I Came a Stranger: The Story of a Hull-House Girl

by Hilda Polacheck, Hilda Satt Polachek, Dena J. Epstein (Editor)

Hilda Satt Polacheck's family emigrated from Poland to Chicago in 1892, bringing their old-world Jewish traditions with them into the Industrial Age. Throughout her career as a writer and activist, Polacheck never forgot the immigrant neighborhoods, markets, and scents and sounds of Chicago's West Side. In charming and colorful prose, Polacheck recounts her introduction to American life and the Hull-House community; her chance meeting with Jane Addams and their subsequent long friendship and working relationship; her marriage; her support of civil rights and women's suffrage; her work with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom; and her experiences as a writer for the Works Progress Administration.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Memoir

288 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1989

Reviews

[dianne b. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written story of immigration to the US. A Eastern European family with nothing except a lot of children, no language skills of use in Chicago and, as it turns out, some luck, are profiled by a daughter who finds and is saved in the wonderful you-saved-yourself way of Hull House. Full of juicy detail, never dull - in fact riveting, this is the most interesting book i remember ever reading about coming here from elsewhere.
And if you don't know about, and aren't already a little bit in love with, Jane Addams - an upper class heiress who took her mighty fortune, bought a huge place in the middle of Chicago as a settlement house (Hull House) where anyone vulnerable (mostly female) could come, be housed, fed, educated, and taught how to survive in their new world - this is a fine lens, through one woman's experience, to learn.
Jane, with her partner Ellen Gates Starr, gave everything to saving families, meanwhile tying together the importance of education and women's decision making, to suffrage. She also so-founded the ACLU and received the Nobel Peace Prize (in her spare time?)
A recommended read about a different kind of heiress, and a 'Hull House girl'.

[Jyotsna Sreenivasan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engaging autobiography of a child of Jewish immigrants growing up in Chicago in the early 1900s. When the death of her father throws the family into poverty, Hilda discovers Hull-House, one of the first American settlement houses. She attends classes and clubs at Hull-House in the evenings, after a long day of work at a factory. Eventually she begins to teach English at Hull-House, and discovers her love of writing. This autobiography was not published until 20 years after the author's death, and over 30 years after she wrote it.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilda and family lived in Shorewood for a number of years, hence the initial interest. Her life story is a very interesting one and goes way beyond Shorewood, for sure. I learned a great deal about Hull-House, the civil rights and women's movement in Milwaukee and further afield. She was quite the activist. Her writing is detailed and vivid. I suspect that the reader can spend a lot of time researching the details of this book, or can pick and chose what and how deeply they wish to understand. Either way, it is a good book, an eye-opener, if you will.

[Izzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting look at life for an immigrant in Chicago during her time. I wish she gave more detail about her later life rather than recounting Jane Addams’ activities & then ending the book with Addams’ death!

[Chet Taranowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book if you are interested in a candid look at Jane Addams. But Hilda also had an interesting life. There is an excellent section on her life in Poland and an explanation of many of the issues a progressive woman faced in the 1900s. It is hard to imagine an era where women couldn't vote.

[jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very beautiful story of an immigrant coming to america and the harsh reality of how sucky we are. But also overcoming that suckyness. However a bit inconsistent, 3.5!

[Heather Day · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book was decent, Polacheck was a really unreliable narrator, and my stupid assignments to go with it wasn’t enjoyable 💔💔

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first heard about this book when I saw a film at the Madison Film Festival. The Librarian and the Banjo tells about Dena Epstein's achievement in proving that the banjo, thought in the mid-twentieth century to be the instrument of white Appalachians, was actually an African and Caribbean instrument brought to the New World by Africans. In the course of describing her own background in the film, Dena Epstein mentioned that her mother, Hilda Satts Polacheck, had immigrated to Chicago with her Polish Jewish parents and siblings in the 1890s. She said that Hilda had participated in of the programs at Jane Addams' Hull House, had married a prosperous Milwaukee man, that the couple had entertained Bertrand Russell, Carl Sandberg, and other notables, and that Hilda had written her autobiography. Being familiar with the genealogy of Russian Jewish immigrants to the U.S. during the same period, I was amazed that Dena Epstein's mother had apparently risen from rags to riches in her own lifetime, and was eager to read her life story.
I Came a Stranger: The Story of a Hull-House Girl is Hilda Satt Polacheck's autobiography, and I found it gripping. Hilda has very clear memories of her childhood in Poland and the anti-Semitism she faced there. She also tells about her trans-Atlantic trip to Chicago with her mother and sisters, taking the very same route from Poland--through Germany, and across northern England, and then across the Atlantic--that my own ancestors took from Russia. She describes her father's sudden death in Chicago, her family's instant plunge into poverty, and her own need to drop out of school and take up factory work to help support her family. Her years of night classes and cultural opportunities at Hull House--and her personal contacts with Jane Addams--rescued her from this unrewarding work and poverty, and ultimately led to her meeting and marrying her future husband. Her descriptions of living in Socialist Milwaukee and, later, Shorewood, Wisconsin, before, during, and after the First World War are fascinating in their descriptions of the resistance to the war, the effect of the war on German immigrants in Milwaukee, and the growth of a strong post-war peace movement. Dena Epstein, who edited her mother's autobiography, says that this is the only autobiography of a person who lived in the Hull-House neighborhood. It's a great one!

[Carolina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Assigned this in a US History Survey. I enjoyed it and I think my students did as well. Excellent on relaying the Hull House experience from the perspective of an immigrant. The problem, however, is that Polacheck presents Jane Addams as a saintly figure. This, alone, isn't a problem but getting students to think about complicating this picture or, even, why Polacheck might have wanted to portray Addams in such a glowing light proved difficult. This isn't a disappointment with the memoir as much as it was a disappointment with my ability to get my students to think. Our class discussion just seemed very perfunctory. Also, from a practical standpoint, I wouldn't assign this again because it is pretty much out of print. My students had a very difficult time -- so they said -- locating used copies. Bottom line: great historical source and a pretty complex memoir but did not work for me from a teaching standpoint.

[Candace Archuleta · Rating 3 out of 5]

the story of a woman who lived at the hull house, this is a book illustrating the difficulties of assimilation and also sharing her experience with one of my heroes, Jane Addams.

[Juliet C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only book written by an immigrant who benefitted from the Hull House programs.

[Erendira]

Main F548.9.J5 P65 1989

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating autobiography. Tells of a girl's experience of the best of Hull House and how it changed her circumstances, her outlook on life, and herself. A beautiful story.