A formidable foe

Levy Mayer organized the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association and spearheaded the fight against the factory inspection law and Florence Kelley and her staff. A

In Ritchie v People (1895) the courts ruled in favor of an 8-hour working day limit for women employed in factories, workshops, and similar establishments. Although the Illinois Supreme Court struck down the ruling as unconstitutional, finally in Muller v. Oregon (1908), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law limiting women's working hours, relying heavily on evidence that long hours harmed women's health.

Levy Mayer, attorney (R) with Armour, J. Ogden. 1918
[Source: Harris & Ewing Library of Congress]

We must learn from history

What do you do when evil people, mean people, ignorant people have taken over the reins of power. It doesn’t end well. They know no history, know nothing of Stalin or Mussolini. We must learn from history. Help us, Jane. Help us find, to remember what good government is, what service to the people is—rather than stealing from them!

A scene on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, commonly known as 'The ‘Pit.’ Many memorable ‘battles of the giants’ took place in this historic building, which stood from 1884 until 1929.

[Source: Courtesy of “Chicago and Its Makers” (Chicago: Felix Mendelsohn, 1929).

So much evil, meanness, mindless, endless cruelty – what to do?

When faced with so much evil, meanness, mindless, endless cruelty – what to do? 

Certainly protest. Speak up! But that seems not enough. 

The killing, the torture, the corruption of government, the stealing just gets worse.

Our democracy, our constitution—Jane Addams knew this, told us this—is designed to protect us from the demagogues, the rule by greedy fools and madmen, the dictators. 

Jane, Jane, tell us what to do now!

Firefighters and equipment working to extinguish the devastating Iroquois Theater fire, which remains the deadliest single-building fire in U.S. history. There were some reports that the construction company that built the theater had tampered with evidence after the fire, possibly trying to unseal the skylights that had been nailed shut. But even with 602 deaths, no one was ever held criminally responsible.
[Source: Library of Congress Chicago Daily News Collection 1902-1930]

Undermining tyrants and dictators

Jane Addams and I always undermined tyrants and dictators, small and hurtful, large and disastrous. Nothing a dictator, large or small, hates more than laughter and ridicule at his expense. Tee hee.

Johnny Powers reigned triumphant in the 19th Ward, despite his corruption and tolerance of crime. Jane Addams also fought his backroom dealings, bribery and cronyism. As the director of Hull House, situated in the 19th Ward and an advocate of social reform, Addams strove for proper public educational facilities to house the 3,000 children who could not attend the ward’s overcrowded schools. [Source: By Bodine & Co. (publishers) - Illinois Political Directory and Sketch Book, 1898: With Portraits of Party Leaders, Volume 1, Public Domain]

The law can be a ceiling, a floor, a wall, a door

The law can be a ceiling, a floor, a wall, a door. It shouldn’t be a barricade where the soldiers are sleeping and snoring loudly!

Healey corruption case, crowded municipal court room, presided over by Judge Olson, judge is visible on right side of image.
[Source: Library of Congress Chicago Daily News Collection 1902-1930]

Walking in the Loop? Look down. You may be passing new markers of city’s Race Riot of 1919!

Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project operations director Myles Francis talks to a walking tour group about a ground marker with the name of Robert Williams etched in a glass brick, displayed at the intersection of South State and West Van Buren Streets, Nov. 8, 2025, in Chicago. Williams was one of 38 people killed during the violence of the riot.

Chicago race riot, five policemen and one soldier with rifle standing on street corner.
[Source: Chicago Daily News, Inc. Created/Published ca. 1919 July-Aug. DN-0071298, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago Historical Society Reproduction Number: DN-0071298 Digital ID: ichicdn n071298]

Reliving the 1890s

Every day, I am struck by all the ways in which we are reliving the 1890s. In that era too, consumers organized, using their buying power to affect politics. As the first general secretary of the National Consumers League, Florence Kelley, put it: “To live means to buy, to buy means to have power, to have power means to have responsibility.”  [excerpt from "Letters from an American" (Nov 25, 2025)]

Women and children. Photograph by Rubenstein
[Source: Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Date: Circa 1885]

Founding of the National Consumers League

In 1899, Lowell and Jane Addams founded the National Consumers League, with Florence Kelley at its head. The organization worked to combat child labor and poor working conditions and, in an era when milk was commonly adulterated with chalk and formaldehyde and candies were decorated with lead paint, lobbied for government regulation of food and drugs.

