EIGHTY YEARS AT HULL-HOUSE

by Allen F. & Mary Lynn McCree--Eds. Davis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 21, 1969

Eighty years and some 100 illustrations of the House on Halsted Street by the people famous and not-so-famous who founded it, visited for a while, took up residence, used its facilities, and admired and cursed it from afar. The preponderance of pieces from the first decade and a half of the twentieth century portray Hull-House at the peak of its reputation and influence, but the collection covers the whole story from ""First Days"" by Jane Addams herself to the forced move in 1963 to make room for university expansion to a postcript about 1969 financial difficulties. The face of the neighborhood alters dramatically over the years, and Hull-House is never static in its response to changing times. The editors recognize that Hull-House probably had a greater impact on the resident volunteers than on those they came to help, lament how few tangible results so much energy has wrought in this one urban neighborhood, but stress its immeasurable contribution to the American liberal-progressive reform movement and to the lives of the many who passed through it. Many of the articles reflect the attempts to grapple with contemporary problems of urban poverty: tenement house manufacture, child labor, juvenile delinquency, drugs, and housing. Others are on the order of Art Work, Basketball, Bookbinding, and Christmas at Hull-House. Some reveal the settlement's role as a center for research ranging from John Dewey's ""The School as Social Center"" to ""The Social Value of the Saloon."" All in all it is a bountiful tribute to the Mecca of social service.

Pub Date: Nov. 21, 1969

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Quadrangle

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1969

Categories: NONFICTION