Ideals or Objectives of the Jane Addams Hull House and the Settlement House Movement: Analytical Essay

Question 1:

Provide an example of a contemporary organization that reflects the ideals or objectives of the Jane Addams Hull House and the Settlement House Movement. Describe ways in which the values and functions of that organization are consistent with Marx’s Ideas.

Answer to Question 1:

Contemporary organizations are organizations that strive on independent team and worker function where the employees of said company are empowered to figure out problems on their own without need for centralized control and corporate interference. An example of such an organization would be a company by the name of Greenwich House out of New York, New York. Greenwich House is a local New York based company that is known for finding and aiding individuals in need of housing in the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area. While Greenwich House has a narrowed down structure that helps to embody the ideas and objectives of the Jane Addams Hull House and the Settlement Movement as well as the values and functions of the famed Karl Marx’s ideas. Greenwich House is a nonprofit organization that strives on branched out individualism that manifests the ideas of Marx as well as the Jane Addams Hull house and the Settlement Movement.

Being a local organization that can reach across the New York metropolitan area, there is no corporate backing of Greenwich House allowing for increased individualism in every aspect of the organization. Known for its one hundred plus years of aiding families in finding housing as well as bettering and more fulfilling of these individuals lives, Greenwich House needs to have its volunteers and workers separate and individualize to better its own services and aid that it provides. Being as local as it is, Greenwich House is able to help to cover many individuals and families, weather they are from the larger sections of new York like the Bronx, Queens, Manhattan, Harlem and Brooklyn, to smaller sections of New Jersey like Hoboken, and even more rural and suburban areas outside of the larger cities; all of which have been received aid and had families and individuals helped by Greenwich House in the past. Greenwich House also dives deeper into these areas, not just helping with housing but in finding careers and bettering and helping to produce better life goals for the individuals that seek out Greenwich House’s help. Being a broad local organization in the New York area, Greenwich House needs to cover all these areas and more if it wants to aid as many people as it does. In order to do this, Greenwich House must have many smaller segments and sections that focus on each location and area of aid individually. From this, Greenwich House branches out these sections even more by having specialists, like an individual such as the Manhattan Marijuana Substance Abuse Advisor. This individual is focused on aiding those people with substance abuse problems, specifically in Manhattan and specifically than that, on the substance abuse of a drug such as Marijuana in that area of New York. While Greenwich House does have corporate guidelines to help lead this individual in the right direction to providing the best care possible, Greenwich House as a whole is not in control of what this employee does to better suit the people this individual is aiding. Greenwich House is a contemporary organization that branches out to a more individualized noncorporate backed structure that is focused on aiding individuals across the New York and New Jersey areas in any way that they can.

By having such a broad area of aid that they can provide, Greenwich House needs to have a set or ideals and objectives that can help them achieve their goals of bringing as much aid to their community as possible. These ideas fit right in with another organization in the Jane Addams Hull House and was even a part of a movement called the Settlement House Movement.

Jane Addams – the ‘Mother’ of Social Work

In the 1800’s, despite the fact that Social Work did not exist as such, Jane Addams (born in 1860), was illustrated as a feminist and activist, she believed in her own instincts and learned from her past experiences when with working with individuals who had desperate and complex needs for high quality care due to their current situations. Because of this she was most recognised as the ‘Mother’ of Social Work.

Jane was inspired to recreate Toynbee, the world’s first settlement house in London which she discovered whilst travelling with her friend Ellen Starr. Addams described what she witnessed at Toynbee as ‘’so unaffectedly sincere and so productive of good results in its classes and libraries that it seemed perfectly ideal” (Kington, 2020). Following Jane’s trip to London she along with her friend Ellen Starr opened Hull House, the first establishment in the U.S which would go on to help hundreds of individuals week in week out. Hull House mainly supported immigrants and the poor, providing them with health services, education, libraries, shelter and security. Jane thrived off helping those less fortunate and with nowhere to go so for her providing a sense of security for these individuals, where they would have access to social and educational opportunities was a way for her to try get equality across because she believed everyone was entitled to health, education, shelter and security no matter your wealth status, gender, race, ethnicity or age.

