Jane Addams Hull House Effect on Chicago Mexican Immigrants

Transcription

1 Jane Addams Hull House Effect on Chicago Mexican Immigrants [Document subtitle] Megan Hernandez Division: 715

2 Since the beginning of the 1900s, Mexicans have come to the Midwest of the US to prosper as successful individuals. It wasn't until Jane Addams Hull House that Mexican migrants were provided the proper support to be able to become the successful individuals they wished to be. Jane Addams, along with her Hull House is one of the most influential leaders in Chicago during the beginning of the 20th century. Her legacy was so effective across a wide range of immigrants that even today Hull Houses legacy lives on in Chicago. Jane Addams Hull House impacted almost all Chicago immigrants. Her leadership and the Houses legacy provided an environment for Chicago Mexican immigrants to forge a significant identity in Chicago. 1 Jane Adams traveled to London to visit Toynbee Hall, a settlement house, in Settlement houses were created to provide community services to ease urban problems like poverty. Inspired by the Toynbee Hall, in 1889, Addams and her lifelong friend, Ellen Starr, rented a run-down mansion as pictured to the right owned by Charles Hull that stood in one of Chicago's industrial areas. 2 Addams and Starr hoped Hull House would bring light into people's lives. One of the first missions Addams and Starr aspired to do was to create a safe environment for young children, so they set up a daycare that provided at least one meal a day. They then created a kindergarten and a prominent boys club for older youths. 3 By 1907, the converted Mansion expanded to an impressive 13-building complex that occupied nearly an entire city block; these buildings included a gymnasium, theater, art gallery and studios, music school, auditorium, cafeteria, libraries, post office, meeting 1 Hull House, "The Good Work of Jane Addams." America's Story. Accessed February 2,

3 and club rooms, and apartments for the residential staff. 4 Hull House provided a wide range of resources for all immigrants to thrive in Chicago. Catholics and Jewish migrants were drawn heavily to Hull House from southern and eastern Europe. Many European immigrants had resided in the neighborhood of Hull House as they just begun their mass migration. Italians, Greeks, and Russian arrived in these masses of immigrants. Hull House worked through the origins of their culture to win over their confidence and shed the light Jane Addams wished to give. 5 It was during World War 1 that many Mexicans began to migrate to the Midwest to flee from the Mexican revolution and find work. Many of the migrants had originated from populous states in central Mexico like Jalisco, Guanajuato, Michoacán, and Mexico City. Some of these masses even spent several years traveling through Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico to get to the Midwest of the U.S. The Mexican migrants that arrived in Chicago settled in major neighborhoods that provided a greater opportunity for work: the steel mills in south Chicago, stockyards, railroads, and factories near Hull House were some of the major neighborhoods the settled in. 6 7 Hull House provided a comfortable, social environment for Mexican immigrants to express their culture and tradition through pottery. Hull House provided an art school for all ages like the young Mexican boy at the left were teachers encouraged Mexicans to look at themselves as a new national culture. Hull House conducted evening classes by social workers who belonged to the 4 "Hull House." Encyclopedia of Chicago. January 1, Accessed February 3, "Hull House and the Immigrants." Immigrants. Accessed February 3, "Mexicans and the Hull-House Colonia in the 1920s and 1930s." Urban Experience in Chicago: Hull House and Its Neighborhoods, Accessed February 3, Kirkland, Wallace s. Mexicans and the Hull-House Colonia in the 1920s and 1930, University of Illinois, Chicago.

