Ellen Gates Starr

Ellen Gates Starr (March 19, 1859 near Laona, Illinois – February 10, 1940 in Suffern, New York) was an American social reformer and activist.

Biography

Ellen Starr was born in Laona, Illinois and was a student at the Rockford Female Seminary (1877-78) where she met Jane Addams; their friendship lasted many years.citation |title=The Education of Jane Addams |first=Victoria Bissell |last=Brown |year=2007 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=0812237471 |page=361] Starr taught for ten years in Chicago before joining Addams in 1888 of a tour of Europe. While in London they were inspired by the success of the English Settlement movement and became determined to establish a similar social settlement in Chicago.

They returned to Chicago and cofounded Hull House as a kindergarten and then a day nursery, an infancy care centre and a center for continuing education for adults. Starr was also active in the campaign to reform child labor laws and industrial working conditions in Chicago. She was a member of the Women's Trade Union League and helped organize striking garment workers in 1896, 1910 and 1915. In 1930 Ellen Gates Starr retired to a Roman Catholic convent in Suffern, New York County, where she died on 10th February, 1940 Fact|date=July 2008.

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