By 1900 Hull House had massively succeeded in a way that Addams had never expected, Hull House was helping over 2000 people each week and had expanded the resources that they provided including a pool, gym, book bindery and even day care for children of working mothers. Jane Addams was later joined in Hull House by Florence Kelly, Alice Hamilton, Julia Lathrop and several other social workers and feminists, collectively they provided disadvantaged individuals with numerous social programs, “including the immigrants protective league and juvenile protective association, alongside this these women helped enact protective legislation for women and children, child labour regulations and mandatory education laws” (A.Paul, 2020).

Alongside the work Jane did to help the less fortunate and people in need she received a Nobel Peace Prize in 1931. ‘’Jane began her public life as a leader of the U.S progressive era Social reform movement. She combined theory and action through her settlement work in the often, contentious, immigrant communities in Chicago. Addams developed innovative theories of democracy and peace, which were advanced through extensive public speaking engagements, 11 books and hundreds of articles” (Addams, 2002).

In the lead up to Jane’s final years her health seriously declined after she had a heart attack in 1926 despite this, she still spent the remainder of her life working at Hull House when she passed at 70 years old. Following Jane Addams death in 1935 she is remembered not only as a pioneer in the field of social work but as one of the nation’s leading pacifists. Jane showed compassion and genuine care when it was needed the most, she showed empathy and sympathy and set an example of how no one should be discriminated against. Jane Addams set high standards and procedures in which we now as social workers still follow to this day, she was everything a Social Worker should be.

Bibliography

  1. A.Paul, C., 2020. Jane Addams (1860 – 1935). [online] Social Welfare History Project. Available at: [Accessed 9 October 2020].
  2. Addams, J., 2002. Democracy And Social Ethics. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, page 7.
  3. Kington, A., 2020. Jane Addams: The Mother Of Social Work. [online] InterExchange. Available at: [Accessed 9 October 2020].

Integrating Major Bible Themes into Jane Addams’ Career and Personal Life

There are some important questions to ask ourselves as followers of Christ. What types of actions will help us maintain our relationship with God? This question is most simply answered as the 12 spiritual disciplines. I will be focusing on the discipline of service and how Jane Addams was an incredible example of how God wished to see His people serve others. Christ was the backbone of Jane Addams work with the poor, women’s suffrage, as a peace advocate during World War II.

Jane Addams was born in Cedarville, Illinois to a moderately wealthy Politian in 1860. She was a part of a large Christian family, raised mostly by her father due to her mother’s death during birth. She was highly educated and was the first in her class at Rockford Female Seminary, she went onto attend medical school, until her own health declined, causing her to drop out. After traveling to London, she was very inspired by their wonderful services provided for the poor, this is the spark that started her work with the women’s suffrage movement, the poor, and aiding the peace during the war.

Once she returned from England, she established the “Hull House” in the impoverished area of Chicago. Her goal for the Hull House was to help people living poverty by educating them. Her friend, Ellen Gates Star was also involved with the Hull House, they worked together to create a better community. They established a kindergarten and day-care for working mothers; provided job training, english language, cooking, and acculturation classes for immigrants; established a job-placement bureau, community center, gymnasium, and art gallery (Michals, 2017). Addams passion served her well when she helped develop the juvenile court system, better sanitation, and women and children labor laws. With all of her success with making a difference not only in her community, but nationally, may have fueled her future victories.

Jane Addams was the first woman to become president of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections, but her triumph did not end there. She went on to fighting for women’s rights during women’s suffrage movement as a columnist. She was a passivist, she started protesting World War II, she lost some popularity due to disapproval of her beliefs on the war. She became highly involved in a women’s peace group, which toured the countries at war, in hopes to spread peace. She helped in the establishment of the of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, until she died in 1935, from a heart attack that she never fully recovered from. But why did Jane Addams feel compelled to live a life of service?

