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Addams, Jane. The subjective value of a social settlement. [United States : s.n., between 1892 and 1894].
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THE SUBJECTIVE VALUE OF A SOCIAL
SETTLEMENT.
[REPRINTED FROM " THE FORUM " FOR NOVEMBER, 1892.]
Hull House, which was Chicago's first Settlement, was
established in September, 1889. It represented no association,
but was opened by two women, backed by many friends, in the
belief that the mere foothold of a house, easily accessible,
ample in space, hospitable and tolerant in spirit, situated in the
midst of the large foreign colonies which so easily isolate themselves
in American cities, would be in itself a serviceable thing
for Chicago. It was opened on general Settlement lines, in the
conviction that along those lines many educated young people
could find the best outlet for a certain sort of unexpressed
activity. Hull House is neither a University Settlement nor
a College Settlement : it calls itself a Social Settlement, an attempt
to make social intercourse express the growing sense of
the economic unity of society. It is an attempt to add the
social function to democracy. It was opened on the theory
that the dependence of classes on each other is reciprocal ; and
that as the social relation is essentially a reciprocal relation, it
gave a form of expression that has peculiar value.
I attempt in this paper to treat of the subjective necessity
for a Social Settlement ; to analyze, as nearly as I can, the
motives that underlie a movement which I believe to be based
not only on conviction, but on genuine emotion. I have
divided the motives which constitute the subjective pressure
toward Social Settlements into three great lines : the first contains
the desire to make the entire social organism democratic,
to extend democracy beyond its political expression ; the
second is the impulse to share the race life, to bring as much
as possible of social energy and the accumulation of civiliza-