Jane Addams

In 1889, with Ellen Gates Starr, Jane Addams founded Hull House in Chicago, one of the nation's first settlement houses. Hull House served as a community center for the poor and its success helped lead to the creation of hundreds of similar organizations in communities across the country. An active reformer throughout her career, Jane Addams was a leader in the women's suffrage and pacifist movements and a recipient of the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize.

"Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one unexpended effort that might have saved the world."

— Jane Addams

Born September 6, 1860 Cedarville, Illinois
Died May 21, 1935 Chicago, Illinois

Chicago in the late 1800's was inhabited by two groups of people — the poor and the wealthy. Born into a life of comfort, Laura Jane "Jennie" Addams chose to utilize her wealth and talents to benefit the less fortunate. On September 18, 1889, at the age of 29, along with Ellen Gates Starr, a college friend, she established Hull-House, the first social settlement, in Chicago, to serve the needy. Recognized as being the first location for community based service centers in America, this structure is now a National and Chicago Historic Landmark signifying the achievements of Jane Addams.

The original use for Hull-House was to provide a communal residence for young women in a slum area on Chicago's West Side. This was a unique project for the time in that Addams, Starr, and other educated, financially stable women, lived alongside the less fortunate residents. The goal was to achieve better understanding of the classes by drawing the rich and poor together. What resulted from their endeavor was much more. The Hull-House residence developed into a multi-service settlement house serving all of the needy. The working girl's home became the source of neighborhood services for a very needy immigrant population

In 1890, 68 percent of the population of Chicago was foreign born. New arrivals to Chicago depended on Hull-House for medical care, legal services, day care and kindergarten for their children, and classes in basic English. Hull House helped them locate work and solve other basic problems endemic to their subsistence way of life. As the needs of the working class poor changed, so did the services. Classes were offered in citizenship preparation, art, and music. Hull-House had the first public playground, gymnasium, bath, and swimming pool in Chicago, plus the first little theater in America. It became a meeting place for representatives of local trade unions, suffragettes, and pacifists.

Jane Addam's father, John Huy Addams, a wealthy saw and grist mill owner and State Senator in Illinois for 16 years, had financial and political connections which enabled her to garner support for Hull-House. In addition to using her inheritance to fund these programs, she solicited both financial and hands on help from friends and individuals of like mind. When contributions from patrons were inadequate to meet budgetary needs, she used revenue from books she had written and speeches she had delivered to pay the bills.

Although sensitive to the needs of others since the age of 6, Addams did not choose a career in social service until her late 20's. She graduated as valedictorian from Rockford Female Seminary (now Rockford College), and then enrolled at the Women's Medical School of Philadelphia. Health problems prevented her from pursuing a medical career, and led to a two year recuperative tour of Europe.

It was during her travels abroad in 1887-1888 that she learned of the settlement house movement in England. A visit to Toynbee Hall provided her with a working example of such a program. Upon her return to Chicago she located a suitable mansion at 800 South Halstead Street once owned by Charles Hull. At first, only a portion of the mansion was available to rent, but eventually the entire building plus neighboring properties were used for the settlement project. By 1893, over 2,000 people a week were coming to Hull-House for assistance.

Addams worked tirelessly for 40 years to remedy the causes of poverty and injustice. Her interests broadened from initially attempting to solve the immediate problems of the poor to eliminating the causes for their suffering. She worked with labor unions and politicians to improve the current working and living conditions of the poor, adopt laws regarding child labor, reduce work hours for women, protect immigrants from injustice, and require schooling for children. She was elected as Vice President of the National Woman's Trade Union League in 1903.

Addams was an outspoken advocate of giving women the right to vote. She believed that women were the most able members of society to identify the true problems of society and recommend solutions. Without the power of the vote, they could not influence the politicians who were able to enact the legislation that would make the necessary changes. From 1911 to 1914, she served as the first vice-president of the National American Women Suffrage Association, an organization founded in 1890 by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Addam's political actions were greatly influenced by the pacifist, Quaker beliefs of her father. Prior to the outbreak of World War I, she organized the Women's Peace Party and the International Congress of Women that met at the Hague, Netherlands, in 1915. She served as the President of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom from 1919 to 1929.

The name Jane Addams had many epithets. As a child, she regarded herself as an ugly, pigeon-toed little girl not worthy of being seen with her handsome father. Prior to the opening of Hull-House she held the title of garbage inspector for the 19th Ward, Near West Side, Chicago. President Franklin Roosevelt regarded her as "Chicago's most useful citizen," and others described her as "the foremost woman in America." Addam's pacifism and political involvement led to her expulsion from the Daughters of the American Revolution. She was called a socialist, anarchist, communist, and "the most dangerous woman in America" by her detractors. But in 1931, the Nobel Prize committee viewed Addam's accomplishments as exemplary and she was chosen as the first American woman recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.


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