Growing up in a Christian home, she sought out the gospel for career guidance. Although, she went through a time in her life when she questioned her faith. She turned to God and his actions presented through the gospel to model how she lived her life and decided on a vocation. Often, she was hesitant to include scripture in her speeches and writings, but she was determined to share the idea that the kingdom of God needed to better be reflected on earth. She internalized her faith for the most part, until she writes an article about her struggling with anxiety, in which she touches on three scriptural passages that resonated with her.

Her continuous effort and success in the discipline of service was extremely beneficial, not only for her but the people she positively affected. Addams worked as the hands and feet of Jesus on this earth, she did incredibly work for many. She most likely led the people she helped into the loving arms of Christ and gave them hope. I think a perfect example to describe the command that Jesus gave them can be represented in John 13:1-17, when Jesus tells the disciplines to wash one another’s feet as He has done. I could imagine that this verse may have stood out to her as to what God was calling her to do.

Addams was able to integrate the spiritual discipline of guidance into her life as well. She turned to the word of God for vocational advice. She was always interested in serving the poor, so she felt it was crucial that her work reflects that. I could assume that she saw in scripture that as followers of Christ we must trust God’s plan, as well as love one another.

Integrating major biblical themes into her career created nothing less than a fulfilling life for Jane Addams. Overall, Addams did not always receive praise for her work, but she continued doing it because she God compelling her to do so. Her journey is inspiring, because it is a great example how we must trust God with every aspect of our lives and live as He intended us to.

Hull House as the Nation’s Most Influential Settlement House

Money. Food. Education. Jobs. Homes. Hygiene. All of which are of utmost importance for Americans, yet are being wrongfully denied to immigrants of our country. Immigrants are constantly forced into low-paying unskilled labor, demanding and tiresome work shifts, and cramped tenements swamped with disease. These conditions not only affect their lives but future generations as well, plunging thousands of immigrants and their families into poverty. The “land of opportunity” that people once sought when coming to America is no longer a promise. Instead, the conditions of life for immigrants can be worse than what they’d arrived with.

Jane Addams, a renowned social and political reformer, decided to take this crisis into her own hands. In 1889, Addams founded Hull House on Chicago’s West Side (a largely Italian immigrant neighborhood) with her companion Ellen Gates Starr. Hull House is one of the first of social settlements, which are essentially non-profit “community welfare centers” that address the problems of the urban poor, fundraise money for emergencies, and help advocate for citizens’ labor rights. Since the past decade that Hull House has been established, it has brought sweeping changes to the standards of life for immigrants, women, and children as well.

When asked where she got the idea for Hull House in a conversation with Jane Addams, she said it came partly from Toynbee Hall: a London settlement that Addams and Starr had visited while touring Europe. According to Addams, Florence Kelley, who has made important reforms regarding women and child labor, also greatly influenced the mission of Hull House. However, as Addams became acquainted with her new neighbors she realized that working-class Americans already knew what they needed. What they lacked were resources and a political voice to fulfill those needs, and settlement workers try to provide exactly that. For example, Hull House offered a bathhouse, playground, kindergarten, and day care center, where working mothers can leave their children while they earn extra money for their families.

Addams taught immigrants the skills and knowledge they need to survive, and implemented various legislations to make factory work safer, set child labor laws, and enforce anti-drug laws. She transformed Hull House into a meeting place for clubs and labor unions as well as a center for women’s activism and social reform, as she actively encouraged local women to inspect the neighborhood and bring back a list of dangers to health and safety. By offering jobs to well-educated, middle-class women, the settlement also gived women opportunities to use their education to earn money and support themselves better. As Dr. Alice Hamilton, at the pediatric clinic at Hull House, wrote: “Addams came to see her settlement as a bridge between the classes … this bridge was as much of a help to the well-to-do as to the poor”. Settlements offered immigrantsa place where they could live as neighbors and give as much as they could of what they had.”

