Starr, Ellen Gates (1859–1940)

American settlement house worker and labor supporter who co-founded Hull House. Born in Laona, Illinois, on March 19, 1859; died in Suffern, New York, on February 10, 1940; third of four children of Caleb Allen Starr and Susan (Gates) Starr; niece of Eliza Allen Starr (1824–1901); attended Rockford (Ill.) Seminary, 1877; never married; no children.

When one thinks of Hull House, the preeminent American settlement house which opened its doors in Chicago in 1889, one thinks of its founder Jane Addams . Yet, alongside Addams for the first 20 years was Ellen Gates Starr. The two had met while attending Rockford Seminary during the late 1870s. Unlike her wealthier friend Addams, Starr could only afford to attend the seminary for one year before finding work as a teacher. Beginning in 1879, she taught for several years at the exclusive Miss Kirkland's School for Girls in Chicago. Meanwhile, Addams was still in search of meaningful work. In 1888, while traveling together in Europe, Addams and Starr decided to open a settlement house, patterned after London's Toynbee Hall. In 1889, using Addams' money and donations from the parents of Starr's pupils, the two bought a run-down mansion on Chicago's West Side.

During the 1890s, Hull House was the center of Chicago social and labor reform. While Jane Addams concentrated on the overall management, and labor organizers such as Mary Kenney O'Sullivan and social reformers such as Florence Kelley lived and worked out of the settlement, Ellen Gates Starr focused on bringing art to the impoverished immigrants of the neighbor. She organized reading clubs and art history classes as well as classes in bookbinding as an art. However, as the decade continued, Starr became increasingly involved in labor organizing, realizing the futility of art appreciation if one were hungry from lack of work at other than subsistence wages. In 1896, she participated in her first strike, assisting Chicago women textile workers. Starr joined the Women's Trade Union League in 1903 and took part in several more strikes, including a 1914 strike of Chicago waitresses during which she was arrested.

Throughout this period, Starr considered herself a Christian Socialist and by 1916, when she ran unsuccessfully for alderman, she was a member of the Socialist Party. However, she had long been in search of a deeper spiritual meaning to her life. After her intense relationship with Addams ended in the early 1890s, when Addams began what would be a 40-year partnership with Mary Rozet Smith , Starr spent years looking for a greater purpose. In 1920, she found that purpose when she joined the Roman Catholic Church. In 1929, after back surgery left her paralyzed from the waist down, Starr took up residence at the Convent of the Holy Child in Suffern, New York. She died shortly before her 81st birthday and was buried in the convent where she ended her spiritual quest.

sources:

Carrell, Elizabeth Palmer Hutcheson. Reflections in a Mirror: The Progressive Woman and the Settlement Experience. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1981.

collections:

Ellen Gates Starr Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.

Kathleen Banks Nutter , Manuscripts Processor at the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts