EDUCATING THE EDUCATORS: Jane Addams, Hull-House, and Mutual Holistic Transformation

Mark Fender
Lakewood, California

In our class definitions of education, one common theme was the idea of knowledge transfer, of
the transmission of knowledge, skills, and values from the educator to the students. However, the story of
Jane Addams and Hull-House is one clear example that the transformation which occurs in the educational
process is mutual: the educator may well be changed as much as the students.
Jane Addams Personal Background
Louise Knight (2010) and Jane Hovde (1989) provide some helpful historical and personal
background on Jane Addams. Jane Addams was born in Cedarville, Illinois, in 1860. Her mother died when
Jane was only 2 years old, and she held her father in extremely high regard. Jane was a sensitive and
melancholy person, with a strong desire to avoid (or at least resolve) conflict. She struggled with her
growing ambition to gain a formal education which would allow her to serve others, an ambition that was in
tension with the more domestic service of her duty to her family. She was thus torn between the desire to
act in a way which relieved the suffering of others, and the social and familial obligations which prevented
such action.
Over time, however, helped along by influences like Leo Tolstoy and John Stuart Mill, that tension
was resolved in favor of action. The specific action Addams would take was influenced by Toynbee Hall.
Addams had initially been exposed to Toynbee Hall in a magazine article, where she learned that it was
located in Londons East End and led by Samuel Barnett, an Anglican clergyman. Approximately fifteen
young men, largely Oxford graduates, moved into this low-income area and established this settlement
house where lectures, clubs, and classes were offered to the people of the community. On a later trip to
Europe with her friend Ellen Gates Starr, Addams had an opportunity to visit Toynbee Hall. Addams and
Starr determined to create a similar establishment in Chicago (Knight, 2010, p. 57-65).
Addams work at Hull-House would become a platform for a career of social activism leading to
national and international prominence. Addams belief in social equality and democratic ideals led her to

advocate on a number of politically progressive fronts: child labor, immigrant rights, feminism (particularly
with regard to woman suffrage), and a staunch pacifism. Her numerous affiliations included the Womens
International League for Peace and Freedom, the NAACP, and the ACLU. She would ultimately be awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize.
Nature of Hull-House Settlement House
As noted above, Hull-House was established in imitation of Toynbee Hall of London, and it adopted
essentially the same approach. The stated purpose of Hull-House was to provide a center for a higher civic
and social life; to initiate and maintain educational and philanthropic enterprises and to investigate and
improve the conditions in the industrial districts of Chicago (Hull-House, 1896). Activities conducted there
included public entertainments such as stereopticon lectures, concerts, readings, and lectures. Plays
were performed. College extension classes were also conducted, including topics such as History of Art,
English, Latin and other languages, Elementary Algebra, and Elementary Lessons in Electricity and
Magnetism, with experiments (Hull-House, 1896).
A wide variety of social clubs were also offered at Hull-House, for both children and adults. Louise
Knight (Nlumarketing, 2012) provides a helpful description of these clubs. The classes were offered free of
charge. Anyone could form a club on any theme and with a name they chose, provided that they knew four
people who would join (with each individual club establishing the criteria for who could join). The clubs met
weekly, and they had to govern themselves (thus requiring the members to learn Roberts Rules of Order).
Childrens clubs needed an adult moderator, but children actually ran the meeting.
Hull-House also offered a coffee house; a nearby public playground; the services of a visiting nurse;
manual work such as drawing, embroidery, and cooking; and athletic classes and events (Hull-House,
1896).
In light of this range of activity, one interesting question about a settlement such as Hull-House is
this: whom is the Settlement really for? In one sense, of course, a social center such as the Hull-House
settlement is naturally for the people of the surrounding community. Addams herself described the
settlement as an experimental effort to aid in the solution of the social and industrial problems which are
engendered by the modern conditions of life in a great city (Addams, 2006, p. 88). She also refers to an

early belief that the mere foothold of a house, easily accessible, ample in space, hospitable and tolerant in
spirit, situated in the midst of the large foreign colonies which so easily isolate themselves in American cities,
would be in itself a serviceable thing for Chicago. (Addams, 2006, p. 64). So, it is clear that the
establishment of Hull-House as a settlement was designed to serve the interests of the industrial immigrant
community in which it was situated.
At the same time, there is no denying that part of the motive for establishing a settlement house
was for the well-being of its residents the privileged and educated classes who came to live there. It was
truly a transformative experience for them. Schultz (2003) asserts that residents of the settlement were
encouraged to immerse themselves in the problems of the working classes. This took very mundane forms,
as Addams relates: From the first it seemed understood that we were ready to perform the humblest
neighborhood services. We were asked to wash the new-born babies, and to prepare the dead for burial, to
nurse the sick, and to mind the children (Addams, 2006, p. 76). We have already seen that, for Addams,
this was an opportunity to express her compelling need to do something.
Not only, then, did the surrounding community benefit from this arrangement, but the privileged
residents themselves benefited, as well. Perhaps we could call the nature of this settlement immersive
mutual engagement. It was an intensely personal, sustained life-on-life meeting between the privileged
and underprivileged social classes that ultimately transformed both.
Educational Contribution of Hull-House
The breadth and diversity of philanthropic activities which took place at Hull-House may make it
initially difficult to identify clearly its specific contribution to adult education as such. Nevertheless, Rima
Lunin Schultz (2003) makes it clear that adult education was a high priority in Addams vision for Hull-House
as the place where this process of re-education and education about the democracy and the relationship of
classes and groups that peopled the United States could begin. Knight agrees that Hull-House was
essentially and primarily an educational institution imbued with a philosophy of learning that centered on
feeding ones curiosity and learning by doing (Nlumarketing, 2012).
Perhaps the clearest articulation of Addams philosophy of education comes in the chapter entitled
Educational Methods in her book Democracy and Social Ethics. Here it becomes clear that Addams

