15 Years of Great Books at Huntington Public Library

Last night's cake showed off
Victoria Craven's baking skills.

Last evening, 18 patrons met for a stimulating conversation about Jane Addams's 1916 magazine piece "The Devil Baby at Hull House."  It marked the 15th Anniversary of our group.  One attendee, who has become a dear friend, had been at our first meeting in January 2005!  On that occasion, the group's "founding mother," Carolyn Hasler, a former librarian at this library, and I went out on a limb in terms of difficulty level by setting Shakespeare's Othello as the very first reading.  Many thanks to the hundreds of participants over the years who have embraced this community effort and engaged with literary masterworks.

Jane Addams's Urban Folk Legend

1940 Addams Postage Stamp

Jane Addams's "The Devil Baby at Hull House" was published in the October 1916 Atlantic Monthly.  It was also published the same year as part of her book The Long Road of Women's Memory.

"The Devil Baby at Hull House" describes a rumor of a "devil baby" with cloven hoofs, pointed ears, and a diminutive tail residing at the Hull House Settlement in Chicago, which Addams founded in the 1890s.  In modern parlance, we would say the story went "viral" in the surrounding immigrant neighborhoods.

The stories were told mostly by women, especially older women.  Addams writes, "Whenever I heard the high eager voices of old women, I was irresistibly interested, and left anything I might be doing in order to listen to them."