1889
19th
A01=Terrence J. McDonald
alderman
america
Author_Terrence J. McDonald
Category=JPR
Category=NHK
Category=WQH
century
chicago
city
education
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eq_history
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eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
forthcoming
frank
graft
house
hull
lawler
mother
municipal
nativism
nineteenth
politics
progressive
race
reform
renewal
sanitation
school
settlement
social
united states
urban
ward
women
work
Product details
- ISBN 9780226849492
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 23 Jun 2026
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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An engaging look at the encounter between Jane Addams, Hull House settlement co-founder and Progressive reformer, and Alderman Johnny Powers.
Jane Addams was full of courage and goodwill when she opened Hull House in Chicago’s Nineteenth Ward in 1889. However, she failed to understand that her immigrant neighbors had been well-organized around mostly Catholic churches and schools for decades before her arrival. Her ultimate political rival, Johnny Powers, grew up in this culture but was no ethnic hero or deep political thinker. Nearly Neighbors is the first book to provide a contextualized history of their encounter, embedding it in the social and political culture and structures of Chicago and the Nineteenth Ward in the 1890s.
Terrence J. McDonald provides a crucial analysis of two pivotal figures in Chicago’s political history, in part by providing the first detailed assessment of Powers’s life and practices, but also by demonstrating Addams’s misconception of him and her neighbors—and why it matters for understanding her Progressive work overall. In both her political work and writings, Addams saw her ethnic neighbors as bundles of economic need, rather than bearers of ethnic culture. At the same time, she was recruited by elite allies into causes that appeared to be opposed by her neighbors. These views and practices permitted Powers to win in their climactic political battle in 1898 simply by claiming to be the neighborhood defender against Addams and her “downtown” allies. Nearly Neighbors offers a new way of understanding Addams and the complicated legacy of her famous political work and writings.
Jane Addams was full of courage and goodwill when she opened Hull House in Chicago’s Nineteenth Ward in 1889. However, she failed to understand that her immigrant neighbors had been well-organized around mostly Catholic churches and schools for decades before her arrival. Her ultimate political rival, Johnny Powers, grew up in this culture but was no ethnic hero or deep political thinker. Nearly Neighbors is the first book to provide a contextualized history of their encounter, embedding it in the social and political culture and structures of Chicago and the Nineteenth Ward in the 1890s.
Terrence J. McDonald provides a crucial analysis of two pivotal figures in Chicago’s political history, in part by providing the first detailed assessment of Powers’s life and practices, but also by demonstrating Addams’s misconception of him and her neighbors—and why it matters for understanding her Progressive work overall. In both her political work and writings, Addams saw her ethnic neighbors as bundles of economic need, rather than bearers of ethnic culture. At the same time, she was recruited by elite allies into causes that appeared to be opposed by her neighbors. These views and practices permitted Powers to win in their climactic political battle in 1898 simply by claiming to be the neighborhood defender against Addams and her “downtown” allies. Nearly Neighbors offers a new way of understanding Addams and the complicated legacy of her famous political work and writings.
Terrence J. McDonald is the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of History at the University of Michigan, where he was formerly the dean of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. He is the author of The Parameters of Urban Fiscal Policy: Socioeconomic Change and Political Culture in San Francisco, 1860–1906.
