A handful of facts and misunderstandings about Jane Addams and the Hull House in Chicago on Halsted St:

  • Hull is the name of the man who built the mansion which still exists. Hull sold the house to Jane Addams and had no further involvement in the establishment.
  • The mansion housed the workers of Hull House and not the immigrant population it served.
  • The renovated mansion on UIC property looks the way it does now because of an artist’s rendering; the house never looked like this until a guy painted it that way and the University built it to look like the painting.
  • Jane Addams was most likely a lesbian.
  • Jane Addams was a huge rabble-rouser, protesting against the first world war and promoting legislation to give women the right to vote.

I learned all of this on a brief, recent trip to the museum located inside the mansion and its annex in the original detached dining room.

Related links about Hull House:

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