Addams, Jane, 1860–1935, American social worker, b. Cedarville, Ill., grad. Rockford College, 1881. In 1889, with Ellen Gates Starr, she founded Hull House in Chicago, one of the first social settlements in the United States (see settlement house settlement house, neighborhood welfare institution generally in an urban slum area, where trained workers endeavor to improve social conditions, particularly by providing community services and promoting neighborly cooperation.
..... Click the link for more information. ). Based on the university settlements begun in England by Samuel Barnett Henrietta Octavia Barnett, 1851–1936, was especially interested in housing and helped found a model garden suburb at Hampstead. She collaborated in some of her husband's books, notably Practicable Socialism (1888) and wrote his biography (1918).
..... Click the link for more information. , Hull House served as a community center for the neighborhood poor and later as a center for social reform activities. It was important in Chicago civic affairs and had an influence on the settlement movement throughout the country. An active reformer throughout her career, Jane Addams was a leader in the woman's suffrage woman suffrage, the right of women to vote. Throughout the latter part of the 19th cent. the issue of women's voting rights was an important phase of feminism .
..... Click the link for more information. and pacifist (see pacifism pacifism, advocacy of opposition to war through individual or collective action against militarism. Although complete, enduring peace is the goal of all pacifism, the methods of achieving it differ.
..... Click the link for more information. ) movements, and was a strong opponent of the Spanish-American War. She was the recipient (jointly with Nicholas Murray Butler Butler, Nicholas Murray, 1862–1947, American educator, president of Columbia Univ. (1902–45), b. Elizabeth, N.J., grad. Columbia (B.A., 1882; Ph.D., 1884). Holding a Columbia fellowship, he studied at Paris and Berlin, specializing in philosophy.
..... Click the link for more information. ) of the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize. Her books on social questions include The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets (1909), A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil (1912), and Peace and Bread in Time of War (1922).

Bibliography

See her autobiographical Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910) and The Second Twenty Years at Hull-House (1930); the selected works in The Jane Addams Reader (ed. by J. B. Elshtain, 2001); biographies by J. W. Linn, her nephew (1935), A. F. Davis (1973), G. Diliberto (1999), and L. W. Knight (2005); studies by D. Levine (1971) and J. B. Elshtain (2001).

Addams, Jane

(born Sept. 6, 1860, Cedarville, Ill., U.S.—died May 21, 1935, Chicago, Ill.) U.S. social reformer. Addams graduated from Rockford Female Seminary in Illinois in 1881 and was granted a degree the following year when the institution became Rockford College. During a trip to Europe in 1887–88 she visited the Toynbee Hall settlement house in London, which sparked her interest in social reform. Determined to create something like Toynbee Hall in the U.S., in 1889 she cofounded Hull House in Chicago, one of the first settlement houses in North America to provide practical services and educational opportunities for the poor. She subsequently championed social reforms such as juvenile-court law, justice for immigrants and African Americans, worker's rights and compensation, and women's suffrage. In 1910 she became the first female president of the National Conference of Social Work. An ardent pacifist, she served in 1915 as chair of the International Congress of Women and helped form the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1931 she shared the Nobel Prize for Peace with Nicholas M. Butler.

Addams, Jane (1860–1935) social reformer, pacifist; born in Cedarville, Ill. Raised in comfort by her widowed father, a state senator and abolitionist (he was a friend of Abraham Lincoln), she studied at the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania for a few months before spinal illness and a realization that she was not cut out to be a doctor led her to withdraw (1882). Disturbed by urban poverty and searching for meaningful work, she visited Toynbee Hall, a pioneering settlement house in London, which inspired her, with Ellen Starr, to found Hull House, a settlement house in Chicago (1889). She lived and worked out of Hull House for the rest of her life, developing educational, cultural, and medical programs for the community, while lobbying for improved housing, fair labor practices, and just treatment for immigrants and the poor. Hull House also had great influence beyond Chicago by both inspiring similar institutions in American cities and by training many individuals who became notable reformers. Addams herself was so far in advance of many Americans on social issues in her day that she was attacked by some as a subversive. A staunch supporter of women's suffrage, she served as vice-president of the National American Suffrage Alliance (1911–14). An unwavering pacifist, she was president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (1919–35) and shared the Nobel Prize for Peace (1931). She lectured and published widely; her many books include Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910) and Peace and Bread in Time of War (1922).