make good appointments, and he followed the policy of appointing qualified women to some of the administrative offices and state boards. 14 With the influence of Addams, Abbott noted that Altgeld appointed Julia C. Lathrop to the Board of Charities which would help immigrant children through building playgrounds and giving donations to children s funds. Addams felt that part of a child s education was discovery through play. Many Progressive Era educational theorists such as John Dewey also agreed with this notion. These playgrounds would provide a place where children could go learn and be children. When Addams initiated legislation regarding child labor, the Governor also appointed Florence Kelley to inspect factories and make sure that new laws regarding labor were being followed. Addams knew that these appointments needed women who were experts in their fields and not politicians wanting to climb the political ladder. Addams felt that women were naturally nurturing and caring beings toward children and this would directly affect their decisions toward policy making regarding children. According to Abbott, Addams and the women at Hull House believed that women naturally had mothering instincts and it was the social norm at this time for women to stay and home and raise children. Putting women in these positions would allow these women to make the policies that they would make for their own children. At this time, American men were supposed to be the head of the family, the sole income of the family, and rarely participated in the raising of children. Because of social and cultural views of that time period, men were not expected to put the needs of a child first because it was considered a woman s job. Because of this Addams wanted women in these jobs so social and culture views could allow children s needs to be met. These laws would also protect children and at the same time allowed 14 Abbott, 335.

7 Newby 6 them to go to school to receive a better education and receive the time they needed to learn about themselves and who they wanted to be. Because of this, she was a great influence to the governor and was able to work together with these women and politicians to make sure her ideas came to fruition. 15 Edith Abbott was a close friend and lived in Hull House. While she knew Addams personally, it can be understood that she would provide only the information on Addams and Hull House that she wanted the public to hear in a positive light. This article presents strong women doing these tasks because they needed to be done. Abbott does not mention why Addams and her associates really did this. She also fails to mention that immigrants in the Hull House community were struggling to gain their footing in the American lifestyle. Parents needed their children to work in order for the family to have enough income to survive. There is no discussion concerning how these families will survive financially if their children stop work to become the ideal child. Addams grew up in an upper middle class family that could provide this kind of childhood. Many of these families that she was helping simply could not provide this. While Addams and Abbott clearly see that there are financial problems, Abbott wants the reader to consider what they are doing for the children and overlook any financial issues that were presented. In 1960, Archibald MacLeish, 16 gave a speech in tribute of Jane Addams and her work in Chicago called Jane Addams and the Future. 17 MacLeish stated that Jane Addams and her extraordinary generation of Chicago women had an instinct for the future, together with a personal commitment to it, which contributed more to the greatness of this city than any other force including famous men who made their fortunes here and left industrial monuments 15 Abbott, MacLeish was the Librarian of Congress during this time. 17 Archibald MacLeish. Jane Addams and the Future. The Social Service Review 35, no. 1 (1961): 1-5.

8 Newby 7 behind them. 18 For MacLeish, Addams s personal commitment to educating children and the future of Chicago showed how much she wanted a future that was full of light and hope. According to MacLeish, writing during the Cold War, it was true that Jane Addams generation had no ingenious suicidal device like the bomb to worry about, but it had killers of its own---humbler in status and more modest in murderousness but no less lethal than that: filthy milk, foul sanitation, rotting garbage, miserable schools, all of them aided and abetted by political corruption and social indifference. 19 MacLeish attributed most reforms in Chicago, including support of children, to Hull House. He stated that Hull-House changed this city and changed this republic not because it was a successful institution, but because it was an eloquent action by woman capable of action regardless of the dark ahead. 20 One can infer that the dark ahead was World War II and the Cold War. There were also the countless years it took to clean up the city, fix the public schools, create laws concerning sanitation in food, and child labor laws. While these issues may have taken many years to fix, these women, for MacLeish, were stubborn workers who, out of nationalism or fear of no change at all, never gave up their fight for a better future. Archibald MacLeish had never met Addams, he wrote this speech because his mother, Martha Hillard MacLeish who was a friend of Julia Lathrop. Lathrop was a peer and close friend of Addams. 21 While he was only associated with Addams indirectly he had tremendous respect for Addams, as his speech revealed. To him, women such as Jane Addams were the epitome of the Progressive Era because they knew how to implement change. For MacLeish, Addams and woman reformers in Chicago played a large role in creating a better future for children and the 18 MacLeish, MacLeish, MacLeish, MacLeish, 1.