4 Chicago Arts & Crafts Society. These popular classes possessed a native feeling for...artistic expression. Some Hull House teachers even traveled to Mexico to experience the Mexican Renaissance themselves in order to pass on their understanding to their students back in Chicago. Even though Mexicans migrants traveled long distances to come to Chicago and were unable to experience the renaissance back home themselves, Hull House allowed for them to still keep a part of their culture; it even promoted and helped their students exhibit their pottery were it could be sold. 8 The Labor Museum, in 1927, organized The Hull House Kilns. The Kilns made all sorts of tableware pieces, animal and children figures made of dense heavy clays glazed with bright, vibrant colors. Hull House, with the help of The Labor Museum gave immigrants a place to practice and express their native crafts. 9 Hull House s art classes and workers implemented an environment that supported Mexican immigrants in forging a significant identity in Chicago through pottery. 10 Many Mexicans had the opportunity to express their culture in almost whatever way they felt comfortable with. One of Chicago s very first Mexican themed mural Progress of Mexico was painted right in the Boy s Club building in 1940 as pictured to the right. It was painted by Adrian Lozano who was a Mexican Immigrant employed under the Works Progress Administration. Adrian Lozano was given the 8 "Forging a Mexican National Identity in Chicago." In Pots of Promise, edited by Cheryl Ganz and Margaret Strobel, University of Illinois, "Hull House Kilns - Chicago, Ill. Wisconsin Pottery Association." Association. Accessed February 10, House/index.htm. 10 Boys' Club for older boys ages 14+, 1940s. Jane Addams Memorial Collection, University of Chicago.

5 tools by Jane Addams Hull House to become a significant individual by expressing his Mexican Culture right in Hull House through art. 11 Because Jane Addams was a great supporter of Mexicans becoming a part of Chicago, Hull House offered public education and Citizenship Classes. As pictured below, Mexicans were attending a Citizen Class at Hull House. 12 These Mexican Immigrants were given the opportunity to become significant individuals in not only Chicago but America with the citizenship classes Hull House offered. Hull House in the beginning opened College extension classes. For ten years, in connection with Rockford College, a hundred men and women would gather for six weeks were a serious reading of literary masterpieces were taught by a male faculty to help understand English literature. Hundreds of immigrants for years attended a Hull House English class designed to primarily teach the English language. 13 Hull House provided an environment for Chicago Mexican immigrants to forge a significant identity in Chicago, for now immigrants who were unable to speak or understand the English language now had a meager knowledge of English which meant greater opportunity for employment and the expression of their thought and culture to those who might not have understood before. 11 Kirkland, Wallace s. Mexicans and the Hull-House Colonia in the 1920s and 1930, University of Illinois, Chicago "Mexicans and the Hull-House Colonia in the 1920s and 1930s." Urban Experience in Chicago: Hull House and Its Neighborhoods, Accessed February 8, Addams, Jane, and Norah Hamilton. "Socialized Education." In Twenty Years at Hull-House: With Autobiographical Notes, New York: Macmillan, 1910.

6 Jane Addams Hull House guided Mexicans to forging a significant identity in Chicago by supporting their tradition. From the 1930s to the 1940s Hull House hosted an annual Festival of Mexican Culture. The festival included a plentiful amount of Mexican tradition: Mexican immigrants expressed their culture through traditional dances, music, and fine arts and crafts from old Mexico in special exhibits at the festival. Exhibitions of Mexican art was arranged in rooms of Hull House. They included water colors, engravings, posters, and handicrafts from Mexico as well as sculptures, modeling, pottery, and weaving by the 14 Chicago Mexicans. Many little shops sold Mexican food, toys, masks, flowers, and pottery. A Mexican orchestra also played popular Mexican tunes for dancing as pictured to the left. 15 Hull House persuaded all Chicagoans of all ages to come to the festival, so they were to experience Mexican culture themselves. 16 Hull House provided an environment that Mexicans were not only allowed to express their tradition but an environment that other Chicagoans could experience Mexican tradition which helped Mexican immigrants forge a significant identity in Chicago. As Mexicans started to migrate to the Midwest, Catholicism remained very important and a priority to practice in many of Chicago Mexican immigrant s daily lives. Those that resided in the Hull House neighborhood practiced Catholicism at the local St. Francis of Assisi Church. 14 Dance festival in the Hull-House courtyard, 1930s. Jane Addams Memorial Collection, University of Chicago "Hull House," Newsletter of Adult Education Council of Chicago, Educational Events in Chicago (May 1937): 2, Adena Miller Rich Papers, folder 11, Special Collections, The University Library, The University of Illinois at Chicago. 16 Festival of Mexican Culture 1937 (poster, Chicago)

