ABSTRACT

In 1889, Jane Addams formed an open community of action oriented social-solution facilitators called “Hull-House residents.” Society practiced a cruel “survival of the fittest” in which workers starved, and died under heavy hand of management with the full backing of the law, policy, and military. In legal terms, Addams operated in a time known as “Lochnerism,” a period from 1890 until 1937 when the US Supreme Court actively struck down state and federal regulations to curb abusive working condition in factories, mines, and in other places of employment. Addams recognized, along with other progressives of her era, that wealth constituted something more than resources extracted from land, which often consumed and destroyed communities in the name of “investment.” Addams developed Hull-House to become a community center that not only honored the diversity of cultural mores among neighbors but also facilitated their incorporation into Chicago.