Crowded Streets

The maps and pictures and diagrams of the neighborhood surrounding Hull House make one thing very apparent, the streets were very crowded. House was built next to house, block after block, seemingly as far as the eye could see.

Not only were the streets crowded in terms of buildings they were also crowded in the sense that a magnitude of diverse people inhabited that area. From the ethnicity maps its apparent that the Hull House neighborhood was as ethnically diverse as you could see. Italians, Greeks, Russians, Persians, any nationality that you could think of was represented. For the most part the ethnicities were evenly spaced out. When looking at the maps you can see blocks of this ethnicity and that, but between these blocks there is no separation or buffer.

The most interesting diagrams for me were the ones that looked at the wage make up of the Hull House neighborhood. I would have thought that those with high wages would live far away from those with the lowest wages. Instead the wages seem to be very evenly spaced out. The color map shows a rainbow of colors on each block representing the different wage groups. This calls to mind a conversation I had with my older brother after he had been living in Costa Rica. He told me that big cities are different from big cities here because there seems to be no real separation of rich and poor. He told me that on any given street there would be expensive high rises and run down shanties. Possibly this fusion of rich and poor is the trait of a place that is still in its development stage.

Hull House

The question of the religious content in the social work of Hull house is a difficult question. Adams states in the beginning of her book that she grew up a Quaker and that her dad, who had a great influence on her, was the teacher of her Sunday school. With this nugget of information in mind, its hard not to see her social work as an outpouring of her religious upbringing and an exclamation of her spirituality.

While this conclusion is hard to overcome, upon closer examination Adams social work has little real religious connection. Adams in dealing with peoples from across the globe and of many faiths, had to try her best to remain neutral when it came to subject of religion. Hull House didn't provide church or Sunday school to its guests, but instead provided education and protection to the poor residents of Chicago.

Although helping the poor and downtrodden are very Christian characteristics, they are most certainly not unique to the religion. It might be better put that work done at Hull House showed characteristics thought of as good by any faith, or any person. Its a testament to Adams and all who helped at Hull House that strong religious sentiments were kept inside, and love and care and devotion were shown on the outside for all to see.