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.
