5 comments about Twenty Years at Hull-House (Signet classics).

1. A well written book but a littany of "look at what I did for the less fortunate" Jane Adams clearly brings out the fact that she was of the upper class and so much better than those she sought to help. Her goal it seems was to bring high society upper middle class values to the poor. She rarely talks about others who had to be involved. If it did not include her she was not interested in reporting. She also failed to show that she actually helped anyone better thier lives. She just crows about how she brought literature and art to the poor masses.



2. Along with Addams herself, "Twenty Years At Hull-House" inspired generations of US social and political activists. For decades a Hull House sojourn, or at least a visit, was virtually a pilgrimage for all kinds of progressive reformers. Jane Addams came from a conventional Middle American milieu, but was radicalized by seeing the ravages of the Industrial Revolution both in Britain and Chicago. This timeless memoir of the years 1889-1909 documents her wide-ranging concerns, embracing public health, pacifism and feminism as well as philanthropy, working-class education and poverty alleviation. Nationalist hysteria damaged Addams's reputation as a result of her antiwar stance during World War I, but it recovered enough for her to win the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize. Students had mixed views of book and author. To some she is a revelation, but others see her as rather sanctimonious (a fair criticism to some extent). Her prose is accessible but a little archaic now, sometimes appearing flowery or pompous, which deters some readers. While I respect and admire Addams, I waited in vain for the epiphany felt by thousands inspired by her life's work. People who find their own way to "Hull-House" will probably appreciate her more than those required to read her book---but such unsought exposure lies at the heart of liberal education, and brings many rewards.



3. In 1911 Addams helped found the National Foundation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers, and she was its first president. She was also a leader in women's suffrage and pacifist movements. In 1915 she helped found the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. She received the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize (shared with American educator Nicholas Murray Butler).
   
   The Hull House could boast a group of about 2,000 people a week. It had facilities including: a night school for adults, kindergarten classes, clubs for older children, a public kitchen, an art gallery, a coffeehouse, a gymnasium, a girls club, a swimming pool, a book bindery, a music school, a drama group, a library, and labor related divisions.
   
   The Hull House also served as a women's institution of sociology and Addams was a friend and colleague to the early men of the Chicago School of Sociology influencing their social thought of the time through her work in applied sociology, which became defined as social work by academic sociologists of the time. Addams did not, however, consider herself a social worker. She co-authored the Hull-House Maps and Papers in 1893 that came to define the interests and methodologies of Chicago Sociology. She worked with George H. Mead on social reform issues including women's rights and the 1910 Garment Workers' Strike. Addams combined the central concepts of symbolic interactionism with the theories of cultural feminism and pragmatism to form her sociological ideas.



4. I am doing a History Fair project on the Hull House. I thought that I would just be quickly skimming over the book, but in fact i really enjoyed it and I ended up reading with a lot of intrest.



5. I enjoy reading about strong women with great vision. I also enjoy this particular period in history, so this was a perfect match for me. I would love to have been part of the Plato club, or study cooking, or sewing, or heard concerts throughout the week. I sometimes think we have so much going on in our lives right now that we don't take the time to slow down and cherish the simple things. This book did that for me. It made me want to study and focus on things. I know we have tons of technology available to us, but I wish we would still discuss philosophy, and I wish more people would read - I mean, really read. Not just the top twenty things out there. But times are different...

No comments about Joseph Keene Chadwick: Interventions and Continuities in Irish and Gay Studies.

No comments about Process and Pattern in Culture: Essays in Honor of Julian H. Steward.

No comments about Ludwig Von Mises.

No comments about Auguste Comte: The foundation of sociology (The making of sociology series).

No comments about From a Town on the Hudson: A Japanese Woman's Life in America.

5 comments about Gringa Latina: A Woman of Two Worlds.

1. I liked Armando's comment about the huge historical mistakes made by someone who attended the Santa Ana private school. I guess he is right considering we used to have history class every year since the 6th. grade. I suppose Cristo Rey (the Jesuit school he talks about) always had a better curricula for their students!
   Back to the book, I guess it is very tough to write about our memories from Tacna or even Peru in general, when this country seems to take away part of our objectivity in just a matter of months. We tend to remember good things as being "great" and bad things as "really bad" perhaps. Tacna is certainly a small city but I have never thought of it as a "village". Perhaps we still don't have a Mc Donald's or a BK there, but that doesn't mean anything really. Although "drugs and fear" have always been present, I highly doubt that they would have made such a great difference during the years the author lived there. Yes, perhaps we continue to fill the news every day with stories about murder, corruption and rape, but that's just what we care to show to the world. I lived in Tacna until 1999, part of one of these Italian families who migrated over there and enjoyed the privileges of having money and building a reputation that now is almost vanished. I won't deny that I tell stories about Tacna all the time, in some cases; these stories are even phrased similarly as to the ones in the book. They excite people. Still, I believe it is mostly because our lack of open minds and the way we managed to carry traditions from one generation to the other. This is the greatest mystery of all I think; we can only see it as such and relate it in such a magical way after going through the major change of leaving that city.