7 Both of these institutions crossed path many times as they shared that same goals and ideologies; however, Hull House offered social improvement while St. Francis of Assisi Church offered religiosity. Similarly, both institutions services offered support within the larger society. They both encouraged the development of Catholicism among Mexican Immigrants. By the time the Bulk of Mexicans arrived in Chicago, the Catholic Church had become much Americanized. Mexicans did not adapt to the new way of Americanized Catholicism, for much of them had a copious amount of respect for their homelands religion. 17 Hull House encouraged Mexicans to hold on to their religious roots. This benefited Mexicans because they could become significant in Church. Hull House contributed to an environment where Mexican Immigrants could become significant in Chicago through church while still being able to stay true to their homelands religious roots. Hull House also contributed to the Mexican community in Chicago. There was many occasion were Mexicans had the opportunity to meet in one of the many Hull House club meeting spaces to discuss serious controversies within the Mexican community they felt need to be deliberated. On a Sunday in September of 1936 the Hull House Theater was nearly filled with Mexican men and women to hear a debate on the subject of whether or not an organization Frente Popular Mejicano contributed much or little to the culture and economic interest in the Mexican Community. Don Delamora was a communist who represented the negative side of the argument, and Don Rafael Perez maintained the affirmative; he believed the program was a solution to common Mexican community issues like low living standards 18. Community 17 "Incorporating Reform and Religion." In Pots of Promise, edited by Cheryl Ganz and Margaret Strobel, University of Illinois, "C. S. Schuman, M.D., "Frente Popular Mejicano," (December 4, 1936 Typescript, Pp. 1-3) Adena Miller Rich Papers, Folder 11, Special Collections, The University Library, The University of Illinois at Chicago." Urban Experience in Chicago: Hull House and Its Neighborhoods, January 1, Accessed February 10,

8 members listened to both sides of this spirited debate and allowed all speakers to question the influence and role of communism and its representatives in global and local politics. Hull House provided Mexicans Immigrants an environment too freely and safely debate about issues they felt were relevant and prominent within the Mexican community. 19 Jane Addams as pictured below passed away in 1935 as the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Jane Addams, along with her Hull House is one of the most influential leaders in Chicago during the beginning of the 20th century. She spent much of her lifetime dedicated to the wellbeing of others like the Chicago neighborhood kids pictured to the left. Her legacy was so effective across a wide range of immigrants that even today Hull Houses legacy lives on in Chicago. At the time of her death Hull House filled an entire city block. Her Hull House inspired the creation of hundreds of similar houses across the United States. Many Hull House members went on to peruse other important social issues 20 because the influence of Hull House and Jane Addams. Hull House has now been converted to a museum to preserve the historic settlement house 21. As of 2011, 1,561,000 Mexican reside in Chicago, Illinois. 79.2% of the 1, 971,000 Hispanic population in Chicago are Mexicans 22. The Mexican Population has only increased since the 19 Kirkland, Wallace. 1930s. University of Illinois, Chicago. Dance festival in the Hull-House courtyard 20 Naomi, Segal. "Jane Addams of Hull House." Jane Addams of Hull House. Accessed February 10, "Welcome to Jane Addams Hull-House Museum." Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. Accessed February 10, "Hispanic Population in Select U.S. Metropolitan Areas, 2011." Pew Research Centers Hispanic Trends Project RSS. August 29, Accessed February 10,

9 creation of Jane Addams Hull House. Hull House provided an environment for Chicago Mexican immigrants to forge a significant identity in Chicago through art, tradition, religion, and their community. Jane Addams provided the tools for them to be able voice their opinion without losing their tradition, culture and origin. Chicago Mexican Immigrants had the ability to forge a significant identity in Chicago by freely expressing their culture that has an everlasting impact on Chicago with the guidance of Jane Addams Hull House throughout the course of the beginning of the 20 th century.