The Catholic Half of Hull House

Today marks the death of Ellen Gates Starr (1859-1940), who along with Jane Addams founded Hull House in 1889 to help Chicago’s immigrant population. Born in Illinois, she was raised a Unitarian and studied at Rockford Female Seminary, where she first met Addams. For ten years she taught art and English in Chicago schools. Starr and Addams got the idea for Hull House from the settlement houses they saw while traveling in Europe. For thirty years, Starr directed cultural activities at Hull House. For her, art was a way of raising the human spirit. She was also an active participant in the labor movement who lobbied against child labor. She organized rallies and meetings, raised money for striking workers, walked picket lines, got arrested, and lobbied for labor legislation. In 1916 she ran for alderman on the Socialist Labor Party ticket, albeit unsuccessfully. Starr had become an Episcopalian in 1884, and in 1920 she was received into the Catholic Church. Her experience working with a largely Catholic immigrant population was an important influence, as were the American bishops’ statements on social justice (tune in Thursday for more on this). Paralyzed after a spinal operation, she spent the last ten years of her life at the Convent of the Holy Child in Suffern, New York. In 1935 she became a Third Order Benedictine, a layperson who tries to live out the order’s rule in his or her daily life. She is buried on the convent grounds.