Serving as the initial spark for community improvement and political reform, Hull House fostered the operation of dozens of social settlements across the United States. Most of our families, if not all, were immigrants to America at some point in time. It is our responsibility to ensure their safety and health in a foreign land where they know no one but their own families. Social settlements are doing exactly that and much more.

Jane Addams’ Contributions to Society

Jane Addams was born in Cedarville, Illinois on September 6th of 1860. She graduated in 1881, from Rockford Female Seminary, and was at the top of her class. After graduation, Addams wanted to take advantage of the fact that she was educated and put her education to use. Addams attempted to study medicine, and after this was unsuccessful she discovered something she was very passionate about. In 1888, Addams visited Toynbee Hall, a settlement house in London, and instantly knew that she wanted to help found the first settlement house in the United States. Addams and a close friend, Ellen Gates Starr, set out on a mission to do so.

Professional Experience

  1. 1889 – Founded the Hull House.
  2. 1902 – Published Democracy and Social Ethics.
  3. 1907 – Published Newer Ideals of Peace.
  4. 1909 – Helped establish the NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Was also elected the first female President of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections.
  5. 1910 – Published Twenty Years at Hull House.
  6. 1911-1914 – Vice President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, was also the head of the National Federation of Settlement and Neighborhood Centers.
  7. 1915 – Helped to establish Woman’s Peace Party, was the first Chairman of this organization.
  8. 1919-1929 – Founded the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, was the president of this organization.
  9. 1930 – Published The Second Twenty Years at Hull House.
  10. 1931 – Was the first female to ever receive a Nobel Peace Prize.

Reform Movement Career & Contributions

Addams helped establish the Hull House in Chicago, this was the first settlement house in the United States. Settlement houses offered aid to residents of poorer areas, they hoped to alleviate poverty. They also offered support to European immigrants, such as education and healthcare. Addams later helped to establish many organizations that benefited women, immigrants, African Americans, and lower class citizens. Addams helped establish the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National American Woman Suffrage Association, Woman’s Peace Party, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Other Notable Information

Addams played a major role in the political campaign of Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. She was also involved with the establishment of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920. After Addams helped found the Hull House in 1889, many well-known reformers and social workers came to stay there; Florence Kelley, Julia Lanthrop, Grace Abbott, and Edith Abbott were just a few of these people.

Hobbies and Interests

Addams enjoyed writing books in her free time, she wrote several books related to her area of reform. She also enjoyed working with labor unions when she was not focusing on her main goals. Addams fought for an 8 hour workday for women, factory inspections, workers’ compensation, and tenement house regulation. Addams had many passions and areas of reform which she supported, but her main interest was world peace.

Major Accomplishments

One of Addams’s greatest accomplishments was becoming the first woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize. Being a feminist, it was of great importance to Addams that women be treated as equals; winning a Nobel Peace Prize was something a woman had never accomplished before, Addams opened the door for many other women to follow in her footsteps. Addams also opened the first settlement house in the United States, this was very important to Addams being that she was a social reformer. Addams also helped establish the Woman’s Peace Party and later became the first Chairman of this organization. Not only were these accomplishments major for Addams, but also for those who were benefited by them. Addams founded many organizations that ultimately fought for peace, and even served as an important official for many of these organizations.

Bibliography

  1. “Jane Addams.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 9 July 2019, https://www.biography.com/activist/jane-addams.
  2. “About Jane Addams.” Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, https://www.hullhousemuseum.org/about-jane-addams.
  3. Michals, Debra. “Jane Addams.” National Women’s History Museum, https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/jane-addams.
  4. “Timeline of Jane Addams’ Life.” Timeline of Jane Addams’ Life, http://castle.eiu.edu/wow/classes/fa07/jatimeline.html.
  5. Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Jane Addams.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2 Sept. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jane-Addams.

