Jane Addams? Hang The Traitor! Many Cried March 01, 1987|By June Sawyers. To immigrants, children and the poor, she was a friend. But to many newspaper editors, ward bosses and businessmen, she was the enemy. Jane Addams is now generally revered as the pioneering social worker who founded Hull House and the Women`s International League for Peace and Freedom, wrote 12 books and hundreds of articles, received 14 honorary degrees and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931. But in her day she was regarded by many as ``the most dangerous woman in America.`` Hull House was a haven for unpopular movements and new ideas. Modeled after Toynbee Hall in the Whitechapel district of London, Chicago`s first settlement house, or community welfare center, welcomed the nonconformist and the eccentric, the revolutionary and the radical along with the poor and the outcast of society. English socialists Sidney and Beatrice Webb and novelist H.G. Wells visited, architect Frank Lloyd Wright lectured and educator John Dewey discussed Greek philosophy. In such a heady atmosphere, Hull House was an easy target for those who saw visions of communist conspiracies. Denounced as a ``hotbed of anarchism,`` it was at one time called the key link in an elaborate network of ``red`` subversives. Although no arrests were ever made at Hull House, police were often assigned to keep an eye on its meetings. One night when a group of immigrants were passionately discussing political theory, a club-twirling police officer reprimanded resident Alice Hamilton: ``Lady, you people oughtn`t to let bums like these come here. If I had my way, they`d all be lined up against a wall at sunrise and shot.``
Posted on: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 04:58:06 +0000
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