Florence Kelley Live from 1890s Chicago: And Yet, and yet. We must continue. In spite of our pride, our greed, our stupidity, our repeated mistakes. We must go on.
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| On 24 April 2013, Rana Plaza, an eight-story commercial building, collapsed in Savar, a sub-district in the Greater Dhaka Area, the capital of Bangladesh. The search for the dead ended on 13 May with a death toll of 1,129. Approximately 2,515 injured people were rescued from the building alive. [Source: Wikimedia Creative Commons] |
Always better to get started. Do something that begins something. Look at what we did with our little Factory Inspection Reports!! We got people’s attention! Made some people mad. Sometimes that is all you can do!
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| Sewing Hall at D. B, Fisk & Co., Wholesale Millinery at 225 N. Wabash Ave. built in 1912. Description: Sewing Hall at D. B, Fisk & Co., Wholesale Millinery at 225 N. Wabash Ave. built in 1912, Chicago, IL. Source: ICHi-14489. Reproduction of film negative, photographer unknown. Date: ca. 1910. |
Florence Kelley Live from 1890s Chicago: People will surprise you. In a good way. We were few at Hull House. Mostly women. But some like minded men. We just set out to do it. And we did it. Gentle Jane Addams had a strength of 10!
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| For residents including Jane Addams right the constant intrusion of visitors must have been disconcerting. Frances Hackett recalls one incident in which "one of the visitors caught a glimpse through the windowof Jane Addams sitting at a table…without waiting for an invitation or asking permission she opened the door to the dining room ... 'Oh girls,' she cried 'come here quickly. Here's one of them eating'." (JAMC 557) [Credit/source: Hull-House (IL) (Images of America), Peggy Glowacki] |
Florence Kelley Live from 1890s Chicago: I never was afraid for myself. For my safety. Though sometimes people shouted at me, or shouted me down. They made way for me, as I walked past.
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| Troops camped by Court House, Railroad Strike of 1894, Chicago, IL. Source: ICHi-22888. Reproduction of photographic print, photographer unknown. Date: 1894. |
Florence Kelley Live from 1890s Chicago: Of course we remember those who came before us, a year, a decade, a century ago. They built the stage where we stand and live out our lives.
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| Image of a funeral procession for victims of the Eastland disaster in Chicago, Illinois. The Eastland was a steamship that capsized in the Chicago River, leaving over 800 people dead. [Credit: DN-0064960, Chicago Daily News collection, Chicago History Museum] 1915 |
Florence Kelley Live from 1890s Chicago: There is no love, if it can’t be shared. A smile, a touch, a look. In time, in space, love: what it is to be alive.
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| Large group of guests dressed as wait staff assembled on a Chicago Beach hotel porch during a Waiters strike. Image of guests dressed as wait staff assembled on a Chicago Beach hotel porch during a Waiters strike in Chicago Illinois. Some are holding trays with bread or bottles and glasses. Source: DN-0000637 Chicago Daily News negatives collection Chicago History Museum. Date: 1903 June 6. |
Our mood. Always in Chicago, our mood is the weather. Broody, bright, the sun winking at us through the clouds.
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| Image of a boy with his mittened hands at his mouth, sitting in a wagon made from a crate, on a sidewalk in Chicago, Illinois. A baby carriage is visible behind him. Text on the image reads Cold Weather Scene. [Credit: DN-0065405, Chicago Daily News collection, Chicago History Museum] 1915 |
Florence Kelley Live from 1890s Chicago: Don’t think tomorrow. Don’t even think this afternoon. Today is all we have. Today, no yesterday, to tomorrow. Today. Can I do one useful thing today?
[Source/credit: Photo by Rubenstein. Archives, Kheel Center, Cornell University]
Florence Kelley Live from 1890s Chicago: The weather. The weather is the first thing we experience, when we wake up in the morning. The weather, it envelopes us when we go outside. Of course people everywhere, for all time ,have always watched and wondered about the weather. Our glorious sun…
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| Fireboat, the Swenie, docked on the Chicago River. [Credit/source: DN-0000485, Chicago Daily News collection, Chicago History Museum]. 1903 |
Whipped cream on hot chocolate after a day spent walking through the mud in streets of the slums where there were no sewers. Could construction of sewers ever be bad?
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| Big sewer entering Bubbly Creek Branch near Chicago stockyards. ICHi-15014. Chicago History Museum. Reproduction of photograph; photographer unknown. From Chicago Commons collections. Date: 1905. |