Charles J. Hull Monument


Charles J. Hull Monument, 1891
Richard Henry Park
Rosehill Cemetery
5800 North Ravenswood Avenue, north of main entrance drive

            Charles J. Hull (1820-1889) was a real estate developer who is, perhaps, best known today for his house, an Italianate homestead built in 1856 near present day South Halsted and Polk Streets. The year of Hull’s death, in 1889, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr launched a “settlement house” modeled upon Toynbee Hall in East London. Charles J. Hull left his entire estate to his cousin, Helen Culver, who at first was skeptical of the project but she soon realized the benefit of the work of Starr and Addams and bequeathed them the house. Even though Addams and Starr originally named their settlement Chicago Toynbee Hall, the name "Hull" House stuck. Many other buildings were added to the complex over the years but nearly all were demolished to make way for the construction of the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle campus during the 1960s.
            Artist Richard Henry Park modeled the attire for the bearded bronze seated figure after a replica of Hull’s own suit and boots, provided by Jane Addams. Park’s careful attention to period clothing is apparent also in his monument to Benjamin Franklin in Lincoln Park.

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