Chicago Examiner, 10/31/1913 On Halloween, 1913, exactly a century ago, the Chicago Examiner broke the story that the west side of Chicago was alive with rumors that a “devil baby” had been brought to Hull House, the settlement house Jane Addams operated on the West Side. By then, it was all they’d been hearing about at…
Tag: devil baby
Some Hull House Ghost Myths and Realities
Seeing as how October is coming around, I thought I’d clear up some things people are likely to start hearing about Hull House, the 1856 mansion that Jane Addams turned into a settlement house where she basically invented American social work. That the house is haunted is a story going back to at least 1889,…
Devil Babies – Hull House and Beyond
It’s that time of the year when the story of the Hull House Devil Baby is being retold again and again – often repeated as fact, just as it was in 1913. That was the year that rumors that a “devil baby” had been born on the West Side and dropped off at Hull House…
Murderous Superstitions
(WARNING! THIS ONE IS PRETTY GROSS) In 1888, the Tribune had a great article about strange superstitions that were widely believed by muderers. These included: “The Corpse Candle” – some murderers (primarily in Germany) believed that if you made candles from the body of a murder victim, the light would make the murderers invisible. It…
The Devil Baby of Hull House
Many people come to this site (or, even worse, go to Hull House) looking for photographs of the “Devil Baby.” There aren’t any. If you see any on other sites, they’re fake. The Devil Baby story was just a rumor that went around in 1913 (after having gone around in other cities many times before)….