Florence Kelley (third from left) standing with factory inspectors. 
[Source: Photo courtesy of Hull House Museum]

Leaders always mislead the people

Leaders always mislead the people. They promise the war will be short. No one will suffer. Only the enemy will be destroyed. We will not be hurt. Years Later. Millions of deaths later. Destruction of buildings institutions families children. Everything. Every time. We were always against the war all the wars although we served. I always served my country.

The Center for Public Integrity stated that the Bush administration made a total of 935 false statements between 2001 and 2003 about Iraq's alleged threat to the United States. The Washington Post Fact Checker documented 30,573 false or misleading claims by Donald Trump during his 2016-2020 term. [source 1 | source 2]

Will he come back again?

In Chicago as in the rest of the nation women watched their men leave for the battlefields of France in 1917 and each wondered: Will he come back again?

[Source: "Vintage: ‘The Great War’ through the lens of the Chicago Tribune" March 5, 2018]. [Photo: (1917) PUBLIC DOMAIN]

Protection: Our democracy, our Constitution

When faced with so much evil meanness mindless endless cruelty—what to do? Certainly protest. Speak up! But that seems not enough. The killing, the torture, the corruption of government, the stealing just gets worse. Our democracy, our Constitution—Jane Addams knew this told us this—is designed to protect us from the demagogues, the rule by greedy fools, the madmen and the dictators. Jane...Jane tell us what to do now!

Jane Addams speaking to a crowd July 22, 1915
[source: Wikimedia Commons. American Memory Collections is available from the United States Library of Congress's National Digital Library Program under the digital ID ichicdn.n064814]

WAR!!!

War!! This is why foolish people, people who command armies, love war. War gives everyone something to do. War means that you follow ‘orders’. And always, the promise: QUICK VICTORY! The hated, hateful enemy (in comparison to our virtuous selves) will be destroyed!!!

And all that happens? People die. Soldiers die. Civilians die. Mothers die. Children die. If only it were short! Human arrogance coupled with real destructive power will kill many, leave no one better off. Survival is the goal.

Thousands marching, thousands watching Our National Army, Michigan Avenue,Chicago. August 4, 1917.
[source]: Public domain

"Suffs" and women's suffrage

Interest in these matters, such as women’s suffrage, exploitation of workers and women and suffrage, remains strong, perhaps in a resurgence.  

For example, ‘Suffs,’—a musical which premiered in New York City in April 2024 at the Music Box Theater—is about the politics and the people, women and men who made women’s suffrage a reality in the US. 

Its writer, composer and director, Shaina Taub, won Tony Awards for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score; she also starred during its run in New York City. 

Once again we have art playing its critical role in preserving and commenting upon  history, politics and most importantly the lives and circumstances of people whose dedication and purpose made a difference, and important contributions to history and the government of  our country. The fight for women’s suffrage continues elsewhere.

Five thousand women marched in the rain to the Republican Party Convention hall in 1916 to demand a Woman Suffrage plank in the party platform.
[Source: Public domain. "Illinois Women, 75 Year of the Right to Vote", Chicago Sun Times 1996, Photo: 1916]

Help us, Jane, to find and remember what good government is

What do you do when evil people, mean people, ignorant people have taken over the reins of power? It doesn’t end well. They know no history, nothing of Stalin or Mussolini. We must learn from history. Help us, Jane! Help us find and remember what good government is—with service to the people—rather than stealing from them.

Half-length portrait of the infamous con artist ‘Yellow Kid’ Weil sitting in a room in Chicago, Illinois. 

[Source: Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago Historical Society. Reproduction Number: DN-0070628 Digital ID: ichicdn n070628]

The Guardian US live news editor Chris Michael takes us through the six most controversial members, and what their appointments could mean for the country.
[Source: The Guardian "Trump’s most controversial cabinet picks: what do they mean for the future of the US? – video". March 4, 2025]

Don’t forget art

Don’t forget art—to rejuvenate us, to make us believe, to remind us of the power of love, and its mystery, remaining, thank god, always!

