With Jane Addams, Ellen Gates Starr founded Hull-House, a settlement house in Chicago’s west-side immigrant community, in 1889. Starr served in many capacities at Hull-House, including as an advocate for art in the organization’s work. She was a trained teacher who had already taught art appreciation in a girls’ school. A direct outgrowth of her commitment to art was a program to loan reproductions of master paintings to Hull-House neighbors and area schools, leading to the establishment of the Chicago Public School Art Society in 1894. A devotee of English art critic John Ruskin and Arts and Crafts pioneer William Morris, Starr took up the craft of hand bookbinding, studying in England with master craftsman T.J. Cobden -Sanderson. She then set up the Hull-House bookbindery, in 1898, to practice her craft and teach others the art of bookbinding.