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When it comes to commitment one of the names that frequently surfaces is Jane Hull. At the young age of seven she was visiting a shabby street in a small town near Chicago. Seeing ragged children there she announced that some day she wanted to build a house so poor children could have a place to play. When she became a young adult she visited Toynbee Hall in London where she observed educated people helping the poor by living among them. When she returned to Chicago she and a friend restored an old mansion and moved in.
The two women cared for children of working mothers. They also opened the house to older children and held sewing classes and cooking classes. There were art rooms, music rooms and reading rooms too. Jane also became an advocate for the poor. Later she was awarded an honorary degree from Yale. President Theodore Roosevelt claimed she was "America's most useful citizen." She was eventually awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. In spite of her notoriety, Jane Hull remained a resident at the Hull house and finally died there in the place she called home...
