How Jane Abrams Put Her Theories into Practice

Along with Ellen Gates Starr, Jane Addams established Hull House in 1889. Projects here included English courses and kindergarten, providing support for the labor movement, social and cultural clubs for immigrant groups, and education to ensure that the poor also had access to public services. This cultural outreach was initially created to serve immigrants and where women could put their years of education to useful service. Per Bilton, (2006, p.141), Addams reflected that the United States represented a society divided by social class and felt that balance could be restored by redistributing social and educational privileges. In her view, culture was the key to healing social divisions. However, she felt that her own culture was also incomplete and therefore exposure to more cultural diversity was necessary for her own personal development. Thus, “settlement houses” not only were for the poorer members of society, but for everyone in the community.

Over time, the focus of Hull House moved away from the emphasis on the distribution of the “culture” learned at the liberal arts colleges to the different cultures provided from the influx of foreign immigrants. Addams began to believe that there was not a single, common culture but took a more pluralist view that different cultures needed to interchange ideas and perspectives. She felt the social classes were dependent on each other and that everyone could benefit from this interaction. Addams’s encouragement of “multiculturalism” was a result of her interest in the cultures of the European immigrants and attempted to help them maintain their traditions. After the original ideal of teaching an ideal culture, Addams became interested in more “socialized” education – designed to deal with practical problems of the immigrants’ lives. From 1891-1893 the original program of Hull House concerned itself with exhibitions of art and music. Over the following ten years, however, these cultural activities began to be replaced with more participative programs more directed at the immigrants’ own traditions and challenges of everyday life. For example, the Hull House Labor Museum attempted to reconnect children born in the United States with the craft traditions of their immigrant parents with demonstrations and art classes. These cultural programs encouraged appreciation of culture in daily life and the application of culture to common problems. The artistic activities were the context to connect people and their experiences across a variety of generations and ethnicities.

Another significant example of Jane Addams’s work was her establishment of the Hull-House Coffee House, which was founded in 1893. It was inspired by the New England Kitchen (NEK) and the Diet Kitchen which both had previously folded. This new Coffee House borrowed some ideas from those institutions and adapted them as was necessary in this new context. The focus changed from changing the food habits of the new immigrants to communal kitchens as a less expensive and more efficient way of feeding many people at the same time. The goal became to provide hot and wholesome food to people who, because of their unfortunate circumstances, were unable to cook for themselves. Besides the nutritional purpose of the Coffee House, Addams attempted to create a welcoming place where people of different backgrounds could dine, interchange ideas and experiences and sustain each other emotionally. Over the next few years, the Coffee House was expanded several times because of its popularity and so became a center of the social life of Hull House.

Perspectives on Diversity

During her time at Hull House, Addams became interested in “socialized education”, which was a consequence of her experience of working, eating, and living with immigrant communities and developed further into her internationalist views. Her original view that liberal arts “culture” could bring people together via literature and lectures was eventually replaced by the concept of community grounded on cultural differences. Hull House was unique in its characteristic multiculturalist outlook. While other settlement houses of the time concerned themselves with the “Americanization” of new arrivals, Addams attempted to maintain the diversity of the immigrant cultures.

In terms of philosophy, Addams was not convinced about holding fixed beliefs about reality that had not proved themselves in practical life and felt that an idea’s value was measured by how much it had contributed to human progress. This pragmatism is related to Addams’s progressive optimism. She refused to place unerring faith in any ideology; it was only the interconnection of action and ideas that would lead to both philosophical and practical progress. Knowledge of both and individual and collective nature was gained by testing theories by experience rather than starting out with any preconceived notions. Complex ideas were not yet complete until they are confirmed and realized by physical actions. Addams felt a lack of satisfaction with her own culture and felt that it could only be made complete by engaging with the cultures of immigrants of distinct ethnicities and cultures.

Lee pointed out (2011, p.66) that Jane Addams was clever at expanding opportunities for women and “women’s work” by embracing the role of “breadgiver”. This idea that women provided food to the needy preserved a gender difference but empowered women to enter public life in a productive manner. Previous settlement houses had been male-dominated institutions. By borrowing the “feminine” characteristics allotted to them by Victorian society, politically active women could justify their deviation from the then-current norms and expectations in a more acceptable way. In doing so, Addams contributed to the transformation of the concept of “womanhood” – taking the old notion of domesticity and resetting it in the new, socially active context.