The Marshalltown Public Library, in conjunction with Humanities Iowa, hosted a very interesting history program on Saturday entitled “Voicing a Cause, Voicing a Self: Jane Addams at Hull House.” The program was presented by Helen Lewis, who played the role of Jane Addams and spoke “in her voice,” even costumed in turn of the 19th century dress.

Hull House was founded in Chicago in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr to provide social services to a diverse group of Italian, Irish, German, Greek, Bohemian, and Jewish Russian and Polish immigrants in the neighborhoods around the settlement house. The programs offered to these working-poor immigrants were equally diverse.

They included advocating for higher wages, improved workplace safety, unionization efforts, meals and picket line support for striking workers in the many area factories, and advocacy for child labor laws. Addams was also a supporter of universal suffrage. As a result, she was considered by many to be an anarchist, a communist, and/or a socialist. She was even labeled, “The Most Dangerous Woman in America.”

The Hull House settlement house was initially funded by Jane Addams’ $58,000 inheritance from her successful and wealthy father. Addams purchased a mansion built by architect Charles Hull.

Residents who lived and worked at the settlement house paid for their room and board, so most were comfortably well-to-do women and men who wished to assist in the Hull House mission. Additional funding came from speaking engagements, writings, and similar activities of the residents, and donations from wealthy donors supportive of the work Hull House was doing.

The goal of Hull House was not “charity” work. Instead, it was to live among the residents, determine their needs, and develop programs to meet those needs in order to improve not just working conditions, but also basic living conditions.

Classes were offered in skilled trades, sewing, cooking, child-rearing, languages, cultural and homeland arts and crafts, theater, art, and music — with professional instructors. Big bandleader and “King of Swing,” Benny Goodman was one of the music students at Hull House. In addition, day care and kindergarten programs and boys’ and girls’ clubs were available to the young people, while a variety of evening cultural entertainments were offered to all. There were even two gymnasiums, one for men and boys, and the one for women and girls.

Marshalltown residents are probably familiar with Jessie Binford (1876-1966), daughter of early Marshalltown attorney Thaddeus Binford. Jessie had absorbed a little legal knowledge from her father, and after she joined Hull House in 1902, she first worked as a legal secretary, but soon she found her niche at Hull House working with juveniles and formed the Juvenile Protection League.

The league’s goal was to help keep the youth, especially boys, out of trouble and out of jail. The League made efforts to work with police, city government, and the courts system towards that goal.

Hull House provided secured temporary housing to keep errant boys out of jail, and paid the salaries of parole officers working with them. Eventually, connections were solidified, and police officers even served as referees at youth baseball games sponsored by Hull House.

Jane Addams and Hull House also advocated for voting rights for women. Surprisingly, in 1895, Chicago women were given limited voting rights — in city elections, only — long before women across the country could vote. In 1916, Illinois even gave women the right to vote in presidential elections — but not in the Illinois governor’s election. The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving all women the right to vote, was not passed until 1920.

Jane Addams was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize, first in 1913, and again several years later. It wasn’t until 1931 and her third nomination that she won that award, about four years before her death in 1935.

Hull House, and Jessie Binford, continued their work for many years after Addams’ death. Over the years, Hull House had expanded from one lone building to more than a dozen. By the 1960s, the University of Chicago wanted the property for expansion, and Mayor Richard J. Daley supported that effort. Sadly, with the exception of two buildings, the property was swallowed up by the university.

The two remaining buildings became the Hull House Museum, which still stands today. The last person to leave Hull House was none other than Jessie Binford. She returned to Marshalltown, donated her stately home, known as the Binford House, to the Marshalltown Federation of Women’s Clubs, and lived her final years in an apartment at the Tallcorn Hotel.

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The next history program at the library will be “Savor Iowa’s Culinary History,” on Saturday, April 13, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at the library. It will be presented by Darcy Maulsby and is offered in conjunction with Humanities Iowa and the State Historical Society of Iowa.