"The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain...
until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life."

So wrote Jane Addams in her classic work, Twenty Years at Hull House.  Jane Addams was nothing short of America's own servant of the poor. She was born to privilege, but from an early age felt a sense of responsibility for helping those in need. A carriage ride with her father at age six opened her eyes to the appalling living conditions of Chicago immigrants.  She told her father she would buy the finest house in that neighborhood to live among them, understand their problems, and help them. 
​
Her life's work became just that: serving the large immigrant community-- Italian, Polish, German, and Russian --  in Chicago's industrial district.   In 1889, at Hull House, a restored mansion in the heart of a multi-ethnic neighborhood, she and other residents worked to meet their needs and offer social and educational opportunities.  Hull House residents offered everything from babysitting to English classes to meals, classes on nutrition, sanitation, sewing, bookbinding, concerts, and discussion groups. They provided medical help and shelter for victims of domestic abuse. The "settlement house" movement in America began with Jane Addams, but by 1920, there were more than 500 such homes in major American cities serving the large urban immigrant communities, and helping them make it in their new home. 

The life of Jane Addams reminds us that we are called to serve each other and that in a democracy, we are all in it together.  Jane was fond of saying, "The cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy," by which she meant more people helping people.  How? "By mixing on the thronged and common road where all must turn out for one another, and at least see the size of one another's burdens." (Democracy and Social Ethics)