Empowering Immigrants: Jane Addams Crusade for Social Justice in Chicagos 19th Ward

Abstract

Age of Reforms According to Jane Adams, the social workers opposed everything Johnny power stood for which led her to starting a settlement house in the 19th ward in Chicago (Pg 80). Though her background was not different from Johnny powers, Adams studied Christian principles and shared the need to live to high purpose and fight social injustices through law reforms. In 1884, Hull House was set in the worst ward of Chicago which inspired most of its neighbors. Hull house organized for kindergartens for the desperate working mothers, boys club for gangs on streets and offered to bathe all babies at no cost. The neighbors got inspired by Hull House services and started spending most of their times in it reading Shakespeare’s, discussion socialism and asking for volunteer midwifes. Life started having a meaning for the 19th ward residents and with no time, Hull House flocked with such residents interested in understanding their personal histories (Pg 80). Many visited Hull house to understand why life was so unbearable in the 19th ward as compared to other wards in Chicago. Jane Adams associated rising poverty, crime rates, inhabitable environment and overcrowded schools to the bossy powers exercised in Chicago that aimed at humiliating immigrants. She considered alderman/Johnny powers as abusive to the immigrants’ social rights (Pg 82). Hull house offered bathtubs and showers for the residents since the sewer lines merged with the water lines which aimed at reducing disease outbreaks that the 19th ward residents were experiencing. Soon Adams gained national reputation and became a grandmother of social settlement by 1895 (Pg 82). By the end of the 19th century, reputable Europeans regularly visited Hull House with 200000 neighbors visiting on weekly basis to participate in activities like philosophy and 19th ward improvement association. Adams social approach aimed at offering immigrants a chance to speak out social injustices they were experiencing in the hands of Johnny powers. Adams unveiled how life is about in American urban slums and the injustices coined around political powers transferred from the Old to the New world. Her aim to make 19th ward clean and habitable led her to become a garbage inspector with her book “ Hull House Maps and Papers” published in 1895 detailing sociological problems endured by American immigrates in the 90s (Pg 82) Johnny power was not taking care of...