The frontier marking the limit of western settlement in the United States was declared closed by the census of 1890, but not before the notion of America as a society defined by an entrepreneurial “frontier spirit” had taken root. Challenging the myth of boundless growth and opportunity, social reformers pointed instead to the poverty and the absence of meaningful opportunity faced by America’s poor and working classes. Radical change was due.

Jane Addams, pioneering sociologist and campaigner for women’s suffrage, in 1889 established Hull House in Chicago, the first “settlement house” to provide amenities and welfare services to the city’s poor—women and children especially. Relying on donations from wealthy benefactors and on volunteer labor, Addams wanted Hull House to show how the different classes of society could learn the practical benefits of cooperation. She was convinced that by channeling the energies of the young into productive activity, good habits would be learned early on, and the costs of poverty in crime and disease lessened.

  Addams wrote of America lagging far behind other nations’ legislation to protect women and children in industry. She viewed direct charitable intervention with individuals as ineffective: only concerted public action, backed up by legislation, could deal with social problems. In this she helped to define social work as an activity concerned with changing society as much as individuals.

Promoting education as key to opportunity for all, Hull House ran a kindergarten, clubs for older children, and evening classes for adults.