9 Newby 8 general population in the future in the Progressive Era. They created playgrounds, reformed schools, placed regulations and educated the public about tainted milk. They did everything a worried mother would do for their own children because according to them, it was their nature to do so. They provided an education for the children of the present and the future. Linn, Abbott and MacLeish were able to draw on personal knowledge while writing about Jane Addams-- Linn because he was related to her, Abbott because Addams was her peer, and MacLeish because his mother knew and respected her. These authors bring nothing but a positive analysis on Jane Addams because they each felt connected to her personally. They also lived during this time and had a mindset much like Addams. Other authors such as Allen Davis, Rivka Shpak-Lissak, Robert Grimm, Daphne Spain, Steven Mintz, Jean Elshtain, and Maureen Flanagan bring an outside approach to writing about Jane Addams. This outside approach allows them to analyze Addams in a non-personal manner in order to gain insight on why she helped children. The following secondary sources will examine Jane Addams in a non-personal manner. In the midst of the women s movement in the 1970s, historian Allen Freeman Davis wrote a biography of Jane Addams called American Heroine: The Life and Legend of Jane Addams. 22 In his preface, Davis discussed the different questions scholars before him had raised about Jane Addams and her reasons for opening Hull House and creating reform. In Age of Reform (1955) historian Richard Hofstadter s main thesis was that Addams and the people of her generation had a sense of guilt for the conditions in which they created, while historian Christopher Lasch in In the Social Thought of Jane Addams (1965) felt it was her past family life and also explained that Hull House was the beginning of new radicalism. 23 He mentioned that this was all very confusing for someone trying to research Addams. Since the discovery of new 22 Allen Freeman Davis, American Heroine: The Life and Legend of Jane Addams (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973). 23 Davis, Viii.

10 Newby 9 primary source documents, he felt that his book could help a researcher further understand the importance of Jane Addams. 24 Davis used new documents such as letters and diaries to understand Jane Addams s work with children. He stated that her major philosophy was that it was possible to sublimate and redirect basic human drive. 25 What she saw in the neighborhoods around Hull House was that immigrants behavior, such as letting their children work and not parenting in the manner Addams thought was adequate, did not align itself to what she felt was American. She felt that part of being American included her ideology of childhood that did not include child labor. Instead, a child should be able to go to school to learn how to think. Learning how to think was part of being a true American. Addams thought that immigrants could not be assimilated without education, but immigrants found it hard to abide by this when it took every member in their family to survive from day to day. This insight drove her to write about people and problems she observed at Hull House, and influenced her attitudes toward the young people she saw growing up and getting into trouble in the city. 26 Because of her worry for children and their future, Addams led Hull House to conduct various educational activities to create reform. According to Davis, Addams and the women of Hull House worried about the widening split between immigrant parents and their rapidly Americanized children. They tried to preserve the customs of the old country to ease the conflict. The Labor Museum, the theater, the festivals, the woodworking and pottery classes, even the Hull House Basketball team were all designed, at least in part, to ease the burden of growing up in the city. 27 The Labor Museum was a place where immigrants could practice their traditional crafts while onlookers, including immigrant 24 Davis, Preface, viii. 25 Davis, Davis, Davis, 150.

