" Because Settlements have multiplied so easily in the
United States I hoped that a simple statement of an earlier
effort, including the stress and storm, might be of value in
their interpretation and possibly clear them of a certain charge
of superficiality. The unworthy motive was a desire to start a
"backfire," as it were, to extinquish two biographies of myself,
one of which had been submitted to me in outline, that made life
in a Settlement all too smooth and charming.
The earlier chapters present influences and personal motives with
a detail which will be quite unpardonable if they fail to make
clear the personality upon whom various social and industrial
movements in Chicago reacted during a period of twenty years. No
effort is made in the recital to separate my own history from
that of Hull-House during the years in which I was "launched deep
into the stormy intercourse of human life" for, so far as a mind
is pliant under the pressure of events and experiences, it
becomes hard to detach it.
It has unfortunately been necessary to abandon [Page ix] the
chronological order in favor of the topical, for during the early
years at Hull-House, time seemed to afford a mere framework for
certain lines of activity and I have found in writing this book,
that after these activities have been recorded, I can scarcely
recall the scaffolding.
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