expects education to be a practical preparation for full civic life in line with the democratic ideal of social
equity. She asserts that she demand[s] the education of the many, that there may be greater freedom,
strength, and subtilty [sic] of intercourse and hence an increase of dynamic power (Addams, 1902, para. 1),
and that she is impatient with the schools which lay all stress on reading and writing, suspecting them to
rest upon the assumption that the ordinary experience of life is worth little (Addams, 1902, para. 3).
Education, according to Addams, is expected to respect and reflect the actual life experiences of the
students, with the goal of equipping them for comprehensive engagement in a democratic community. At
the same time, she recognizes that actual implementation has not yet attained to her ideal: Among the
many disappointments which the settlement experiment has brought to its promoters, perhaps none is
keener than the fact that they have as yet failed to work out methods of education, specialized and adapted
to the needs of adult working people in contra-distinction to those employed in schools and colleges, or
those used in teaching children (Addams, 1902, para. 20).
With regard to educational philosophy, there was clearly some level of influence between Addams
and John Dewey. Louise Knight suggests that Dewey and Addams agreed on the importance of learning
through experimentation, the understanding of learners as belonging to a social group where the
members assist each other in the learning process, the value of motivating learners to use creativity to solve
problems, and a vision of the child as a person with individual strengths which ought to be nurtured.
Knight suggests that Dewey was probably influenced by Addams, rather than the other way around
(Nlumarketing, 2012). Indeed, in his speech on The School as Social Center, Dewey himself refers to HullHouse as the working model upon which I am pretty continuously drawing (Dewey, 1902, p. 382).
It is clear, then, that Addams philosophy of education, which was evidently borne out in the
practices of Hull-House, was holistic in nature. In that sense, the breadth and diversity of activities at HullHouse was not a fog surrounding its educational contribution it was its educational contribution!
Education was for the whole person, and the whole of life.
Implications
In conclusion, it may be helpful to draw out some specific implications of the Hull-House experience
to the work of adult education. One issue is the relevance of social and geographical location as a factor in

educational effectiveness. It is worth reflecting on the extent to which the placement of Hull-House in
Chicagos Nineteenth Ward was itself a significant part of the contribution of Hull-House as an educational
institution. Is it even conceivable that Hull-House would have made the contribution it did if it were located
in another community, distant from the immigrants it sought to serve?
Another related issue worth contemplating, which emerges also in the textbook for this course, is
the idea of social justice as a driver for adult education. Clearly, Addams was driven by a desire to bring
culture and education to the masses of people who would not otherwise be able to access it. While at
times this may have a paternalistic feel to it, Knight argues firmly that Addams ultimately rejected the
patronizing ethic of benevolence (Knight, 2010, p. 96). Clearly, the political agenda that Addams would
ultimately pursue showed how much social justice permeated the atmosphere of Hull-House and indeed
Addams own life.
In fact, it may be argued that Hull-House became the crucible in which Jane Addams as the
progressive politician was ultimately formed. Certainly, many of the basic elements in who Jane Addams
would become were already in place, but it seems reasonable that the actual experience of living out her
ideals in intimate and shared community with a diverse range of people impelled the development of
Addams along the lines that would secure her place in history. Hull-House, then, emerges not only as an
agency of holistic social transformation within the community that it served, but also the locus of dramatic
personal transformation for those, like Addams, who served there.
Questions for Discussion
In response to this historical survey, we can discuss two major themes, one philosophical and one
personal:
To what extent does an instructor need to share the life experiences of the learners in order for the
educational process to be effectively learner-centered?
In what ways has your own life been transformed by your role as an educator and your interactions with
students?

Reference List
Addams, J. (1902). Educational Methods. In Democracy and Social Ethics [Kindle edition]. London: Macmillan
& Co., Ltd.
Addams, J. (2006). Twenty Years at Hull-House. Wickford, RI: North Books.
Dewey, J. (1902). The School as Social Center. In National Education Association Proceedings. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press. Retrieved from
http://tigger.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/urbanexp/main.cgi?file=new/show_doc.ptt&doc=537&chap
=57
Hovde, J. (1989). Jane Addams. New York: Facts on File.
Hull-House. (1896). Hull-House Bulletin, 1(1). Retrieved from
http://tigger.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/urbanexp/main.cgi?file=new/show_doc.ptt&doc=283&chap
=37
Knight, L. K. (2010). Jane Addams: Spirit in Action. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Nlumarketing. (2012, January 19). Louise Knight on Jane Addams the Progressive Educator [Video file].
Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFIKXt5Yg7I
Schultz, R. L. (2003). Hull-House and Education: Adult Education, Urban Experience in Chicago: Hull-House
and Its Neighborhoods, 1889-1963 [Website]. Retrieved from
http://tigger.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/urbanexp/main.cgi?file=new/subsub_index.ptt&chap=156