The press described Hull House as a charity, and Addams and her early associates as secular nuns or missionaries, but she regarded her work as an exercise in social democracy as well as the Christian charity embraced by the Social Gospel. Political democracy and the vote had proven insufficient in an industrial society, and the churches had lost the spirit of primitive Christianity with its imperative to love all men. The settlement house movement would restore both and would liberate not only the immigrants it served, but also the young men and especially the women who worked there. She
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