20 YEARS AT HULL HOUSE

Jane Addams, born with a congenital spinal deformity into a wealthy family, describes her posh upbringing, which paradoxically led to a career devoted to the poor. In a rough part of Chicago, Addams started what she called Hull House, a community workshop for European immigrants. It offered lodging, religious guidance, education, and occupational training. From 1889 to 1911, the institution grew to 13 buildings. Narrator Elisabeth Rodgers interprets the stilted prose composed a century ago into something very listenable, given that Addams’s sentences run on in a style rarely seen today. Rodgers’s feminine voice keeps the precise language intact, even as she struggles to create a contemporary sound for a story written by the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2010]