The Devil Baby at Hull-House

To understand the Devil Baby legend, you must first understand Hull-House and its place in Chicago history. When Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr founded Hull-House in 1889, they created one of the first settlement houses in the United States - a community center designed to serve the needs of Chicago's immigrant poor.

Hull-House was located in Chicago's Near West Side, in a neighborhood densely packed with recent immigrants from Italy, Greece, Russia, Germany, Ireland, and dozens of other countries. These immigrants faced language barriers, poverty, exploitation, and discrimination. Jane Addams believed that educated, middle-class reformers could bridge the gap between rich and poor by living among the working class and providing education, childcare, job training, and social services.

The settlement house model was revolutionary for its time. Hull-House offered kindergarten classes, an art gallery, a public kitchen, a coffee house, a gymnasium, a swimming pool, a book bindery, a music school, a drama group, clubs and activities for children and adults, and much more. At its peak, Hull-House served some 2,000 people every week and grew to encompass thirteen buildings.

Jane Addams became one of the most famous and influential women in America, a leading voice for social reform, workers' rights, women's suffrage, and international peace. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 - the first American woman to receive that honor.

By 1913, when the Devil Baby legend erupted, Chicago's immigrant communities were under tremendous stress. The city's rapid industrialization had created dangerous working conditions, poverty wages, and overcrowded housing. Immigrant families struggled to maintain their traditional cultures while adapting to American life. Many felt caught between the Old World and the New, facing discrimination from native-born Americans while watching their children become strangers to the customs and beliefs they'd carried across the ocean.

In this environment of displacement, anxiety, and cultural upheaval, folklore and superstition provided a way to make sense of a chaotic world. Stories of curses, divine punishment, and supernatural beings helped immigrants process their fears and reinforce traditional moral codes in the face of modern challenges.

In the spring of 1913, Jane Addams noticed an unusual surge of visitors to Hull-House. Women from the surrounding neighborhoods, many of them elderly, began appearing at the door asking to see the Devil Baby. When told no such baby existed, they grew angry and insistent, certain that Hull-House was hiding the creature in the attic.

The legend came in multiple versions, each adapted to the cultural background of the teller, but all sharing the same essential elements:

In the Italian version, a devout Catholic woman married an atheist man. When she hung a picture of the Virgin Mary in their home, her husband tore it down, declaring he'd rather have the Devil himself in his house than that picture. When their baby was born, his wish was granted - the child was a devil.

In the Jewish version, a man married against his parents' wishes. When his wife gave birth to their sixth daughter in a row, he cursed God and cried out that he'd rather have the Devil than another girl. The seventh child was born a devil boy.

Despite the variations, certain details remained constant: the baby had horns, a tail, cloven hooves, and sometimes wings. It could speak, usually to curse or blaspheme. Some versions said it could dance and smoke cigars. And in every version, the cursed child ended up at Hull-House.

Jane Addams was bewildered by the rumor's persistence. She gave dozens of interviews to newspapers, published denials, and personally turned away hundreds of people at the door. Hull-House staff searched desperately for the rumor's origin but found that the story had seemingly sprung up simultaneously in different neighborhoods, in different languages, among different ethnic communities.

For six weeks, the legend dominated Hull-House's operation. Thousands of people came seeking the Devil Baby. The crowds became so large that police had to be called to manage traffic. Mothers brought their misbehaving children, hoping the sight of the cursed infant would frighten them into good behavior. Pregnant women came, some worried their own babies might be similarly cursed.

Jane Addams was struck by the earnestness and desperation of the visitors, many of them elderly immigrant women who seemed to need to believe in the Devil Baby. In her later writings about the incident, she reflected that these women saw in the legend a validation of their traditional beliefs, a proof that the old moral codes still mattered in modern America. The Devil Baby represented divine justice - proof that blasphemy and disobedience to religious and parental authority would be punished, even in this new world.

Eventually, the crowds diminished. The newspapers lost interest. The Devil Baby legend faded from the headlines. But it never completely died.

Most of the original Hull-House complex was demolished in 1963 to make way for the University of Illinois at Chicago campus. Only two buildings remain: the original Hull mansion, built in 1856, and the dining hall. These buildings now house the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.

But according to staff, volunteers, and visitors, something lingers in these remaining structures - something connected to the Devil Baby legend and the building's long, complex history.

The most frequently reported phenomenon at Hull-House is the appearance of a woman in Victorian-era clothing standing in the upper-story windows of the mansion. She's most often seen from outside the building, looking down at the street below with an expression witnesses describe as sad, searching, or anxious.

Some believe this figure is Jane Addams herself, still watching over the neighborhood she dedicated her life to serving. Others think it might be Mrs. Charles Hull, the building's original owner who lived in the mansion before selling it to Jane Addams.

But a persistent theory among paranormal investigators is that the woman is searching for something - or someone. Could she be the mother of the Devil Baby, still seeking the cursed child that may or may not have existed? Multiple witnesses report that the figure seems to be looking for something specific, her gaze moving systematically across the street and surroundings.