11 Newby 10 children, could learn about the craft. Addams also felt that if immigrant children laborers could see traditional crafts being done, they could associate it with the job they were doing every day. This would allow the child to become understanding of their parents while becoming fascinated with their own job. Other programs such as the theater and festivals were a way for Hull House to provide knowledge that would lead to assimilation. All these programs were introduced so that education could be accessible to lower classes, while also achieving an assimilation of a greater American community. Addams promoted the idea that knowledge would connect people of all classes while Davis felt that Addams was an important factor in implementing ideas of assimilation, she was not the first to voice them. He also believes that Addams memory had been inflated over the years, and many considered her as revolutionary woman in the Progressive Era who had ideas that were completely her own. Davis also noted Addams s work with the implementation of juvenile courts. Even with the educational activities at Hull House to keep families together and young ones out of trouble, there were still instances of children getting into trouble with the law. 28 Addams noticed that these children were taken away by police and charged as an adult in court. While Addams is often remembered for creating the juvenile courts, Davis also mentions people such as Alzina Stevens, Julia Lathrop, and Louis Bowen who helped make the juvenile court successful. The women at Hull House saw the continuing issue of children getting into trouble and being tried as adult offenders in court. Addams had read many studies that had concluded that children had a need for adventure and impulsive action. She agreed with these studies immensely yet this idea challenged city children and would sometimes end in police action and imprisonment. Addams felt that children should not be punished as an adult for living out their childhood. It was because of this, Hull House lobbied for a new law to create a juvenile court. 28 Davis, 150.

12 Newby 11 In 1899, the first juvenile court in the United States was created at Hull House. It was not a criminal court, and it was intended to keep the child s best interest at heart. 29 This was hard for some reformers, because ideas of what best interest included differed. It was also difficult to keep a child s best interest a number one priority when reform was needed for an entire population. Addams felt that children had the right to be children; therefore they would sometimes get into trouble. She wanted the juvenile court to be a learning experience about right and wrong, rather than a terrifying situation surrounded by adults. Because the juvenile court was a learning experience, the judge could give the children probation, make them wards of the state or even assign them to an institution. They would never be jailed or sentenced to death. While Davis felt that Addams and the women at Hull House had the best intentions for these children, it did not always work out this way. He notes that there was a flaw in this system for child had no right to due process and judges had the power to make any decision they wanted. While the juvenile court was a major step in protecting both boys and girls, these issues were detrimental to some children and needed to be fixed. While Davis presents Addams as American Heroine in his title, he mentions several times throughout his writings that Addams was someone who took the middle ground in her standing of all situations giving the example that she revolted against the stereotype of women during that era, but did not challenge it in a public manner. He suggests that none of her ideas were her own, and it was only because she was excellent at publicizing and making popular the issues that Hull house presented that she was considered a great contribution to Progressive Era society. Davis s also felt that this was not a biography, but a book that examines what he calls the legend of Jane Addams and how it intertwined with the facts of her real life. 30 Davis sees 29 Davis, Davis, ix.

13 Newby 12 her as a reformer, not a revolutionary. According to him, she could not be a revolutionary because she cared too much about reaching a middle ground in the issues that she fought for. Many sources today create a woman who had revolutionary ideas, yet Davis felt that she was woman who was able to see social problems as her own. She was also able to take knowledge of studies done or life experiences of successful reform and promote them in a genuine manner. This adds to the legend of Jane Addams, creating a woman who is looks as though she was revolutionary. Instead, she was a woman who was able to take knowledge and use it for her cause. Davis also was disappointed that Addams did not fight harder for what she wanted, not solving the problems as mentioned by Linn, but he also mentions that he understands the difficulties of the problems she and the women of that time period faced. He also believes that these were problems not just presented to Addams, but also presented to all women of this time period. He also concludes that Addams became a symbol of reform, the epitome of the woman reformer. 31 While this author clearly sees the importance of the legend Jane Addams, he believes that the real woman was not who the American people remember her to have been. While she supported and worked for the rights of children, her arguments were weakened because she felt that each side of her argument had some truth and a middle ground could be achieved. The author is still impressed by a woman who could initiate change, but he felt that her memory of she really was as a person has been juxtaposed legend. In 1989, Rivka Shpak-Lissak wrote a monograph on Hull House called Pluralism & Progressives: Hull House and the New Immigrants, According to Shpak-Lissak, the Liberal Progressives view of the public school s role in socializing and educating 31 Davis, xi. 32 Rivka Shpak-Lissak, Pluralism & Progressives: Hull House and the New Immigrants, (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1989.)

