Ellen Gates Starr (March 19, 1859 – February 10, 1940) was an American social reformer and activist. With

Jane Addams Laura Jane Addams (September 6, 1860May 21, 1935) was an American Settlement movement, settlement activist, Social reform, reformer, social worker, sociologist, public administrator, philosopher, and author. She was a leader in the history of s ...

, she founded Chicago's

Hull House Hull House was a settlement house in Chicago, Illinois, that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located on the Near West Side of Chicago, Hull House, named after the original house's first owner Charles Jerald Hul ...

, an adult education center, in 1889; the settlement house expanded to 13 buildings in the neighborhood.

Early life and education

Ellen Gates Starr was born on March 19, 1859, in

Laona, Illinois Laona Township is located in Winnebago County, Illinois, Winnebago County, Illinois. As of the 2010 United States census, 2010 census, its population was 1,250 and it contained 707 housing units. Geography According to the 2010 census, the tow ...

, US, to Caleb Allen Starr and Susan Gates (''née'' Child). From 1877 to 1878, Starr attended the Rockford Female Seminary, where she first met

. After being forced to leave school due to financial concerns, Starr taught for ten years in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

Social reform work

Starr joined Addams on a tour of Europe in 1888. While in London, the pair were inspired by the success of the English

Settlement movement The settlement movement was a reformist social movement that began in the 1880s and peaked around the 1920s in the United Kingdom and the United States. Its goal was to bring the rich and the poor of society together in both physical proximity an ...

and became determined to establish a similar social settlement in Chicago. When they returned to Chicago in 1889, they co-founded

as a kindergarten, then a day nursery, an infancy care centre, and a center for continuing education for adults. In 1891, Starr created the Butler Art Gallery as the first addition to the Hull mansion. She travelled to England to study with the famed bookbinder, T. J. Cobden-Sanderson. After her return, she established a bookbindery class at the settlement house in 1898, followed by an arts and crafts business school. She also sought to bring the

Arts and Crafts movement The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America. Initiat ...

to Chicago. In 1894, Starr founded the Chicago Public School Art Society with the help of the Chicago Woman's Club. The goal of the organization was to provide original works of art and good quality reproductions, to promote public school learning and an appreciation of beauty as a sign of good citizenship. Starr was the president of the society until 1897, when she founded the Chicago Society of Arts and Crafts. Starr was also active in the campaign to reform

child labor Child labour is the exploitation of children through any form of work that interferes with their ability to attend regular school, or is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such exploitation is prohibited by legislation w ...

laws and industrial working conditions in Chicago. She was a member of the Women's Trade Union League and helped organize striking garment workers in 1896, 1910, and 1915. However, by belief she was firmly anti-industrialisation, idealizing the guild system of the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

and later the

Arts and Crafts Movement The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America. Initiat ...

.Allitt, Patrick; ''Catholic Converts: British and American Intellectuals Turn to Rome''; p. 149. She was arrested at a restaurant strike. In the

slum A slum is a highly populated Urban area, urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are p ...

s of

, she taught children who could not afford school education about such writers as

Dante Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called ...

and

Robert Browning Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian literature, Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentar ...

Personal life

Relationship with Jane Addams

Lillian Faderman argues that Starr was Addams's "first serious attachment". The friendship between the two lasted many years, and the two lived together. Addams wrote to Starr, "Let's love each other through thick and thin and work out a salvation". The director of the Hull-House Museum at the

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a public research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus established under the Universi ...

, Lisa Lee, has argued that the relationship was romantic and a

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

one. Brown agrees that the two can be regarded as lesbians if they are seen as "women loving women", although there is no evidence they were sexual partners. The intensity of the relationship dwindled when Addams met Mary Rozet Smith (who had been Starr's student at Miss Kirkland's School). These two women subsequently set up home together.

Religious beliefs

Starr joined the Episcopal Church in 1883. By 1894, she was a member of the Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross, an Episcopal women's prayer society that combined prayer with education and activism for social justice. Founded by Emily Malbone Morgan, the Companions included a number of influential reformers from around the United States, such as Vida Scudder, and Mary Simkhovitch. Companions came together each summer for a week retreat that allowed women reformers to reconnect spiritually, network with other reformers, and attend a series of educational programs on social issues.

Later life

Although Starr possessed an interest in

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

for many years, it was only in 1920, when she believed the Church was seriously teaching

social justice Social justice is justice in relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals' rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has of ...

, that she converted. Her work in campaigns against

child labour Child labour is the exploitation of children through any form of work that interferes with their ability to attend regular school, or is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such exploitation is prohibited by legislation w ...

encountered much opposition from inside the Church. In 1929, complications caused by surgery to remove a spinal abscess resulted in her becoming paralyzed from the waist down. In 1931, seriously ill, Starr retired to a Roman Catholic convent in

Suffern, New York Suffern is a Administrative divisions of New York#Village, village that was incorporated in 1796 in the town of Ramapo, New York, Ramapo in Rockland County, New York. Located adjacent to the town of Mahwah, New Jersey, Suffern is located 31 miles ...

, where she was cared for by the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. She was not a member of their religious community, nor any other. After eight years as an invalid, Starr died at the convent on February 10, 1940.

In media

In 2016, St. Hyacinth Basilica Elementary in Chicago's Avondale neighborhood, which had closed in 2014, was used as the setting for Albany Park Theater Project's renowned immersive theater play ''Learning Curve.'' It was transformed as the play's "Ellen Gates Starr High School", named for the co-founder of Hull House.

Selected works

* (1896) ''Settlements and the church's duty'' * (n.d.) ''Reflections on the breviary

References

External links

Ellen Gates Starr papers
at the

Sophia Smith Collection The Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College is an internationally recognized repository of manuscripts, photographs, periodicals and other primary sources in women's history. General One of the largest recognized repositories of manuscripts, a ...

, Smith College
Ellen Gates Starr papers
at the

Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Starr, Ellen Gates 1859 births 1940 deaths American sociologists American women sociologists American community activists Converts to Roman Catholicism Rockford University alumni LGBTQ people from Illinois Writers from Chicago People from Winnebago County, Illinois People from Suffern, New York American social reformers 19th-century American women writers 19th-century American writers 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers Activists from Chicago American lesbian writers Writers from New York (state) Activists from New York (state) American women non-fiction writers American women founders