Inspired by their Progressive Era faith in social science solutions to society's problems, the residents of Hull-House collaborated on this work of sociology based on their experiences as residents of Chicago's Near West Side. The contributors to this book believed that an enlightened citizenry could be mobilized for reform, and that by publishing maps with explicit information about the wages and conditions of the working poor in Chicago's Nineteenth Ward they would educate the public and inspire reforms. In addition to Jane Addams's own prefatory note and paper on the role of social settlements in the labour movement, contributors provided detailed, real-world analyses of the Chicago Jewish ghetto, garment workers and the sweatshops, child labour, immigrant neighbourhoods in the vicinity of Hull-House, and local charities. This edition also contains eight colour reproductions of the original Hull-House neighbourhood maps. The year 2006 marks the one hundred and eleventh anniversary of the publication of "Hull-House Maps and Papers", and the volume remains a dramatic statement about the residents' shared values as well as a major influence on subsequent social surveys.