14 Newby 13 immigrant children as future citizens in the American democracy arose from the idea of community and immigrant assimilation. 33 Shpak-Lissak s interpretation is that reform concerning children was not directly intended for the welfare of the child, but instead intended welfare for the future of the nation. Addams knew that immigrant children were a part of the American future, and believed that education helped them to not only gain knowledge of the country they were living in but to foster their assimilation into the American community by having this knowledge in common. Shpak-Lissak s criticism of the liberal view of assimilation was that liberals wanted to eventually eliminate all ethnic and cultural background that was not considered American by the third generation on American soil. While Addams promoted learning of different cultures in order to create assimilation, she also felt that it was a plan that was temporary. Shpak-Lissak explains that the Liberal Progressive saw diversity according to rights of the individual, not ethnic groups. While diversity was important to the Liberal Progressive, ethnic diversity was only allowed until the immigrants were comfortable with the American environment according these progressives. 34 Jane Addams praised public schools for the type of assimilation that Shpak-Lissak discussed. Addams stated that public schools were a socializing and harmonizing factor in the neighborhoods inhabited by the foreign born, and the ultimate objective of the public school was to modify the character and conduct of the individual and to lead the immigrant child, who will in turn lead his family, and bring them with him into the brotherhood for which they are longing. 35 Shpak-Lissak also inferred that society did not cause reform because of their love for children, but because they wanted them to be Americanized as quickly as possible Shpak-Lissak, Shpak-Lissak, Shpak-Lissak, Shpak-Lissak, 53.

15 Newby 14 According to Shpak-Lissak, immigrants were not considered intelligent until they became an assimilated American citizen. America could not survive until these immigrants transformed in to intelligent thinking Americans. According to Shpak-Lissak, the idea of assimilation was based on class. It was also that Addams and other settlement workers justified the need for social settlements because they felt it was the role of the upper class to lead while the lower classes followed willingly. 37 Shpak-Lissak also points out that most settlement workers were white and upper middle class presenting the idea that race and class made an intelligent citizen, and it was under this assumption that people such as Jane Addams felt it was their duty to enlighten the immigrants on the white, upper class way. It can also be understood that settlement workers felt that their way, the white, upper class way, was also the American way. Shpak-Lissak does admit, however, that Addams knew the importance of incorporating the child s ethnic background into general education. Because of this, Addams started classes at Hull House that taught the ethnic background of all that attended. With these classes, she intended to bring all of the immigrant children together. This she felt would Americanize these children not only quickly, but without eradicating their backgrounds completely. 38 One way they did this was through the Labor Museum. There, children could sit with their parents and learn their traditions as well as learn the traditions of other cultures. Soon, all of the immigrants involved would know about the traditions of each other. This would provide a commonality through knowledge which would further the assimilation process. Shpak-Lissak also provides an interpretation of Addams s goals for assimilation of immigrants and their children. Linn stated that Addams felt that since she could not have children, she decided to take the neighborhood children and essentially raise them as she would 37 Shpak-Lissak, Shpak-Lissak,

