I Came a Stranger: The Story of a Hull-House Girl

Although the book was written many years after the events took place, the author's memories are so clear that it's as if she was experiencing them at the time. For a cultural historian, this was an excellent read. For anyone whose parents or grandparents were immigrants, I'd recommend it.

I bought this book along with a book about Jane Addams and HullHouse. Hilda writes an honest, extremely interesting, straight forward tale of her own life, and the part Jane Addams played in it. At times I felt as if I was there at Hull House with her, so clear was her portrait. I walked the streets of turn of the century Chicago with her, and shared her joys and sorrows. The only thing I wish the author had included was more about members of her family and their day to day life. But otherwise, a highly interesting portrait of a remarkable woman.

When Hilda Satt Polacheck first approached publishers with her memoirs, a shief of loosely bound, handwritten papers in the 1950s, she received in answer a resounding "NO." She went back home, plowing her way though her life story again, making revisions, checking dates, & in general shoring up her work. Yet, when she again approached publishers with the work, she was again refused. Curious, she found the courage to ask one of these publishers why. "There is no interest in the life of an obscure woman," she was told. Hilda believed him, & went to her grave in the late 1960s without trying to find another publisher. And though her memoirs were indeed eventually compiled by her granddaughter & published post mortem, the loss of Hilda's own deft hand on the final product is inestimable. These are the words of Hilda Satt Polacheck, yes, but one wonders would this already gorgeous work would have been had Polacheck herself been able to see it through to the end.An immensely gifted storyteller, Polacheck's strong, intelligent voice makes I CAME A STRANGER a riotous romp through the Progressive Era, studded throughout with celebrity cameos from all the major figures of the age. From Jane Adams, Polacheck's own personal mentor, to Emma Goldman, Dr. Alice Hamilton & too many others to mention, there are hardly any figures of import in the socialist movement of that time whom do not appear at least once in this amazing memoir. A story which is at once mundane & extraordinary, she mingles her matter-of-fact descriptions of immigrant life in a less than magnificent Chicago with unbelievable, yet true tales which illustrate the greatness, and great energy of the times in which she lived. Her life spanned a great many significant historical events, & Polacheck weighs in on ALL of them, offering her opinions with great candor & wit flavored by her own life experiences. Hilda Satt Polacheck emigrated from Poland, fleeing the terrible Pogroms which forced her family to drop their affluent lifestyle & become faceless, nameless Jewish immigrants in 1890s Chicago, she becomes fully a product of the Jane Adams aesthetic, & through close association with the woman herself, and Hull House, comes to exemplify all the good that came of Adams' dream. It is also the only such accounting of the inner workings of a settlement house from an immigrant herself, & as such offers an inestimable glimpse behind the scenes, through the untutored eyes of one who experienced it from the inside.

This is an excellent account of a young Jewish woman's life as she immigrates from Poland and grows up in Chicago. Jane Addams and Hull House play an integral part in making her who she was when she passed away. Inspiring and interesting, it is a quick read and a good book for a project on immigration or settlement homes in Chicago.