Twenty Years at Hull-HouseTwo works cited Victoria Bissell Brown's introduction to Twenty Years at Hull-House explains the life of Jane Addams and her commitment to understanding social change to the problems that existed during the late 20th century. Reacting to the hardships of a changing industrial society, Addams decided to establish a settlement house on the west side of Chicago to help people who had suffered from the cruelties of industrialization. Rejecting philosophies stemming from the Gilded Age, such as social Darwinism and the belief that human affairs were determined by natural law, Addams was a progressive who wanted government to be more responsive to people. As a progressive, Jane Addams committed herself as a social servant of the community in an attempt to fulfill the promise of democracy to all rather than to a small group of elites. Addams' dedication to communal goals as opposed to individualistic achievements can be attributed to his upbringing and his considerable respect for his father, John Huy Addams. Although John Addams was extremely wealthy, his neighbors appreciated and respected him for the benefits he brought to their community, such as a reliable mill, a railroad, a bank, and an insurance company (5). Recalling the respect her father had earned from the community, Jane Addams saw her father not "as an overbearing capitalist dictator of the Gilded Age, but as a self-made administrator of an era in which leaders they put the interests of the community alongside their own" (5) . Jane Addams' father, in fact, influenced her way of thinking about dedication to community service. He looked to his father for guidance… middle of paper… were as limited in their social effectiveness as people who knew only day-to-day survival” (21). In his opinion, a democratic society could only succeed if a balance was achieved between education and real-life experiences. In addition to the balance between education and survival, Addams believed that a democracy could only maintain its legitimacy if it required the participation of all its citizens. For me, I thought Jane Addams's crusade to found Hull-House was an attempt to fulfill the democratic promise to a broader audience. Works Cited Brown, Victoria Bissel, ed. Introduction. Twenty years at Hull-House. 1910. By Jane Addams. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 1999. 1-38.Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The yellow wallpaper." 1892. Ed. Dale M. Bauer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin, 1998.