16 Newby 15 have raised her own children. Abbott agrees with Linn, but adds that they saw certain tasks that needed to be done and took care of them. MacLeish commends Addams for her looking to future, while taking care of the present, and Davis felt that she too passive aggressive in her fight to help children. In 1997, Robert Thornton Grimm Jr. wrote Forerunners for a Domestic Revolution: Jane Addams, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and the Ideology, In this article, Grimm discussed that both Addams and Gilman can be seen as a part of the maternal feminism movement, as they wished to create a better future through children, and they believed in the innate goodness of children, 40 and that Addams and Gilman were forerunners for a domestic revolution in America, a revolution that they passionately believed was necessary if all members in society, including children, were to have the lives that they deserve. 41 To Grimm, Addams and Gilman were not usually seen as historically parallel. Yet, their ideologies concerning children were one and the same. Both agreed on the fundamental nature of children, the issue of gender role effects on children, the need for children to receive a good education and the need for parents to parent. 42 While Addams specifically wrote about immigrant children, Gilman wrote on general terms. With the help of these women, children gained a prominent spot on the American social agenda for the first time. 43 Jane Addams helped children by creating nurseries, playgrounds, classes, and other places where children could learn and prosper. Both Gilman and Addams fought for children because they believed that most American adults did not understand children at all. They shared the conviction that children are a 39 Robert Thornton Grimm Jr. Forerunners for a Domestic Revolution: Jane Addams, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and the Ideology of Childhood, Illinois Historical Journal 90 no. 1 (1997): Grimm, Grimm, Grimm, Grimm, 48.

17 Newby 16 special, separate intellect that was different from adults. Armed with that understanding, they were certain that they could ameliorate the lives of children. 44 They both felt if they could help raise awareness about the nature of childhood and how important it was for children to have time to learn through exploration and inquiry, they could help and convince parents to be better parents. Grimm states that these women started the domestic revolution. Grimm believed that Addams was more of a revolutionary in her ideology of childhood because her ideology of immigrant childhood was so different from the current situation in that time period. This ideology could change the future of childhood and the role of children in society. Addams and Gilman agreed that childhood should be a time of self-discovery and adventure. They also believed that immigrant parents simply did not understand the need for this kind of childhood. Addams believed that she could serve as an interpreter, catering to the children and the parents at the same time. While this article would agree with Linn, Abbott and MacLeish that these women were revolutionary in their ideology of childhood, Shpak-Lissak would argue that these women wanted these children to be led by the upper class, white settlement workers so they could help assimilate them into American society, therefore creating intelligent America adults free from their ethical background that they felt was holding them back.. Also, if children lived a happy childhood, they would be happy adults, therefore associating that with the American way of life and transforming into what Addams felt were proper American citizens. Daphne Spain, in 2001, wrote an urban history, or a history that examines cities and towns, on the women of Chicago called How Women Saved the City. 45 According to Spain, The end of the nineteenth century marked the first time women played an active role in creating the 44 Grimm, Daphne Spain, How Women Saved the City (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001).

18 Newby 17 urban spaces they occupied. They created redemptive places that in general looked like a private home, and were used to provide a space the temporarily provided a solution to transitional problems. These problems included issues such as how to assimilate immigrants. 46 Women volunteers were critical to this process. In addition to boarding houses, they produced vocational schools, hotels for transients, playgrounds, and public baths 47 One of set of women that were active in this process were the women at Hull House. Spain states that Jane Addams and the women of Chicago s Hull House were not the first women to discover poverty, but they were among the first to identify it as a systemic problem rather than a personal failing. 48 Many also thought this was an immigrant problem, but Addams felt that the system of society did not allow immigrants to become true American citizens easily. Instead they were thrown into society with a mixture of cultural differences and expected to assimilate on their own. The women of Hull house took it into their own hands to provide the education needed for Chicago s immigrants and their children. By creating a safe or redemptive place for immigrants and their children to learn everything from English to being a proper American citizen, Addams fought to change this systematic problem. Spain noted that Addams wanted Chicago to be a healthy place for families to raise their children. Unfortunately, the city was covered in garbage. According to Spain, when Jane Addams organized the Hull House Woman s Club in 1895 to protest the lack of garbage collection in Chicago s Nineteenth Ward, she reported that their greatest achievement was the discovery of a pavement eighteen inches under the surface of rotting fruit and filthy rages. Addams removed the first eight inches and insisted that the city remove the rest. 49 She and the 46 Spain, Spain, Spain, Spain, 78.