Analysis of Maria Montessori’s Views: Background and Cultural Context, Philosophy of Education, Theory to Practice

The fundamental questions that have been central to educational philosophy and reform since ancient times appear to boil down to the debate regarding teaching being either an art or a science and the philosophic dilemma regarding the role of the teacher in the classroom. The pendulum in these debates usually swung from the teacher-centered standards or curricula based philosophies to child-centered progressive classrooms. Maria Montessori developed a philosophic method that combines the scientific approach of developmental milestones, emphasis on teacher training and classroom organization, and child-centered exploration of the environment.

Background and Cultural Context

The beginning of the 20th century was marked with Global devastation caused by several wars, economic upheaval, natural disasters, and political turmoil. The early 1900s were also a period of monumental scientific, cultural, and educational advancement. Education reform was influenced by the work of such diverse intellectual movements as Constructivism, Darwinism, Marxism, Nationalism, and the Progressive Movement. This new reality was the world of Maria Montessori, a world of constant change and upheaval.

A contemporary of Jane Addams, Montessori also challenged gender, social and educational barriers (Gutek, p.388). Education in Italy was primarily a privilege of the upper socio-economic and aristocratic classes, and even then, was focused more on rote learning than critical thinking. Additionally, women during this period had certain well-defined vocational expectations and were discouraged from attending more advanced education opportunities.

As a physician, Montessori began to study child development and “developed ideas on the education of mentally retarded children” (p.393). From this research, she developed the ideas that would guide her first school, which was located in one of Rome’s poorest sections. She believed that since “more women of all socio-economic classes would join the workforce” (p.394)., early childhood programs would become increasingly important.

The society upheaval caused by two world wars resulted in the philosophic and educational communities to begin to think about global, rather than local, consequences. Education was “no longer to be thought of merely as a way of providing the most basic of skills or as reinforcing social roles and expectation” (Howlett, 2016). Philosophers, Theorists and Education Reformers began to collaborate and cooperate through international conferences and correspondence, allowing ideas to spread and evolve at an alarming rate. Due to this collaboration and incorporation of ideas into education practice, many eclectic schools of thought began to emerge.

Philosophy of Education

Combining approaches from her experience as a physician, research on child development, and educational theory, Maria Montessori based her philosophy of education on a combination of previous believed that education is the “study of the construction of the human being through the child who constructs the man-to-be through experience” ((lecture 1). Montessori believed that the function of education was “not as a means to deliver information, but as a way to help humanity” through the development of the whole person” (Lillard, 2018).

Due to her medical training, Montessori believed in using objective data to guide teaching. Montessori stated repeatedly that “the problem is to develop the science of education. Measuring ears, noses, chests, etc., measuring mental development, etc., will not help us educate. There is something essential lacking in all these attempts: pedagogy” (Montessori, 1946). She wrote that the purpose of her method was that the philosophy of education would transition from people “taking exams and proceeding on that certification from the secondary school to the university” to a mindset “of individuals passing from one stage of independence to a higher” (Montessori, 1948). Her education philosophy is profoundly predicated on “Teacher preparation, parent involvement, and classroom preparation,” combined with an understanding of child developmental milestones, which allows children to explore and learn from their environment. In this sense, the Montessori teacher or parent is more of a facilitator and mentor than expert lecturing on a subject. The teacher’s primary responsibility is setting up the environment for the child’ learning and sensory experiences, not direct instruction. According to Montessori, the only two critical elements needed for education to occur were the child and the child’s environment (Gutek, p. 401).

Dr. Montessori was also heavily influenced by the educational theories of Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, Edouard Séguin, Fredrick Froebel, Pesstazi, and to a lesser extent Jean-Jacque Rousseau. Each of these philosophers advocated a child-directed philosophy of education. Itard and Séguin both viewed a combination of “nature and nurture” in child development. They also were instrumental in the formation of Montessori’s method utilizing observation to develop students’ senses and incorporating a sensory rich learning environment for children (O’Donnell, 2007). Similarly, Montessori adopted the beliefs that empirical observation, specialized education techniques and the use of self-correct education materials and equipment were the solutions in the education of all students (Gutek, p. 303). From the work of Pestalozzi and Froebel, Dr. Montessori assimilated the concepts of included “movement, field trips, and differentiated instruction into her methodology (Massey, 2006).

