Jane Addams
In the late 1800s, conditions in the
ghettoes of major cities were
awful. Unfortunately, the poor
immigrants that lived in these
neighborhoods received very little
help from the government. The
city governments of big cities like
New York and Chicago were run by
corrupt1 politicians. The
immigrants could only hope to get
help from private citizens. Below is
the story of Jane Addams, one
citizen who worked tirelessly to
help improve the lives of
immigrants in Chicago.
This is the
United States
of America, the
land of
immigrants!
Unless you are
an Indian, your
ancestors came
from
somewhere
else, and yet
people are so
a Chicago slum
quick to forget.
People treat
these new immigrants like they are yesterday’s trash. The
1
corrupt: dishonest, thieving
conditions that the poor immigrants must endure are disgusting.
Not only do the adults work horrible jobs, but many of their
children must work in order for the family to survive. I’ve seen
eight-year-old children working in a factory for 14 hours a day. I
have seen these children lose fingers, arms, and legs in factory
machines. This no life for a child! But the immigrants can’t get
help from the city. Chicago is run by gangsters and thieves. The
political machine here is only interested in making money for
themselves. A political machine is a group of politicians who steal
money from the city. They stay in power by buying votes from
influential people, but they don’t do much to help the poor
people of our city. The low-down, dirty, scumbag mayor of
Chicago is probably richer than John D. Rockefeller! But even if
the government won’t do anything to help the immigrant families,
I will. I have
started a
settlement
house2 called
Hull House. Hull
House is a place
where poor
immigrant
families can
come to get the
help they need.
Hull House in Chicago
We help new
immigrants find
a good job, and we have a day care to watch the children of
parents that have to work. We have an after-school program to
take care of children until their parents get home from work. We
have nutrition classes to teach parents and children about eating
2
settlement house: a place where immigrants can receive help
healthy food. We even have a choir that the children can join.
They put on concerts for their parents four times a year! We also
go to the Chicago city government and ask them to do something
to help the immigrant workers. We want an eight-hour workday
for the workers, and we want to make child labor illegal. We want
the companies to pay the immigrants a decent amount of money
so their children don’t have to work 14 hours a day. Most of the
time the city doesn’t bother to pay attention to us, but they can’t
ignore us forever. Eventually we will win fair treatment for every
worker, but until then Hull House will continue to help immigrant
families every way we can.