19 Newby 18 other women of Hull House warranted a place for children to play and commute without the fear of disease. She also used this as a tool to help teach the immigrants about cleanliness and using it create a safe and healthy environment for their children. In 1894, Hull House opened their first model playground under the watchful eye of Jane Addams. Spain notes that many Chicagoans posed the question of why actual buildings and playgrounds were important. Addams answered by stating that she believed that Hull House clothed in and brick and mortar made visible to the world that which we were trying to do; [the first buildings] stated to Chicago that education and recreation ought to be extended to immigrants. 50 Addams used Hull House as a political device to convince Chicago of the need to reform the lives of children. Spain notes the importance of women and religion during a time of change in an industrial city. She states that most of these redemptive spaces were hosted by white, middle class women. When these women hoped to help and change the lives of immigrants there becomes the conflict of race and class. It is also important to understand that these buildings or redemptive spaces also presented issues the day they were opened in these neighborhoods. Many immigrants thought these building such as the bold and important looking Hull House to be a sign that they were about to be changed through education of the Christian religion, English, and other proper American ways. This can be associated with Shpak-Lissak s notion that these white upper class citizens were associating poor and unhealthy conditions with ethnic groups. Since these ethnic groups were struggling, and the white upper class citizens were thriving, it can be assumed that these women thought it was their moral duty to educate these citizens of ethnic backgrounds in a way that would create a life more like the white upper class. This presents an 50 Spain, 237.

20 Newby 19 identity struggle within ethnic groups because their children are being educated to be something else, while their parents struggled to provide pride in their ethnic identity. While Hull House can be considered a redemptive space, many sources interpret the reason behind the idea assimilation and education. While authors such as Shpak-Lissak felt it was a clash between classes and the ideology of a true American. Some authors such as Linn and Abbott felt it was an issue of having a place where a child could live out the ideology of childhood that Jane Addams believed in so deeply. Sources such as Abbott, MacLeish and Linn would state that she really felt that she was doing the immigrants a great service, that it was not a class or race issue, it was more a human issue. Davis would indicate that she would never do anything that would upset either her peers or the immigrants, that Hull House was a middle ground for immigrants and other citizens to come together as one. Shpak-Lissak would completely agree with Spain by saying that the women who hosted these redemptive spaces were those who were native born, white American citizens trying to educate the immigrants on how to be the right kind of citizen on the reformers terms. In a biography written in 2002 titled Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy, 51 Jean Elshtain stated that Jane Addams s own childhood provided the template on which she strove to understand sympathetically the very different childhoods of the teeming throng of young people in the 19 th ward of Chicago, and by extension the entire city and the world beyond. 52 Addams wanted every child to have the childhood that she had. This included a life of adventure, education, and every Sunday in a Christian church. While she felt that God had 2002). 51 Jean Bethke Elshtain, Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy (New York: Basic Books, 52 Elshtain, 121.

21 Newby 20 no influence in her thinking, she wanted to make sure that every child would share the eternal life with her after death. 53 According to Elshtain, Addams was preoccupied with the fears and hopes of children; their nighttime terrors and daydreams; their escapades that may turn deadly; the arduous labor they were forced into that might kill their spirits, in contrast to forms of play and work that would unlock their longing for what is good and beautiful and true and steer them away from the tawdry, salacious, and morally lax. 54 She saw that many parents were forced to make their children go to work in dangerous conditions with long hours because they did not have enough money to survive. She felt for an adult to compel an immature child to take on tasks beyond that child s strength was disastrous. 55 Her philosophy that children should not spend their childhood working in a factory or earning their family s income and that children should have a childhood that lacks the stress of adulthood pressured her to change what she saw. While authors such as Shpak-Lsaak suggested that Addams and the women of Hull House felt that immigrants were not intelligent until they had assimilated into American citizens, Elshtain sees Addams as trying to put a broken community back together. While Addams s work can be seen as a struggle between race and class, Elshtain felt that Addams was trying to help children and their immigrant parents the best way that she could. She overcame race, class, and fear of the future. She took a community that was inconsistent, and through knowledge assimilated a future American generation to have what she believed would be a healthy and successful life. According to Elshtain, Addams felt that human beings shared a common thread throughout. She also believed that all children no matter what background shared a yearning for adventure and knowledge. While Shpak-Lsaak believed that she helped children because of her 53 Elshtain, Elshtain, Elshtain, 123.