Montessori theorized that children go through three distinct developmental periods and that “most effective learning takes place in a structured and orderly environment” (p. 394). She believed that this construction of the individual occurs in stages. Montessori identified the age ranges of child development as between 0-6, 6-12, and 12-18 years (lecture 4); however, she then divided each of these periods in half again. She called these “sensitive periods-periods in psychological development during which the child has powerful capabilities” (Lecture 3). She ascribes attributes and characteristics specific to each stage. She also states that individual skills and information can be taught at each step, and fatigue signifies that we are teaching the “wrong knowledge at the wrong time” (Lecture ). She strongly asserted that in her experience, children are intrinsically motivated to learn.

To facilitate an environment that is conducive for learning, Montessori developed “four operational principles to guide learning.” Her overarching principles allowed children to explore their environment and to respect other children’s rights to work with the material of their own choice. She postulated that by following these principles, attention skills would develop naturally by accomplishing tasks, and learning would occur by repeating skills until they are mastered (Gutek, 2010).

Dr. Montessori described her method as not based on ideological theories, but “based on our ability to interpret our observations of those phenomena which originate in the child himself” (Montessori, 1946). She repeatedly wrote and trained others to follow the child’s lead, rather than expect the child to conform to a rigid curricula developed by adults. She was adamant that her methods originated through her own experiences and observations.

On January 26, 1907, Montessori opened the aforementioned “Casa dei Bambini” and the success of this school lead to opening more schools. Within three years, Montessori had opened schools throughout Europe and written a book detailing her method of teaching. By 1911, the first Montessori school opened in the United States and she began speaking at international conferences (American Montessori Method).

The Montessori Method was designed to “develop competencies in three broad areas: Practical life skills, motor and sensory training, and more formal literary and computational skills and subjects” (Gutek, p. 395). She incorporated materials used to stimulate sensory experiences, and formulated an order in which they should be used. Rows of desks were replaced with movable tables and chairs, and children were placed in multi-age groups rather than traditional age base levels. Hands-on activity centers were also introduced rather than rote learning experiences based on memorization of lectures.

A key distinction of the Montessori Method from the traditional classroom of the day was in the role of the teacher. Montessori teachers were trained to be facilitators and mentors rather than transmitters of knowledge. Dr. Montessori labeled her teachers, “Directresses” due to they were to “direct, or guide, children’s learning without interfering in it” (Gutek, p. 402). These “Directresses” establish the learning environment and monitor children’s readiness for progression in their learning. Dr. Montessori also discouraged whole group instruction and encouraged differentiation of all lessons.

Montessori schools are divided into age based groupings, encourage discovery learning and emphasis children working in collaborative groups.

Perspectives on Diversity

Maria Montessori began her career in education with the belief that No matter to what race they belong, in which part of the world they are born, newborns are all alike” (Montessori, 1946). This ideology was central to her beliefs, her message and her method. In fact, Montessori implemented her first school in Rome’s San Lorenzo Quarter, which was among the poorest sections of the city (Gutek, p. 394). Additionally, Montessori remained a vocal advocate for “the improvement of women’s social and economic status” (Gutek, p. 392) over the course of her career. Montessori was also quite vocal on her belief that “In order to have empathy between the different classes of society and between the different cultures, we must mix the children of the different classes and countries” (Montessori, 1946).

In a study completed based on demographic information from the 2012-2013 school year found that national enrollment in public schools teaching a Montessori curriculum had a higher rate of minority enrollment than traditional public schools (Deb, 2016). Additionally, other researchers have found that “Communities such as Milwaukee and Chicago are now implementing Montessori education through public schools as part of school reform efforts making the educational approach more accessible to African American children” (Jor’dan, 2018).