The Closing of Hull House

By Janlee Wong, MSW

Usually March Social Work

Month is a time to laud the

accomplishments of professional

social work and inspire us to rise up to

the many challenges that continue to

exist in an unjust society.

At the beginning of this Social Work

Month, we have sad news to report that

the Hull House programs and services

(not the museum) in Chicago closed

down in the last days of January. We

don’t know the whole story as to why,

but financial difficulties were certainly

one of the problems.

After 120 years of Hull House, life

has indeed come full circle. Hull House

started with no money, a generous donor

who rented the house for $1, and the

incredible dedication of Jane Addams,

Ellen Gates Starr and many others.

The closure of Hull House allows us to

rethink that same origin that our modern

founders started with.

Will we see the demise of publicly

funded services with deficit and budget

hawks unrelenting? Probably not,

because the social welfare system that

has been built over the last 120 years isn’t

going away. All of Hull House’s accomplishments

and its ideas for a just and

humane society have spread throughout

the country to the modern welfare state

that we have today.

What Hull House’s closure does tell

us that while some of us in the nonprofit

and government sectors might feel we’re

starting off where Jane was 120 years

with no money, we still have a large array

of services that she didn’t have. What it

means for social workers is that we have

a chance to rethink and reinvent what we

are doing.

Jane and her contemporaries had to

learn what worked and what didn’t. After

120 years, professional social workers

have the benefit of research, higher education

and experience. Along the way we

have become more sophisticated and scientific

about our approach.

Hull House’s legacy is not programs

and services, it’s us; it’s professional

social work. Thank you Jane and happy

Social Work Month.
 

Jane Addams c.1934 ((JAMC 58)
Photo Credits: University of Illinois at Chicago, University Library, Department of Special Collections, Jane Addams Memorial Collection


reprinted with permission.