The attic of the Hull mansion - the very place where the Devil Baby was supposedly hidden - is the epicenter of paranormal activity. Museum staff members report:

• Hearing crying or wailing sounds from the attic when no one is up there
• Finding the attic door open when it had been locked
• Experiencing sudden, extreme temperature drops near the attic stairs
• Feeling an overwhelming sense of dread or being unwanted when entering the attic
• Hearing footsteps pacing back and forth in the attic at night
• Strange scratching sounds on the attic door, as if something is trying to get out

Some staff members refuse to go into the attic alone. Others report feeling watched by an unseen presence, and experiencing the sensation of something small brushing past them in the cramped space.

Paranormal investigators who've studied the location report unusually high EMF readings in the attic and have captured EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) that sounds like infant crying and, disturbingly, what might be described as inhuman growling or snarling.

Multiple visitors and staff members have reported seeing a small figure - described as child-sized or smaller - moving through the museum at night. Unlike typical ghost sightings, witnesses report that this figure doesn't appear translucent or ghostly. Instead, they describe seeing something small and dark darting between displays, moving with unusual speed and sometimes appearing to climb or jump in ways that seem impossible.

These sightings are often accompanied by:

• The sound of childlike laughter, but with an odd, unsettling quality
• Objects being moved or knocked over, particularly in the children's play area exhibits
• The smell of sulfur or smoke with no identifiable source
• Security alarms being triggered in empty rooms
• Shadows moving independently of any light source

Some witnesses have reported seeing small handprints appearing on windows or glass display cases - handprints that are there one moment and gone the next. When these prints have been documented before disappearing, they show unusual characteristics, including what appears to be an extra digit or claw-like formations.

Many staff members and visitors report sensing the presence of Jane Addams herself throughout the museum. Unlike the more frightening phenomena, these encounters are described as comforting and protective.

People report:

• Feeling a gentle, reassuring presence during stressful moments
• Smelling lavender perfume (which Jane Addams was known to wear) in various parts of the building
• Seeing a tall, dignified woman in period dress who vanishes when approached
• Hearing a woman's voice offering quiet words of encouragement, particularly in the room that was Jane Addams' office

Some paranormal researchers believe that if Jane Addams' spirit remains at Hull-House, she may be acting as a guardian presence, protecting visitors from darker entities that might also inhabit the building. Staff members who sense her presence report feeling safe despite the building's other paranormal activity.

The basement of the Hull mansion - once used for storage, a coal room, and various practical purposes - is the site of some of the most disturbing paranormal reports.

Maintenance workers and security staff report:

• Hearing chains rattling and dragging across the floor
• Seeing red or orange eyes glowing in the darkness
• Experiencing aggressive poltergeist activity, with objects being thrown
• Feeling physically pushed or shoved by an unseen force
• Hearing guttural voices speaking in unknown languages
• Witnessing dark, human-shaped shadows that move toward people in a threatening manner

Several staff members have refused to enter the basement alone after dark. One former security guard reported being physically scratched while investigating a noise in the basement, finding three parallel marks on his arm that appeared to have been made by claws.

Some researchers believe the basement may be a portal or concentration point for negative energy, possibly connected to the Devil Baby legend or other tragic events from the building's long history.

The Devil Baby legend has fascinated folklorists, historians, and paranormal researchers for over a century. Various theories attempt to explain both the original 1913 phenomenon and the ongoing paranormal activity at Hull-House.

Most mainstream historians treat the Devil Baby as a classic urban legend - a story with no factual basis that spread because it resonated with the fears and beliefs of the immigrant communities. Jane Addams herself analyzed the legend in these terms, seeing it as a manifestation of immigrant women's anxieties about moral authority, generational conflict, and maintaining traditional values in a rapidly changing world.

This theory suggests that the ongoing paranormal activity at Hull-House is either misinterpretation of natural phenomena, the power of suggestion, or perhaps residual psychic energy from the intense emotions surrounding the 1913 events.

Some researchers believe there may have been a real child at the center of the legend - not a literal devil, but perhaps a severely deformed infant whose appearance triggered the supernatural rumors. In 1913, children born with significant deformities were sometimes hidden away by families ashamed or frightened by their appearance. Several genetic conditions and birth defects can cause horn-like growths, unusual appendages, or other deformities that might have been interpreted as demonic by superstitious observers.

This theory suggests that a real child may have been brought to Hull-House by a desperate family, and that Jane Addams, protecting the family's privacy and the child's dignity, denied the rumors while quietly helping the family. If a child died at Hull-House under mysterious or tragic circumstances, its spirit might still linger.

Paranormal researchers propose that the intense belief and emotional energy focused on Hull-House in 1913 may have created a thought-form or tulpa - a being brought into existence through collective belief and mental energy. In this theory, the Devil Baby didn't exist before the legend, but the thousands of people who came to Hull-House believing in it, fearing it, and needing it to exist somehow manifested it into reality.

This would explain why the paranormal activity at Hull-House often seems to match descriptions from the legend, and why it persists even though the original events occurred over a century ago. The thought-form, once created, became a permanent spiritual fixture of the location.

Some paranormal investigators believe that Hull-House sits on or near a thin place - a location where the barrier between our world and others is particularly weak. The intense emotional energy, the convergence of so many different cultural beliefs and practices, and the building's long history of human suffering and hope may have created ideal conditions for paranormal activity.

In this theory, the Devil Baby legend didn't create the haunting - instead, existing paranormal activity may have contributed to the legend's creation and persistence. Whatever entities exist at Hull-House may have fed off the fear and belief of the 1913 crowds, growing stronger and more active.