The haunting of Hull House Hull House was a settlement house in the United States that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located in the Near West Side of Chicago, Illinois, Hull House (named for the homes first owner) opened its doors to recently arrived European immigrants. By 1911, Hull House had grown to 13 buildings. In 1912 the Hull House complex was completed with the addition of a summer camp, the Bowen Country Club. With its innovative social, educational, and artistic programs, Hull House became the standard bearer for the movement that had grown, by 1920, to almost 500 settlement houses nationally. The Hull mansion and several subsequent acquisitions were continuously renovated to accommodate the changing demands of the association. The original building and one additional building (which has been moved 200 yards (182.9 m)) survive today. On June 12, 1974, the Hull House building was designated a Chicago Landmark.[8] On June 23, 1965, it was designated as a U.S. National Historic Landmark . On October 15, 1966, which is the day that the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 was enacted, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Hull House was one of the four original members to be listed on both the Chicago Registered Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places list (along with Chicago Pile-1, Robie House & Lorado Taft Midway Studios). The Hull House Association ceased operations in January 2012, but the Hull mansion remains open as a museum. Hull House was located in Chicago Illinois, and took its name from the Italianate mansion built by real estate magnate Charles J. Hull at 800 South Halsted Street in 1856. The building was located in what had once been a fashionable part of town, but by 1889, when Addams was searching for a location for her experiment, it had descended into squalor. This was partly due to the rapid and overwhelming influx of immigrants into the Near West Side neighborhood. Charles Hull granted his former home to his niece Helen Culver, who in turn granted it to Addams on a 25-year rent-free lease. By 1907, Addams had acquired 13 buildings surrounding Hulls mansion. Between 1889 and 1935, Addams and Ellen Gates Starr continuously redeveloped the building. In 1912, the Bowen Country Club summer camp was added to complete the Hull House complex. The facility remained at the original location until it was purchased in 1963 by what was then called the University of Illinois-Circle Campus. The development of University of Illinois-Circle Campus required the demolition of many surrounding Hull House buildings and the 1967 restoration to the original building by Frazier, Raftery, Orr and Fairbank removed Addamss third floor addition. Of the dozen additional buildings only the craftsman style dining hall (built in 1905 and designed by Pond & Pond) survives and it was moved 200 yards (182.9 m) from its original site. Addams noted upon moving in that the building had a half skeptical reputation for a haunted attic. Over the years, numerous stories of ghosts and hauntings have surrounded Hull House, making it a stop on many of the ghosts in Chicago tours. Charles Hulls wife had died in the house in 1860, and is sometimes thought to haunt it. Other candidates for resident ghosts include the many people who died there of natural causes in the 1870s when it was used as a home for the aged by the Little Sisters of the Poor. In 1913, another Hull House ghost story began circulating. According to this legend, after a man claimed that he would rather have the Devil in his house than a picture of The Virgin Mary, his child was born with pointed ears, horns, scale-covered skin, and a tail. The mother was said to have taken the baby to Hull House, where Addams was said to have attempted to have it baptized and wound up locking it in the attic. While initially annoyed about the story, which had no basis in fact, Addams became fascinated by the effect the episode had on old women in the neighborhood and used the episode as a basis for her book, The Long Road of Womans Memory. While a great many erroneous stories have circulated about the building, Addams is known to have spoken to several friends about one of the front bedrooms on the second floor being haunted - she and a friend once thought they saw a woman in white ghost there, and the same ghost was later seen by a group of girls when the room was used as a dressing room for the adjacent theater. Though Addams called it haunted, she seems to have been more amused than frightened by it.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 23:02:34 +0000
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