Louis Sullivan's striking design for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition's Transportation Building featured a polychromatic façade and majestic “Golden Door” entrance on the east side.
[Source: ICHi-52341. Chicago History Museum. Reproduction of illustration, artist C. Graham. Date: 1893]

 

Remember you are only one person, but...

Remember you are only one person, and while one person can’t do everything, there is much she can do! Like working to get women the vote successfully in Illinois, in 1913! What will you fight for now?

Governor Edward F. Dunne signing the Illinois suffrage bill on June 26, 1913. From the Chicago Record Herald, June 27, 1913.
[Credit: Chicago Herald Record, Chicago History Museum, ICHi-036849]

 

You must laugh at human stupidity

 You must laugh at human stupidity, greed, incompetence—even as you thwart it whenever possible.

View of William Deneau, a diver in the Eastland disaster recovery efforts, in the water near a tugboat in the Chicago River, Chicago, Illinois, circa August 28, 1915. They were searching for objects in the river from the overturned Eastland steamer. The Reid Murdoch Building and the Clark Street Bridge are visible in the background.
[Credit: DN-0065012, Chicago Daily News collection, Chicago History Museum 1915 Aug]

Politics has always been a mess!

Politics has always been a mess, and dominated by the greedy, the corrupt, the incompetent.

On December 30, 1903 in the afternoon 575 people – hundreds of young children and their mothers who had come to see Eddie Foy in a holiday matinee – died when flames, fumes, smoke and explosions rocketed from the stage of the Iroquois Theatre. Then a thin blue mist and great volumes of grey cloud engulfed the audience. Many died in their seats, others were trampled on their way to the exits.  

The Mayor, the second Carter Harrison elected in 1897, was arrested and held to answer when it was discovered that the City Commissioner of Buildings had not inspected the building or enforced regulations regarding the fire escapes and extinguishers. The Commission had the authority to direct the Fire Department to tear down a dangerous and defective building.

Firemen spraying water at the Iroquois Theater building during the fire. View of firemen spraying water up at the Iroquois Theater building in Chicago, Illinois, during the fire. Other firemen are standing nearby.
[Source: Date: DN-0001584, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago History Museum. 1903 Dec. 30]

It’s always darkest before the dawn

Two old adages seem especially relevant right now: "It’s always darkest before the dawn," and "When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

[Credit: © 2024 Mark Edwin Swindle]

Do something with it!!

We marched onto the floor of the Illinois State Legislature for a Reason: So that you would have more power than we did. Do something with it!!

Suffragette Parade, 23 October 1915.  [Source: Wikimedia. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.]

Cherish the vote!

Cherish the vote. Now that you have it. Too many places women still cannot vote.

In 1916, Alice Paul formed the National Woman's Party (NWP), a group focused on the passage of a national suffrage amendment. Over 200 NWP supporters, the Silent Sentinels, were arrested in 1917 while picketing the White House, some of whom went on hunger strike and endured forced feeding after being sent to prison. Under the leadership of Carrie Chapman Catt, the two-million-member NAWSA also made a national suffrage amendment its top priority. After a hard-fought series of votes in the U.S. Congress and in state legislatures, the Nineteenth Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution on August 18, 1920. It states, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." [Source: Women's Suffrage in the United States. Wikipedia]

Women's suffragists parade in New York City in 1917, carrying placards with the signatures of more than a million women.
[Source: New York Times. Created October 1, 1917]

...we didn’t even have the vote. You can do so much more!!!

Remember, Jane and I and the Hull House Women accomplished what we did, and it was amazing. And we didn’t even have the vote. You can do so much more!!!

Some of the picket line of Nov. 10, 1917.   [Source: Library of Congress. Harris & Ewing, Washington, DC (Photographer). Public domain]

Elections? Voting? You would rather have it than not, even with all the problems

Elections? Voting? You would rather have it than not, even with all the problems. Democracy? We can’t give up on democracy, even if we are tearing our hair out.

Portrait of Jane Addams (1860-1935), sitting in an automobile in Chicago, Illinois. A policeman on horseback is visible in the background. [Source: Chicago Daily News DN-0064813. No Copyright. July 22, 1915]

A law in your way? Change it!

