Jane Addams and Lillian Wald
Jane Addams and Lillian Wald were well known social reformers from the late 19th/early 20th centuries. Their reforms made them powerful agents for widespread social change, but they are best known for their success with settlement houses. The rapid urban population growth during the late 1800s led to a menagerie of social and political problems. One of the greatest of these was the problem of housing in immigrant neighborhoods and a lack of social services available to them. During this period, urban reformers stressed environmental impact on individual development, claiming the crowded immigrant neighborhoods caused distress to their inhabitants. (Brinkley 521)
Above, a typical New York immigrant neighborhood.
The solution that first Jane Addams, and later Lillian Wald offered was the idea of settlement houses. The main motive of settlement houses was to help ease immigrants into the workforce by teaching them American values. They also sought to weaken the grip of poverty, by offering social services such as medical care, public kitchens and baths, and education and/or care for immigrant children (3).
Jane AddamsJane Addams is one of the best known social reformers in the field of settlement housing. In 1889, she opened Hull House in Chicago's Near West Side. The Hull House would become a model for hundreds of similar houses to follow. Addams won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.
|
Lillian WaldLillian Wald opened Henry Street Settlement later than Addams, in 1893 on the Lower East Side of New York City.
|
Similarities
Both women pushed for reforms both within and without the realms of immigration, and their efforts led to many laws, policies, and social conditions to be changed. The also shared a common goal in their settlement houses: to offer social services to immigrants in their respective cities, and to help them advance in an unfamiliar culture.
Differences
Chicago
Hull House is no longer operating in the same capacity as it used to. The facilities were displaced in the 1960s by the University of Illinois's urban campus. Some social services are still offered under the umbrella organization: Jane Addams Hull House Association. (4) Addams's emphasis was mainly on providing social services in general, but also offered medical care. |
New York
Henry Street Settlement is still operating today, offering opportunities to New Yorkers just as it did when Lillian Wald was head worker. (5) Lillian Wald's settlement house put most of its resources into medical care for immigrants, offering travelling nurse services to its surrounding community. |
Effectiveness
The reforms from and through settlement houses in the 20th century made a large and lasting impact on our modern society. Not only did settlement houses such as Hull House and Henry Street offer beneficial resources to immigrants; Addams, Wald, and their respective employees went on to make other social improvements such as school nurses, juvenile detention, and public playgrounds. Both members of the Progressive Party played a large part in many of the other larger reforms made by their party.
Consequences
- Stemming from the creation of settlement houses was the new occupation of social worker, which soon became a part of many university curriculum, and offered women another 'acceptable' line of work outside of teaching.
- Hull House became a model for future houses, like Henry Street.
- Settlement houses also made it much easier to conduct social studies, such as the one pictured below, taken from the Hull-House Maps and Papers.
Hull House Map (Nationalities), 1895 (4)