It was also significant
that a Chicago business man, fond of pictures himself, responded
to this first appeal of the new and certainly puzzling
undertaking called a Settlement.
The situation was somewhat complicated by the fact that at the time
the building was erected in 1891, our free lease of the land upon
which Hull-House stood expired in 1895. The donor of the building,
however, overcame the difficulty by simply calling his gift a
donation of a thousand dollars a year. This restriction of course
necessitated the simplest sort of a structure, although I remember
on the exciting day when the new building was promised to us, that
I looked up my European notebook which contained the record of my
experience in Ulm, hoping that I might find a description of what I
then thought "a Cathedral of Humanity" ought to be. The
description was "low and widespreading as to include all men in
fellowship and mutual responsibility even as the older pinnacles
and spires indicated communion with God." The description did not
prove of value as an architectural motive I am afraid, although the
architects, who have remained our friends through all the years,
performed marvels with a combination of complicated demands and
little money. At the moment when I read this girlish outbreak it
gave me much comfort, for in those days in addition to our other
perplexities Hull-House was often called irreligious.
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