He came down Polk Street as I was standing near
the foundations of our new gymnasium, and in response to his
friendly remark that "Hull-House was spreading out," I replied that
"Perhaps we were spreading out too fast." "Oh, no," he rejoined,
"you can afford to spread out wide, you are so well planted in the
mud," giving the compliment, however, a practical turn, as he
glanced at the deep mire on the then unpaved street. It was this
same condition of Polk Street which had caused the crown prince of
Belgium when he was brought upon a visit to Hull-House to shake his
head and meditatively remark, "There is not such a street--no, not
one--in all the territory of Belgium."
At the end of five years the residents of Hull-House published
some first found facts and our reflections thereon in a book
called "Hull-House Maps and Papers." The maps were taken from
information collected by one of the residents for the United
States Bureau of Labor in the investigation into "the slums of
great cities" and the papers treated of various neighborhood
matters with candor and genuine concern if not with skill. The
first edition became exhausted in two years, and apparently the
Boston publisher did not consider the book worthy of a second.
[Editor: Mary Mark Ockerbloom]
This chapter has been put on-line as part of the BUILD-A-BOOK
Initiative at the Celebration of Women Writers.
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