A law in your way? Change it! Get a court or a legislature to change it. Get yourself out there to make it happen. Remember it is all about getting to the authority. Who has the authority to accomplish what you want to do? Many places to hide with in the law’s obscurity.

Amid rain, a large crowd of demonstrators gathers in front of the county courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama where Martin Luther King Jr. meets with city and county officials regarding police brutality during the previous day's peaceful march, March 17, 1965.
[Credit: Chicago History Museum, ICHi-075006; Declan Haun, photographer]

 

My mother wrote the most marvelous letters

My mother wrote the most marvelous letters. She wrote on both sides of the paper, across lines already written to save the paper. Still I could read them. She could barely let me out of her sight after Anna died, wouldn’t let me go to school. I can’t blame her.

[Source: The New York Public Library Archives & Manuscripts division maintains a collection, Florence Kelley Papers, including her correspondence.]

I had to hide the children away during all my time in Chicago

The Cook County Courthouse? I spent time there in my custody dispute. My husband, Lazare Wischnewetzky, the mad, abusive one, didn’t want me, but he did want the children. I had to hide the children away during all my time in Chicago. My son, Nicholas, remembered coming to Hull House as a boy and being a child of Hull House.

While studying in Zurich, Kelley met and married Lazare Wischnewetzky, a Russian-Polish medical student, with whom she had 3 children. [Source: Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. "Family portrait" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1870 - 1925.]

Henry Demarest Lloyd, and Jesse Brosse Lloyd: advocates, reformers, historians

Henry Demarest Lloyd, and Jesse Brosse Lloyd: advocates, reformers, historians. He spent months living with the locked out workers at the time of the Strike in Pennsylvania,  where the mine owners did everything to starve the community into submission. Henry Demarest Lloyd then went and testified before Congress as to what he saw there.

Letter to Florence Kelley By H. D. Lloyd, 1899

I was a sickly child

I spent hours, days and nights, and weeks by myself, entertaining myself. I read through all of my father’s substantial Library, all the philosophers, the novelists, starting in one corner then going all around the room. What a blessing to have those books. History, Art, Understanding. Life elsewhere.

Florence Kelley was one of eight children, six girls and two boys, one set of twins. Five of the children died, including both twins, some as infants, some when they were older. She was the only girl to survive to adulthood, one of her sisters, Anna, living until the age of six before dying when Florence Kelley was 12.
[Source: Florence Kelley as a child. From Sklar, Katherine 'Notes of Sixty Years: The Autobiography of Florence Kelley,' p. 22]

Henry Demarest Lloyd and Jesse Brosse Lloyd

I fled New York City, to escape my deranged and violent husband, Lazare Wischnewetzky, with my three children, Nicholas, my beloved Margaret, and John. I borrowed money for the train fare from a young woman who worked as a governess, and escaped in the middle of the night secretly, on my way to Chicago, where I became a new person, Mrs. Florence Kelley, Henry Demarest Lloyd and his wife, the beautiful Jesse Brosse Lloyd said: Of course we will take the children. The children will live with us. And I went to Hull House. Just like that, a spontaneous act of generosity. That was the kind of people they were. Jesse Brosse Lloyd was disowned by her own father when her husband wrote a letter in support of the Haymarket anarchists. Haymarket was the symbol of rebellion, too soon after the Civil War to be forgotten.

When Henry Demarest Lloyd came to Chicago, he was a recent graduate of Columbia University, a lawyer, a poet, and he took the town by storm with his brilliance, his erudition, and his passion for justice. Before long he was the literary editor and then the very well respected financial editor of The Chicago Tribune. [Source: Puublic domain. H29628 U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress]

40 percent died before the age of 3

My mother, a remarkable woman. She had three daughters. I was the only one who survived. My beloved sister Anna died at the age of 12, an age where children had usually escaped the diseases.  Our hearts were broken. Vaccines made a difference. Of all children born in Chicago in the 1890’s, forty percent died before the age of three. People expected children to die, which didn’t make it right.

Group of children on street; Chicago, IL. [Source: ICHi-24067. Chicago History Museum. Reproduction of photograph, photographer unknown. Date: ca. 1905.]