Dance class at Calumet Park Fieldhouse

Fieldhouses in Chicago city parks were central hubs of recreational and cultural programming. The move to expand playgrounds and activities for youth in Chicago emerged in part from the Settlement House movement and Progressive Era reformers like those at Jane Addam’s Hull House on the Near West Side. In the face of criticism in the late 19th and early 20th century of “uncivilized” European immigrants and their supposedly “delinquent” offspring, Hull House reformers made a passionate appeal for kindergartens, playgrounds, after-school activities, and juvenile courts so that poverty would not “rob” children of their childhood. Chicago also developed a wide array of park and fieldhouse activities. In oral histories, many elderly people described how their life as children revolved around the parks and park activities. This photo, taken in the Calumet Park fieldhouse on the East Side, shows a dance class for young children.