2. (comment dated June 23rd, 2005)
   Really, I coudn't stop reading it from the beginning to the end. I was raised in several towns and villages in Peru, and wound up finishing high school in a Jesuit School in Tacna, ran by this "jesuit priest" de Ferrari mentions in a small passage of this book. The book is a delicious reminiscence of the years passed by the author in this small and heroic village in the southern end of Peru, causing a strong wind of nostalgy in those like me who know the town and its wonderful people. I will start talking about some mistakes in the book. In my opinion, she is feeling "too" strange to the people of Tacna. I really don't think so. Even though her parents were Italian, Tacna was populated by many European colonies, all of them outnumbered by the Italian colony, which, even in my times (the 70's), was still composed of several thousand people, including Italians and their descendants, like her. Many of the current most important names in Tacna are still Italians, and tho there has been a social turn in the last 20 years, the Italian immigration to Tacna and Arica in the XIX century (then a part of Peru) is a passage of our history rarely studied.
   There are some other mistakes in the book, which being a non-fiction book is something I can not help pointing out. The Inca Empire extended from Colombia to the north of Argentina, and de Ferrari claims it extended from north of Venezuela to the Patagonia in the south of Argentina. Hummm. Huge mistake for a girl who was educated in Colegio Santa Ana, the Italian private School of Tacna. A few other historical misunderstandings spot here and there along the book. Her point of view about the birth of the Shining Path is also a common place, but that popular theory (that the Shining Path was some sort of indigenous rebellion) was later discovered untrue, being the SP a urban movement leaded by urban and well educated college teachers who belonged to the "white" class from Ayacucho and other Sierra cities.
   But, in general, I enjoyed a lot reading the description of the places and especially about the food, which seems an obsession for this woman, congratulations, she really is a gourmet. I am a passionate for those territories and especially for those people, who, like the de Ferrari's, I think compose the best group of people living in a so disfunctional country like mine. The peruvian peoples from Tacna, Arica, and Tarapaca suffered a severe loss in the 1880's when they were forced to change their nationality, but across the border, many ancient families still prevail, keeping a bright peruvian light in their hearts. This is especially true regarding the Italian families, many of whom hold repeated names on both sides of the current border, keeping contact with relatives and families.
   I still have to read "A Cloud on Sand", but I presume this fiction book must be based in de Ferrari's life in Tacna as a teenager.
   Congratulations Gabriella, I still wonder how many of your "paisanos" have read your book, and if it wouldn't be necessary to transate it into Spanish. Anyway, I will take a copy of your book to Father Fred (the Jesuit priest) so he can enjoy the book too.
   
   (Updated Feb 16, 2006)
   I already did, I took a copy of the book to Father Fred, who was happy to have it, and claimed to have recently seen Gabriella upon her mother's pass away.



3. In Gringa Latina we have a character that his not Peruvian or Hispanic because her family comes from Italy, when she leaves Peru and comes to the states she is a latina because she in not American, and so it goes that she is never fully at home in either culture or though we get a brilliant portrayal of her youth in the South American continent. Excellent book.



4. I really enjoyed this book. She did such a wonderful job describing Peru and the complexity of her feelings being a "Latina" based on geographic reasons, and "Gringa" according to her ethnicity. I also found it interesting how she was perceived when in America. Reading this book also made me want to see Peru and all it's beauty.



5. This book beautifuly describes the life of a woman embodying two different cultures.

4 comments about Return to Chewelah: A Story of Innocence and Loss.

1. A fantastic true story of young love in Seattle, a diabling accident, courage and perseverance in her struggle to regain a normal life. I met this young woman in Chewelah shortly after her accident. She came to the ski area I managed in her wheelchair looking for a job, which was near impossible to imagine. Recently I discovered her book on a flight to South America and stayed up all night to finish it. Now I have reread it twice more and have traveled to Seattle to meet her. She is an amazing woman.



2. "A tour to the pits of loss and chaos, a Christopher Reeve injury story with Woodstock players. Brutally frank, disturbingly explicit,more than you really want to know. Chewelah is the lone touchstone for some peace and a measure of healing and acceptance and remembrance of things past and longed for. Told from the heart with a sense of anger, frustration, hurt, resentment, some understanding and love." John Dawson M.D.- general surgeon



3. "A Seattle woman pens a brutally honest memoir about her difficult recovery after a riding accident leaves her paralyzed, including criticisms about the rehab treatment she received" Seattle Post-Intelligencer



4. I loved this book. Anyone who has ever appreciated the freedom of the country, or felt the captivity of quadriplegia or other diseases would love this book. Janet's brutal honesty & revealing nature was refreshing. It was one book that I had to read cover to cover without putting it down.

No comments about Margaret Mead: A Life.

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