22 Newby 21 class, Elshtain points out that Addams believed that there were not classes in the United States. Instead she believed all were Americans. Addams believed in social egalitarianism, and Elshtain suggests that Addams used Hull House to use knowledge as a way of creating this egalitarianism. 56 Another source concerning Chicago was written by Maureen Flanagan. Seeing with Their Hearts: Chicago Women and the Vision of a Good City, , 57 reexamines women s contributions to urban history in Chicago. According to Flanagan, women s vision of the city of Chicago promoted a concept of urban life and good government rooted in social justice, social welfare, and responsiveness to the everyday needs of the city s residents. According to this vision, decisions on urban problems were to be made on the basis of human betterment. 58 Flanagan asserts that progressives believed that only a reformed city that catered to the needs of all of its citizens could move on to a modern future. Flanagan also discussed the difference between men and women reformers during the Progressive Era. While social and cultural norms provide the background of women being naturally nurturing and caring for social wellbeing during this time period, it was also the case that social and cultural norms provided the background of natural decision makers, finical and housing providers. Because of this, women reformers fought for reform concerning the wellbeing of children, labor laws and health reform for people within the spaces they fought for. While men had a different vision of the city and reform using most of their time to reform the system politically and economically. 56 Elshtain, Maureen A. Flanagan, Seeing with Their Hearts: Chicago Women and the Vision of a Good City, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002) 58 Flanagan, Seeing, 5.

23 Newby 22 Before Jane Addams and the women of Chicago started reform, Chicagoans viewed their city with a mixture of awe for its progress, trepidation for its future, and disgust for the inhumane living and working conditions suffered by too many of their fellow citizens. 59 Yet there was a lack of responsibility for fixing what was wrong with the city. According to Flanagan one of Addams s major contributions concerning children was their welfare in the public school. She also promoted women becoming teachers or a part of the administration. Addams saw that the only way there was going to be change was if women took these bureaucratic and administrative jobs to create and follow through with these changes themselves. The reason for this was that she felt that women were nurturing by nature, and thus would take care of children in a motherly manner. If women replaced men in these jobs, the children s best interests would be taken into account. Men do not do this by nature, according to the social norms of this period, instead they hold these positions to climb the political and social ladder. It was also viewed that if men stayed in these jobs they would avoid changes in the school system for fear of taxes rising. Because of this, men would deem changes for the child s best interest unnecessary. 60 In 2004, Steven Mintz published Huck s Raft: A History of American Childhood. 61 According to Mintz, childhood is not an unchanging biological state of life but it, rather, a social and cultural construct that has changed radically overtime. 62 In the Progressive Era, Mintz concludes that many children in the upper to middle class were able to have an extended, protected childhood from work and the stresses of adulthood. This was all too different for children of the laboring classes who were often considered indispensable economic resources. These children were also expected to work in order to repay their parents for their hardships they 59 Flanagan, Seeing, Flanagan, Seeing, Steven Mintz, Huck s Raft: A History of American Childhood (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004). 62 Mintz, 1.

