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Ellen Gates Starr

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Advocate

The Resume

    (March 19, 1859-February 10, 1940)
    Born in Laona, Illinois
    American social reformer and activist
    Student at Rockford Female Seminary (1877-78)
    Co-founder of Hull House, along with Jane Addams (1889)
    Organizer with the Women's Trade Union League (1896-1928)
    Wrote 'Art and Public Schools' (1892), 'Outline Sketch Descriptive of Hull House' (1892), 'Art and Democracy' (1895), 'Art and Labor' (1895), 'Settlements and the Church's Story' (1896), 'Hull House Bookbindery' (1902), 'The Renaissance of Handicraft' (1902), 'Handicraft of Bookbinding' (1915), 'Bookbinding' (1916), 'Why I am a Socialist' (1917), 'A Bypath into the Great Roadway' (1924), 'Reflections on the Breviary' (1927), and 'Two Pilgrim Experiences' (1930)

Why she might be annoying:

    Alice Hamilton called her 'difficult' on labor strikes.
    She was just as crucial to Hull House's development, but is nonetheless overshadowed by her more famous co-founder.
    She was a bookbinder (back when they were in actual high demand).
    She tried teaching the Hull House residents bookbinding, but realized pretty quickly that the skill wouldn't do them much good.
    She is strongly believed to have had a closeted lesbian relationship with Addams for over three decades.
    She spent her final years in a convent, but never identified as an official member of the community.
    Part of her failure to become as nationally loved as Addams may have stemmed from her militant embrace of socialism, which alienated her from more conservative wings of the country.

Why she might not be annoying:

    She lived and worked at Hull House for nearly 30 years.
    She founded the Chicago Public School Art Society (1894).
    She was a crusader on behalf child labor reform laws.
    She was arrested numerous times during workers' rights strikes.
    She enjoyed teaching 'King Lear' to her immigrant students.
    She held more responsibility in the modelling of Hull House on Toynbee Hall in London.
    Her writings on Hull House have been called more realistic and brutally honest than Addams' more famous works.
    She became paralyzed from the waist down after an operation to remove a spinal abscess in 1929.
    She was a pioneer in sociology who influenced John Dewey and George Herbert Mead.
    She is credited with bringing the British Arts and Crafts movement to Chicago and the US as a whole.

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 6 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 17 Votes: 47.06% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 18 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 34 Votes: 35.29% Annoying