The Legacy of Jane Addams - CCNR

Community Inquiry:Roots in American Pragmatism• William James (1842-1910)• Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914)• John Dewey (1859-1952)• Jane Addams (1860-1935)See Menand’s The Metaphysical Club

Jane Addams:Democracy asLearning, Research, & ActionHull-House… the desire to make the entire socialorganism democratic, to extend democracy beyond itspolitical expression.…not a charity, but a way of life…

Hull-HouseCharter (1889): To provide a center for a higher civicand social life; to institute and maintain educationaland philanthropic enterprises, and to investigate andimprove the conditions in the industrial districts ofChicagoPrograms: daycare, kindergarten, playgrounds, boys’and girls’ clubs, cooperative boardinghouse, theaterworkshops, music schools, language classes, handicraftcenters, Labor Museum, coffee shopHull-House Firsts (including research): See Elshtain, p. xix

Jane Addams:Experience vs. ExperimentsI have always objected to the phrase "sociological laboratory"applied to us, because Settlements should be something muchmore human and spontaneous than such a phrase connotes, andyet it is inevitable that the residents should know their ownneighborhoods more thoroughly than any other, and that theirexperiences there should affect their convictions.Day and Schuler. ‘Researchers are part of the world they live in’Public Activities and Investigations

Jane Addams:Affectionate InterpretationOur thoughts, at least for this generation, cannot be too much directedfrom mutual relationships and responsibilities. They will be warped, unlesswe look all men in the face, as if a community of interests lay between,unless we hold the mind open, to take strength and cheer from a hundredconnections.To touch to vibrating response the noble fibre in each man, to pull thesemany fibres, fragile, impalpable and constantly breaking, as they are, intoone impulse, to develop that mere impulse through its feeble and tentativestages into action, is no easy task, but lateral progress is impossible withoutit.Addams, Jane. (November 2, 1912). A modern Lear, Survey, 29, 131-137.http://womenshistory.about.com/cs/addamsjane/a/mod_lear_10003b_3.htm

Jane Addams:Circle of Knowledge“It is the function of the settlements to bringinto the circle of knowledge and full life, menand women who might otherwise be leftoutside. […] The colleges and universities hadmade a little inner circle of illuminated spacebeyond which there stretched a region ofdarkness...”Addams, Jane (1930). Second twenty years at Hull-House, pp. 404-5. As quoted in Ira Harkavy & John L. Puckett. (Sept. 1994). Lessonsfrom Hull House for the contemporary urban university. SocialService Review, 299-321.

Jane Addams:Civic Housekeeping• Social feminism: Infused domesticity withwider moral and social meaning• Stressed importance of tradition, centralityof family and children• Domestic arena a springboard to into widercivic life• Creative re-drawing of householdboundaries to encompass entire cityElshtain, Jean B. (2002). Jane Addams and the dream of Americandemocracy: A life, p. 77.

Jane Addams:Civic HousekeepingSituation: Tenement girl in childbirth -- her mother atwasherwoman job, no money for doctor, neighbors wouldn’thelp because unmarried.Jane Addams: This doing things that we don’t know how to dois going too far. Why did we let ourselves be rushed intomidwifery?Julia Lathrop: If we have to begin to hew down to the line of ourignorance, for goodness’ sake don’t let us begin at thehumanitarian end. To refuse to respond to a poor girl in thethroes of childbirth would be a disgrace to us forevermore. IfHull-House does not have its roots in human kindness, it is nogood at all.Addams, Jane.(1935). My friend Julia Lathrop. As quoted in Elshtain,Jean B. (2002). Jane Addams and the dream of Americandemocracy: A life., p. 93

Jane Addams:Participatory GISNationality MapsWage MapsHull-House Maps (1895)http://homicide.northwestern.edu/pubs/hullhouse/Maps/

Jane Addams:Community Health & Environmental Justice…we began a systematic investigation of the citysystem of garbage collection, both as to its efficiency inother wards and its possible connection with the deathrate in the various wards of the city.Public Activities and InvestigationsJane Addams (1912). Twenty years at Hull House.

Jane Addams:Theory of Community Action• Human and spontaneous inquiry (Experience)• Inclusive circle of knowledge• Affectionate interpretation• Assume community of interest• Conceive possibility you might be wrong• Civic housekeeping• Settlement--staying put• Action rooted in human kindness

Community Action &Informatics on Paseo Boricua• Vibrant inner city community in Humboldt Park, wherePuerto Rican Cultural Center galvanizes multi-generationallearning and action• Poverty, gang violence, AIDS, food desert, lack ofeducational resources, heart disease, racism, culturalpreservation, gentrification• “The community is the curriculum” and “Live and help othersto live”

Human and Spontaneous Inquiry• Students in Action: Inquiry Unit on Environmental Racism• Prototype web-based newspaper, archives; library catalog,I&R service• Observe and reflect on community technology creationand use (e.g., Dissent is not a Crime video, listservs, CDs,theatre, Internet radio)

Inclusive Circle of KnowledgeQuickTime and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressorare needed to see this picture.• Community as Intellectual Space Symposium• Michelle Torrise’s Inquiry website for HS as part of urbanagriculture/social ecology initiative• Squeak in the childcare (Lizzy Klinnert)• Communication and collaboration tools for ourselves (iLabs,Moodle, Google Docs)

Affectionate Interpretation• Communication breakdowns, work priorities• Theresa Rivera’s study

Civic HousekeepingQuickTime and aTIFF (LZW) decompressorare needed to see this picture.• Staying put• Ghost’s performance at Batey: “Mi Gente is not myspace”• Not Enough Space exhibit• GSLIS CI Corps Master’s track• Action rooted in human kindness• Student research for Tato Laviera’s play

Community Informatics Initiative@ University of IllinoisKnowledge is both understanding and action…• Collaborative action to create knowledge andtechnology connected to people's values, history, andlived experiences;• Development of models of engagement that are just,democratic, participatory, and open-ended;• Integration of theory and practice in an experimentaland critical manner, situated in everyday life.

AcknowledgementsCII: Chip Bruce, Cameron Jones, Muzhgan Nazarova,Sunny Jeong, Kelly McCormick, Claudia Serbanuta,Jim Buell, Anatoliy Gruzd, Paul Adams, Karen Fletcher,Sharon Irish, Caroline HaythornthwaitePaseo Boricua: Laura Ruth Johnson, Alejandro LuisMolina, Jose Lopez, Judy Diaz, Matt Rodriguez,Theresa Rivera, Michael Rodriguez, Carlos De Jesus,University of Michigan CI Corps, Vanessa Nelson