24 Newby 23 endured while raising the family and moving them to America. 63 According to Mintz, the ideology for the laboring class children was for them to work to contribute to the family until they could provide for themselves. For Jane Addams, her definition of childhood was completely different. Addams focused on those families a part of the laboring class. According to Mintz, these children worked not because their parents were heartless, but because their labor was essential to their family s survival. 64 Children working during this time often earned up to twenty percent of the family s total income, so working became crucial. Many of these children were those that Addams worked with. Addams understood that families needed the income, but felt it was unnecessary to set such a heavy burden on children. Child labor was not included in her ideology of childhood, thus she started to fight for child labor regulation laws at both a state and national level. Mintz identifies many contributions Addams made to reforms relating to children. One contribution was her awareness that cleanliness reduces disease. Because of diseases caused by bacteria and uncleanliness, twenty percent of children did not live past the age of five. 65 Seventy percent of these deaths were caused by tainted milk. Because of this Hull House made it a duty to teach immigrant parents about tainted milk, create a public bath where they bathed children, and taught them about cleanliness. Mintz identifies a key point that immigrant parents needed their children to work because they had no other means of income. While this was a necessary evil in most families, Addams wanted at least to push the working age to the middle teens, and make sure children were working fewer hours. Her true hope was to stop child labor all together, but she knew it had to 63 Mintz, Mintz, Mintz, 176.

25 Newby 24 happen in steps. While money could be an issue and immigrant parents often disagreed with her fight to end child labor, she felt she needed to represent the children and not the parents. It can also be disputed that Addams and the other women at Hull House were forcing their ideas of cleanliness toward mothers. While they were not parents themselves, they felt they knew best, perhaps because of their social class and race. Abbott, Linn, and MacLeish would contest that Addams was sharing the idea of the germ theory and warning mothers about the dangers of tainted milk, not forcing them to raise their children a certain way. Shpak-Lissak would disagree and state it that it was a way to force unintelligent immigrant mothers into intelligent American citizens. Yet Elshtain believes that when these situations presented themselves, it was her part of her job as an American and a human, not because of her social class, that she helped these children. Maureen Flanagan, in 2007, continued her research of the Progressive Era in America Reformed: Progressives and Progressivisms 1890s According to Flanagan, No matter which road progressives took toward reform, they were all looking toward reform, they were all looking for ways to meet the challenges of a new America. It was an increasingly urban, industrial, and immigrant society a new society that required new ways to meet the challenges of maintaining a good democratic society. 67 Flanagan describes many different reformers in her book, including those who more muckrakers, trying to get information out to the masses to initiate change, political reformers that included mostly men, and social justice reformers that included women such as Jane Addams. She also describes reformers who were more radical, yet felt Addams was famous for using her knowledge to initiate change. 66 Maureen A. Flanagan, America Reformed: Progressives and Progressivisms 1890s-1920s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 67 Flanagan, Progressives, 11.

26 Newby 25 Addams saw the challenges of maintaining a good democratic society, or a society where all citizens are assimilated into one greater community, when studying children in the Chicago area. One challenge that she and many of her peers saw was the issue of the terrible conditions of child labor. She knew that with these working conditions, many of these children were not educated in their field of work and therefore did not know the risks that they put themselves in every day. In 1907, she helped form the National Child Labor Committee to promote abolition of child labor at both the state and national levels. 68 Addams and her peers went a step further than abolition, to create a movement to convince the general population that children had the right to an education. In order to achieve this, they tried to convince the state to reform the public school system and build playgrounds just for children. 69 Also, according to Flanagan, social justice reformers such as Jane Addams felt that education was a way to continue democracy. 70 Educating these children will lead to happier, more informed children who carry a sense of national pride. With this, they will grow up as happy citizens and promote democracy around the world. Flanagan understands this in both Seeing with Their Hearts and Progressives and Progressivism. The ideology of childhood for many in the Progressive era had become almost the same as the ideology of adulthood: work to contribute to the family. There was no time to learn, no time for questions or adventure. This presented a new challenge to America, and the continuation of a progressive, democratic society. Flanagan noted that women such as Jane Addams saw these challenges and attacked them at full force. In both of her books, she noted that idea of family was of importance. Parents needed to care for their children and not just use them as a means to earn income. She also felt that Jane Addams was a social justice progressive 68 Flanagan, Progressives, Flanagan, Progressives, Flanagan, Progressives, 66.