My first find is this picture, which illustrates one of the main components of religious groups--being used as an engine for social change. It is becoming more clear to me that, despite how much many want it to, a religion cannot exist within one individual. It must form some sort of group identity and then propagate its morality in some way, otherwise it will die out.
In the section entitled, "The Spread of Settling"the page opens up with this chunk of text which caught my attention:Before long there were many settlements in Chicago whose programs and philosophies were reported in articles in newspapers and magazines including New England Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, and Ladies' Home Journal. The settlement movement produced its own periodicals: Commons, Neighborhood, Survey and Survey Graphic. Leaders in the settlement movement gave papers on various themes at national meetings like the National Conference of Charities and Correction. Conference papers also were published. There was a proliferation of information about the programs of social settlements and the movement's connection to education, the labor movement, and charities and correction.
The similarities to a religious organization are uncanny; Publishing group philosophies, leaders meeting at national conferences presenting their ideas (probably expanding upon these "philosophies")--sounds a lot like denominational conferences.
A somewhat amusing, and slightly less applicable find was this short article.
This is another example of how Jane Adams and the Settlement house acted like and were viewed as just another congregation in Chicago (despite their lack of theistic dogma).
Possibly in response to the role that Hull House began to take on, it appears from this article that some of the more institutionalized/mainstream religious groups were threatened by Hull House's success. This paragraph seems to sum up the article well:
But really, is Hull House the chief agency for diffusing culture and teaching civilization in Chicago? We do not so believe. When we reflect upon the tremendous number of German Catholic churches and schools, Irish Catholic churches and schools, French Catholic churches and schools, and Catholic churches and schools for Poles, Bohemians, Italians, Austrians and even Syrians, we feel obliged to enter a protest for the sake of truth. It is a fact most easily proved that nearly three-fourths of our foreign-born population are directly under the rule of the Catholic Church. It is building civilization here after a manner which Hull House does not understand and cannot appreciate. It is a fact visible to God that the Catholic Church in Chicago is doing more to create a snow-white dawn among all the races surging into this great, restless, terrible city than fifty Hull Houses could do, and if one but stop and reflect impartially it will be equally visible to man.
Those are my three finds, and I look forward to reading/hearing about the rest tomorrow.
