On Art, Labor, and Religion

Front Cover
Ellen Gates Starr, Mary Jo Deegan, Ana-Maria Wahl
Transaction Publishers - Biography & Autobiography - 242 pages

"Starr's interdisciplinary writings (touching on social work, religion, education, US history, women's studies, sociology, and urban studies) add to the growing anthology of women's history and the lived experiences of the common woman." --Choice

Chicago was a tumultuous and exciting city in 1889. Immigration, industrialization, urbanization, and politics created a vortex of social change. This lively chaos called out for both celebration and reform, and two women, Ellen Gates Starr and Jane Addams, responded to this challenge by founding the social settlement Hull House. Although Addams is one of the most famous women in American history and a major figure in sociology, Starr remains virtually unknown. On Art, Labor, and Religion is the first anthology of Starr's writings and biography and makes evident her contributions to national and international sociological thought and practice.

In addition to co-founding Hull House, Starr actively brought the Arts and Crafts movement in Britain to Chicago through extensive and intensive relations with this group of artisans, theorists, socialists, and proto-sociologists, founding a number of important societies based on their ideals and practices. Her writings on art, like those of William Morris and John Ruskin, stress the need for a unitary life and meaningful work that is aesthetically expressive and in harmony with nature and the community. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, she gained national fame as a visible socialist and advocate for women's labor movements whose activism helped secure greater safety for many strikers. An adherent of Fabian socialism, Starr's writings on labor unrest reflect her turning away from aestheticism toward more active political engagement. Her firm commitment to feminism, expressed between 1892 and 1920, reveal a pragmatic belief in human improvement, more inclusive democracy, and our capacity to end major social problems. On converting to Catholicism in 1920, she left Hull House to follow a more private spiritual journey, eventually entering the Benedictine religious order where she remained until her death in 1940. Her late religious and mystical writings renounce her former activism and the "Protestant ethic" in favor of an otherworldly dedication and an ordered life of prayer and devotion to Christ.

Her essays make a distinct contribution to our knowledge about early sociology and the social settlement movement. This volume restores a significant figure to her rightful place in American social history.

Mary Jo Deegan is professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. She is the author of Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School and the editor of George Herbert Mead's Essays in Social Psychology, both available from Transaction. Ana-Maria Wahl is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. She specializes in labor studies and comparative sociology with an emphasis on Mexico.

From inside the book

Contents

IV
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V
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VI
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VII
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VIII
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IX
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XI
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XXI
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XXII
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XXX
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XXXI
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Copyright

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Page 69 - For, don't you mark ? we're made so that we love First when we see them painted, things we have passed Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see; And so they are better, painted — better to us, Which is the same thing. Art was given for that; God uses us to help each other so, Lending our minds out.
Page 224 - The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, according to the use of THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH in the UNITED STATES of AMERICA, together with the Psalter, or Psalms of David.
Page 160 - Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead thou me on ! The night is dark and I am far from home; Lead thou me on ! Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step enough for me.
Page 206 - AWAKE, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city : for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust ; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem : loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.
Page 208 - Praise to the Holiest in the height, And in the depth be praise, In all His words most wonderful; Most sure in all His ways! O loving wisdom of our God! When all was sin and shame, A second Adam to the fight And to the rescue came.
Page 214 - Ailiun On the pinnacle of a rock, That I might often see The face of the ocean ; That I might hear the song of the wonderful birds, Source of happiness; That I might hear the thunder of the crowding waves Upon the rocks: At times at work without compulsion — This would be delightful; At times plucking dulse from the rocks; At times at fishing.
Page 45 - An effort has been made to show only pictures which combine. to a considerable degree. an elevated tone with technical excellence: and at no time can a very large assortment of such pictures be obtained. There is an advantage on the side of a small exhibition carefully selected. especially to an untrained public. The confusion and fatigue of mind which a person of no trained powers of selection suffers in passing his eyes wearily over the assortment of good. bad. and indifferent which the average...
Page 43 - settlement." to be effective. must contain an element of permanency. so that the neighborhood may feel that the interest and fortunes of the residents are identical with their own. The settlement must have an enthusiasm for the possibilities of its locality. and an ability to bring into it and develop from it those lines of thought and action which make for the "higher life.

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