Religion and the Hull-House

By way of illustration he showed me a beautiful little church which had been built by the last slave-trading merchant in Bristol, who had been much disapproved of by his fellow townsmen and had hoped by this transmutation of ill-gotten money into exquisite Gothic architecture to reconcile himself both to God and man. His impulse to build may have been born from his own scruples or from the quickened consciences of his neighbors who saw that the world-old iniquity of enslaving men must at length come to an end. The Abolitionists may have regarded this beautiful building [Page 140] as the fruit of a contrite heart, or they may have scorned it as an attempt to magnify the goodness of a slave trader and thus perplex the doubting citizens of Bristol in regard to the entire moral issue.

I think this quotation illustrates the two possible ways religion may connect to the formation of the Hull-house. On one hand, Jane Adams may have extended her childhood fears of “entering a fiery hell” into her later life. Like the slaveholder who builds the church, the Hull-house may have been an act of egoistic altruism (as ironic as that sounds). Adams may have empathized with others (empathy is when you place yourself in other people shoes) and formed the house in order to relieve her own pain (that she felt through the psychological connection with others). In psychology, this concept is called oneness. On the other hand, just as the abolitionists may have regarded the church as a beautiful building (or accepted the slave-owners benevolent intentions), Jane Adams may have started the Hull house with purely altruistic intent. Religion as a whole does not play a specific role in the development of the Hull-house, but the intentions Jane Adams had were most likely influenced by her religious background.