Throughout Jane Addams Twenty Years at Hull House, Addams expresses her views regarding poverty, socialized education, and social clubs in response to the influences of her experiences in adolescence. Her views regarding the aforementioned issues faced by Hull House have apparent ties to her childhood experiences surrounding her relationship and interactions with her father.
Jane’s perceptions of poverty related to the misunderstandings regarding the source of poverty and the handling of poverty. She felt that the problem of poverty was not a matter of not having money; it was a manner of behavior that prevents an individual or family from having money. Whereas a person may have sought help because they believed they were not making enough money, the root of the problem may have been their spouses’ spending habits. Whereas a person may have sought out the hull house for help because they did not earn enough money to provide for their family, the real issue may have been the alcoholism of a parent who is unable to work, or an injury due to dangerous working conditions preventing a source of income to provide for another mouth to feed that cannot monetarily contribute to the family (85). As is reflected through the behaviors she exhibited throughout her constant anecdotes, Jane Addams felt that if a person has the means to help another person, they should try their best to do so. Her “Curious sense of responsibility for carrying on the world’s affairs” seems to have been brought about by her knowledge of her father’s humble beginnings (2). Jane idolized her father and viewed him as a paradigm of the Christian role model. In her conscious or subconscious mission to be like the man she idolized, she felt it was her duty to help those suffering from poverty, helping them to get to the root of their monetary problems and determine ways to lessen the severity of their predicament.
Addams’ reflections on socialized education also reflect her desire to live up to her father’s legacy of epitomized Christian values. Just as he taught Sunday bible school in his spare time because it was within his means to do so, Jane Addams felt that education should be made available to those who could not otherwise attain it by those who have it within their means to make it possible. She advocated socialized education’s affordability and accessibility to all people (3). Because the lessons learned in socialized education programs pertained to the experiences of the students’ every day lives, Addams believed the education they received through socialized educational institutions was an excellent means of self improvement; where immigrants can learn English, newlyweds learn to cook and keep house, the illiterate learn to read, adolescents learn vocational skills, etc. (232)
Jane Addams felt strongly about the need for social clubs in communities especially where there was a large population of impoverished families. Social clubs allowed children to break up the monotony of their day after working in factories, allows loners to navigate new social networks, provide a safe place for children to benefit from the experiential education of literature clubs, ethnic clubs, dance clubs, debate clubs, etc (227, 192). Jane Addams saw these clubs as a wonderful tool for keeping youths away from the temptations of such demoralizing places as public dance clubs, because at these social clubs the participant’s were supervised and their behavior monitored (186). These clubs allowed character development that Addams felt was necessary for self improvement, and seems to have subconsciously wished to be a role model of virtuous behavior in her compassionate servitude to the Hull House. She hoped to serve as a positive influence in the lives of people who were in impoverished and oftentimes abused or neglected predicaments through her example of living in a morally upstanding and compassionate manner. Just as her father taught her to live up to the standards of Christian values, Jane Addams wished to use social clubs to help their participants to improve their lives based on building virtuous temperaments. Whether through meeting people from other neighborhoods and ethnicities to break racial stereotypes, breaking up the monotony of a working child’s day and providing them with the strength and perseverance to carry on, or providing a temporary escape for people who live in vile conditions, social clubs were the epitome of Jane Addams mission; educating, protecting, improving, character building and entertaining those in poverty from various levels of education. [1]
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