Many prognosticators describe our current era as a “Second Gilded Age,” a term I’ve come to embrace myself. It captures the reality of the moment: The deep income inequality. The coziness between the super rich and the political elite. Even Donald Trump’s desire to model his presidency after William McKinley’s.
But here’s a happier thought: The first Gilded Age gave way to the Progressive Era. Those in the social sector hoping for a similar outcome, might want to take some time to study the life of the great civic figure of that era, Jane Addams, and the work of the institution she founded, Hull House. Her example shows how the building blocks of lasting social change can be put in place even as everything around us seems to be crumbling.
Addams was just 29 years old when she started Hull House on the near west side of Chicago in 1889 during the first Gilded Age. The neighborhood was home to new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, including Greeks, Italians, Germans, and Russian Jews. The initiatives that Addams launched at Hull House honored their dignity, curbed the worst abuses of the urban environment, and built the architecture for the Progressive Era.
One of Jane Addams’s biographers, Jean Bethke Elshtain, summarized her impact this way: “Nearly every piece of major reform in the years 1895 to1930 comes with Jane Addams’s name attached in one way or another, including labor and housing regulations, employment regulations for women and children, the eight-hour workday, old-age and unemployment insurance, as well as measures against prostitution, corrupt politicking, and vice and for public schools, public playgrounds, and the creation of juvenile and domestic court systems.”
Among her other notable achievements: winning a Nobel Peace Prize, advocating for women’s suffrage, and helping found the American Civil Liberties Union. She also wrote nearly a dozen books and more than 500 articles.
For the social change world, however, the most important lesson from this singular historic figure isn’t how much she accomplished but how she went about it. Specifically, everything Addams did focused on making concrete and positive improvements to local communities.
The women who ran Hull House — and the leadership was literally all women — researched the needs of their immediate neighborhood and then took effective and non-ideological steps to address them. For example, through rigorous social research methods, they found that there were 7,000 school age children in Chicago’s 19th Ward, but only 3,000 public school seats. So Hull House organized classes and activities for kids so they had other options for learning.
There were hundreds of residents in the blocks west of Hull House, but only three bathtubs. So Hull House built public baths.
Tangible Solutions
For every problem they discovered in their neighborhood, or across the larger city, they created a tangible solution and then held it up as a model to be emulated. Many of these initiatives flew in the face of conventional wisdom, otherwise known as the prejudices of the time.
For those who thought young people were little more than ticking time bombs waiting to explode, Addams offered Hull House’s youth leadership programs.
For those who believed tensions between Protestants, Catholics, and Jews were inevitable, Hull House provided interfaith gatherings organized around what Addams referred to as “the fellowship of the deed” — the idea that coming together around specific activities builds lasting bonds among diverse people.
Jane Addams and her Hull House colleagues made things work better, improving public goods such as health, education, and public safety in their community. The success of these efforts gave them the credibility to advocate for adopting these approaches on a national scale.
The list of Hull House firsts includes first public gymnasium in Chicago, first free art exhibit in Chicago, first public swimming pool in Chicago, and first public playground in Chicago.
All of these are now standard features of our common life together, sponsored both by civic institutions such as the YMCA and government initiatives like park districts. This entire layer of civil society exists because the social entrepreneurs at Hull House pioneered model programs with tangible solutions to pressing local problems — then lifted them up in public and political discourse.
Because Addams had the credibility of someone who builds things that worked, she was able to bring people together across divides. During the Pullman Strike by railroad workers, for example, Jane Addams was one of the few people trusted by both workers and owners.
In my mind, the key takeaway for philanthropy and nonprofits today is to demonstrate solutions on a local level first. Whether the issue is crime, education, or opioid abuse, show that you have an approach that is working, then advocate for it nationally.
In some quarters of the social change world, the last 10 years has been more about loud preaching than effective practice, symbolized by the San Francisco Board of Education devoting resources to a failed attempt to change the names of public schools rather than focusing on pandemic learning loss at those same schools.
Jane Addams shows us that sustainable social change happens when we reverse that order — the concrete solution comes first, and then the broader advocacy and reform efforts follow. People will only listen to you preach if they are satisfied that your new approach is an improvement on the old one.
Sustainable social change is slow and hard, but the payoff can be enormous. As Jane Addams’ example demonstrates, in addition to improving people’s lives, you just might move the nation from an era of darkness to an era of light.
