Jane Addams: Conclusion

After the Hull House was founded, within two years, 2,000 people were passing through it every week. This successful settlement continued for 120 years of service. Jane Addams became a person that was not only after peace in the United States, but also world peace. Today, through the creation of the Hull House, she has influenced many social workers with her work in one of the poorest communities in the city of Chicago with the inspiration of her past experiences and Tonybee Hall. Addams built strong relationships and accepted everyone with love and free of judgment. She was successful at constructing a place for immigrants and neighbors, who wanted the help to grow, learn and have hope. She truly was changed a teacher who motivated the poor and trained them so they could eventually move on with their lives. In 1931, she won the Noble Peace Prize for her work with the peace organization. A house that started out as one ended up taking residence on a full street in Chicago before Addams passed away. Jane insisted on letting everyone know that in the midst of helping others she was too, blessed. 

Thesis & Brief Outline

Thesis::

With the creation of the Hull House, Jane Addams changed the way social services functioned which benefited the immigrants. The Hull House was a place located in Chicago, where immigrants were welcomed and free of judgment, and could get an education, learn English, and find a job. 

• Childhood of Jane Addams (Family life)
• Death of Jane Addams Mother
• Where Jane went to school/college
• What inspired Jane to start the Hull House
• What made Jane so different?
• Important people in Jane's life
• Purpose of the Hull House
• Daily Routine of the Hull House
• Jane's role in the Hull House
• What the surrounding neighbors felt about this project?
• Success of the Hull House

Hull House & Immigration: Works Cited

Addams, J. (1990). Twenty years at Hull-House with autobiographical notes. Urbana, IL:

University of Illinois Press.

I chose this journal article that I found through the database because it gave personal journal enteries from Jane herself but also background information that described her life and what it looked like related to the Hull House.

 

Davis, A. F. (1973). American heroine: The life and legend of Jane Addams. NY: Oxford

University Press.

This Bibliography describes how Jane Addams changed the way that social services functioned. This will back up my thesis. 

 

Linn, James. Jane Addams: A Biography. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1943. 

            This is a book that I will be gaining most of my information from. It puts Jane Addams life in perspecitve from birth all the way through to her death. It focused on her family, life experiences, education, inspiration of the Hull House, and those who inspired her. 

Rima, Schultz. "Urban Experience in Chicago: Hull House & It's Neighbors." Last modified 2009. Accessed May 18, 2013. http://www.arch.uic.edu/urbanarch/mainpage.html. 

     The Urban Experience is a website that provided many primary source articles, images, and information in a timeline fashion. This website gave me perspective on her life and the social world in order. 

Immigration: Yesterday and Today

Since we can remember, living the "American Dream" has been a desire for many immigrants from every continent around the globe. What makes America so special? As the United States developed hundreds of years ago, so did the dream of happiness. Many immigrants came to New York in hopes of a new life and a better future. The word was spread that jobs were increasing, food supply was easier to find, and the country itself was increasingly growing. However, life as an immigrant was not easy at all. In fact, it was incredibly difficult to become a citizen and America, the melting pot, began to put restrictions on immigration. As this topic has become controversial, I want to explain that I am not taking any side, but will be researching the immigration laws, and how they have emerged and changed over the years from the late 1800's until now. I will also compare and contrast the role of immigrants from the time of Ellis Island to today's immigrants who wish to begin a new life here in the United States. What does this look like for Christians as we in come in contact with many immigrants and some who are even illegal?

Over the years of learning about immigration laws in the classroom and on the news, I have learned that there are a wide variety of opinions on this matter. It is a touchy topic to cover and often very challenging. In this research paper I want to figure out what this means for us as Christians and in what ways can we handle this situation as Christ followers. As I state facts throughout this paper, I will also pull out Biblical truths as well. I am in no way trying to force anything onto anyone, but rather to challenge our beliefs and maybe to understand why the issue of immigration has changed and evolved so much.

As I expand my own knowledge on topic of Immigration, I also wish to approach this with Biblical truth along with facts from my research. In this, I hope, that others can also have an open mind with this challenging matter.

Pre-Research

Each of the research topics that I have chosen I have continued to carefully pick valid resources to continue finding information on them:

When I began researching each topic I came to the conclusion that my topics and questions were pretty broad. I originally thought that the more broad my topics were the more information I could find on them. My only topic that was not broad was Jane Addams and the Hull House. Unfortunately, I have not been having much luck finding a good source for that particular topic that I could use to help write an in depth paper. So I had to ask myself if the questions/goal I have are not enough?

For Jane Addams I found plenty of websites/books on Jane herself. I found her (biography, her time in the White House, and her other contributions to society. The types of websites I found were primary and reliable. All of them came from .edu site. I was surprised that I didn't find any from a government page on the Hull House. There was one website, except the page could not be found. Must have been deleted. 

The Statue of Liberty had a number of sources on it as well. I found about 7 reliable sites along with 2 books from the library that gave me in depth information about the purpose of the Statue of Liberty, what it meant at the time, and how it impacted our world. The websites gave plenty of information, one especially from Harvard, that included facts that I never knew about the Statue of Liberty. Specifics that go all the way down the number of points she had on her crown and why. The information from these pages will allow me to go more in depth about immigration as well. I am thinking about rewording some of my questions so they focus more on the immigration aspect on coming to America and what that looked like for them (ie. the process of entering America and becoming a citizen, beginning life here in the states).

The last topic on my last blog post included the New Madrid earthquake which shaped history by changing the flow of the Mississippi River. Even though there is so much information on this topic as well, I'm weary of choosing this topic because I am afraid that most of the information I found were based on scientific information and even though it was historical, I would feel that I am turning in a science research paper rather than an American History paper. I looked at changing my end goal of this specific topic and relating it back to how people lived and how it effected society after the shock of the quake, but information did not appear to be as reliable and finding good information was scarce. 

Based on the research I have found and the number of reliable sources, I am going to focus my paper around Immigration to the United States. I will focus in on why immigrants chose to begin life in the US, what the conditions were, and dig into journals of a few immigrants and what it was like to begin life here in America beginning in the late 1800's.