Eri Baker Hulbert III Papers

An Inventory of the collection at UIC

Biography of Eri Baker Hulbert III

Eri Baker Hulbert III was born in 1905 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was the son of Charles Eri Hulbert and Esther Margaret (Linn) Hulbert ( a niece of Jane Addams). He moved to Chicago with his family the following year. Hulbert spent several years as a resident of Hull House and was an active participant and later drama director of its theater programs. He later attended Chicago high schools, then the Lewis Institute, and the University of Chicago where he received his Ph.B. in 1932. He married Margaret Hodges Brown in 1941. They had no children.

Eri Hulbert had an active and varied career. He was a teacher at Piedmont Junior High School in Charlotte, North Carolina from 1927_1928. He was an actor and director at the Chicago Art Theater from 1928_1931. He was a farmhand in Thief River Falls, Minnesota from 1932_1933. From 1934_1935, Hulbert worked as director of research, supervisor, and emergency relief administrator for Transient Service in Cheyenne Wyoming. He was a case supervisor and teacher for the Kansas Emergency Relief Commission in Topeka, Kansas from 1935_1937. From 1937_1940, he was counselor and head of tenant selection for Jane Addams Houses for the Chicago Housing Authority. And from 1940_1942, he served as an associate counselor for the Tenant Relations branch of the U.S. Housing Authority. After his marriage, Hulbert returned to Chicago and took a job as Chief of Project Services for the Federal Public Housing Authority from 1942_1946. From 1946_1947, he served as chief regional representative for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in the Kwangsi Province of Liuchow, China. When he returned from China, he became the executive secretary (employed by Hull House) for the Temporary Organizing Committee for the Redevelopment of the Near West Side, 1948_1949. From 1949 until his death on May 3, 1955, Eri Hulbert was the Director of the Near West Side Planning Board.

In connection with his career as teacher, social worker, and activist, Hulbert was also the author of several articles and pamphlets on tenant selection, race relations, relocation, and urban renewal. He also gave lectures on housing and planning at the University of Chicago and Roosevelt University.

Scope and Contents

The Eri Hulbert Papers cover the years from 1934 to 1965. The first part of the collection (folders 1-36) consists mostly of correspondence and legal documents chronicling the demise of Jane Addams and the struggle of her heirs a) to determine how the copyright percentages should be divided among themselves and b) to persuade others that they had the authority to authorize a dramatization of Jane Addams' life and the work of Hull House. The second part of the collection (folders 37-53) consists mostly of material documenting the struggle of the Near West Side Hull House Neighborhood to first upkeep their neighborhood and later to keep the area from being taken over by the University of Illinois at Chicago. Its materials include meeting proceedings, informational material, Eri Hulbert memorial booklet, newspaper clippings, fact sheets, position papers, and correspondence.

Administrative Information

Acquisition Information

This collection is part of a larger collection donated by Mrs. Eri Hulbert in 1972. Publications, photographs, and artifacts of Jane Addams were separated out with the material being filed in the small manuscript collection, the Jane Addams photo collection, and the rare books collection.

Bibliography

"Eri Hulbert Memorial Meeting Hull House Garden, May 19, 1955" program from Russell Ward Ballard Papers - Supplement I Folder 21

Detailed Description/Box and Folder Listing