Jane Addams

BORN: September 6, 1860 • Cedarville, Illinois

DIED: May 21, 1935 • Chicago, Illinois

Social reformer; peace activist

"Old-fashioned ways which no longer apply to changed conditions are a snare in which the feet of women have always become readily entangled."

Jane Addams dedicated her life to helping others. She was the founder of Hull-House, one of the first settlement houses (community centers) in America. Hull-House was built in the center of the poorest section of Chicago, Illinois. Opened on September 8, 1889, the center quickly became the heart and soul of its immigrant (foreign-born) neighborhood. By its second year of operation, Hull-House served two thousand people each week. Young children could attend kindergarten there, while older children participated in academic and social clubs. Adults could learn basic skills such as reading and writing, but they also were taught important skills such as how to balance budgets and how to keep their homes and children healthy and safe. Eventually, thirteen buildings were added to the original structure, and Hull-House occupied an entire block in its Chicago neighborhood.

Freed by ideas, imprisoned by expectations

Born on September 6, 1860, Laura Jane Addams was the eighth child of Sarah and John Addams. The Cedarville, Illinois, family prospered, thanks to the good business sense of Addams's father, who owned a mill and, eventually, a bank. He was also a politician who served in the state senate for sixteen years; his influence helped build Cedarville into a thriving town. Jenny, as Addams was called in her childhood, lost her mother to illness before her third birthday. Her eldest sister, Mary, took over the responsibility of raising the seven other Addams children.

Addams was born with curvature of the spine. She spent much of her childhood suffering from strong feelings of insecurity and ugliness. She did not engage in physical activity as young children usually do, but spent a great deal of time instead alongside her father. The two formed a close relationship. From her father, Addams learned the importance of hard work and equality for all people. John Addams also gave his daughter a strong sense of morality and of the responsibility to help other people.

Young Jane Addams dealt with inner conflict because of the teachings of her father. She believed that her life had a higher purpose, that she had a duty—because of her good fortune and life of comfort—to help others less fortunate than herself. Yet she lived in an era when women were expected to do nothing more than marry and raise children. Even as her father encouraged her to read and learn, he did so only because he believed this knowledge would make her a better wife and mother. Addams longed to attend college in the eastern United States where she might make a life of her own; instead, her father sent her to nearby Rockford Female Seminary. She graduated as valedictorian (highest ranking student) of her class in 1881 with plans to attend medical school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. These plans directly conflicted with her father's wishes, but their relationship was such that he respected her enough to let her make this major decision.

Addams did not last long in medical school. Her father died suddenly of a burst appendix. Around that same time, Addams's own health took a turn for the worse. She spent years in and out of the hospital and after spinal surgery needed six months of bed rest. After her recovery, Addams traveled around Europe for nearly two years. She took another two years to write and figure out what she wanted to do with her life.

Finds inspiration in England

During a second trip to Europe, this time in 1888, twenty-seven-year-old Addams and her close friend Ellen Gates Starr (1859–1940) visited a settlement house in London. Toynbee Hall was Britain's first university settlement. There, college students worked together to help improve the lives of the city's poverty-stricken population. Addams and Starr were so impressed with the settlement project that they returned to America determined to develop their own settlement house.

The following year, the two women leased a large, rundown building on the corner of Polk and Halsted Streets, in the heart of Chicago's immigrant slum (a district marked by intense poverty and filth). Starr and Addams moved into the building with the goal of restoring it and providing the families of the neighborhood with a place to go where they could improve themselves while at the same time form a sense of community with one another. Although Hull-House was not the first settlement house in America, it would be the most famous (see box).

The birth of Hull-House

Addams and Starr gave public speeches about their intentions for Hull-House and raised money to help fund the renovations. They addressed political leaders, civic clubs, clergy, and women's clubs about the importance of the settlement experience. They convinced the young women of well-to-do families to donate their time to help out at the center. Starr and Addams themselves took on many roles: teacher, caretaker, counselor, advisor, nurse. There was nothing those two women would not do for the visitors of Hull-House.

The settlement became a key component of the immigration experience in Chicago. In 1890, historians estimate that 68 to 80 percent of Chicago's population was foreign born. Immigrants who sailed to America's shores and headed for Chicago went directly to Hull-House, where they knew they could find trustworthy people to help them locate jobs, homes, and food. That year, Hull-House serviced two thousand people each week. The settlement house worked on a number of levels because it did what few other charitable organizations of the time did: It recognized the poverty and squalor (dirty, run-down conditions) that its clients lived in, and it gave them a place to nurture their desire to rise above their economic conditions. With that hope came the means to better themselves, through education and encouragement.

Lillian Wald: New York's Version of Jane Addams

Although she never achieved the same recognition as her peer Jane Addams did, Lillian Wald had as much an impact on New York's East Side as Addams did on Chicago.

Wald was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 19, 1867, to a wealthy German Jewish family. Wald attended and graduated from New York Hospital's School of Nursing. Early in her career, she began teaching a class in home nursing. Soon, she experienced for the first time the poverty and overcrowded conditions of New York's East Side immigrants when she made a home visit to treat a person.

That experience inspired Wald to decide to dedicate her life to helping the immigrant poor. With the help of another nurse friend, Wald began working out of a fifth-floor apartment. The two women worked all hours of the day and night, making themselves available to anyone and everyone. Those who could afford the nurses' small fee paid it. Those who could not pay the fee received treatment at no charge. Wald soon became known around the East Side as someone who could be counted on and trusted.

Wald needed money to continue to offer her much-needed services. She approached the wealthy members of the German Jewish community with her request for funding. They did not disappoint her and gave generously. With that money, Wald was able to expand her services. She hired more nurses and even managed to pay them each $15 a month for their work. Some of them refused payment.

Wald realized she would need larger offices. In 1893, she found a house at 265 Henry Street. The house was named Henry Street Settlement. By 1898, Wald employed eleven full-time workers, nine of whom were nurses. By 1916, she had a staff of more than one hundred nurses, yet still managed to keep the services personalized.

Wald convinced insurance companies to provide visiting nurses to their policyholders. In 1903, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company was the first to use her suggestion. The program soon became standard with most major insurance companies. With Wald's encouragement, New York developed a public nursing program. In 1913, Wald placed a nurse from her staff in each public school in the city. The idea was well received, and the New York Board of Health organized and staffed the first public school nursing system in the world.

The Henry Street Settlement acted much like Addams's Hull-House in that it provided free education and clubs for children as well as academic classes and life-skills instruction for adults. In 1915, Wald founded the Neighborhood Playhouse, also on New York's East Side, in an effort to meet the cultural needs of the district's citizens.

The reformer's achievements were many. She persuaded U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt to develop a Federal Children's Bureau to protect children from abuse. She was a key figure in getting labor protection in the form of federal laws for women and children. Wald was a supporter of birth control and women's suffrage. She convinced Columbia University to appoint the first professor of nursing at an American college or university; before that, nursing was taught only in hospitals.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Wald received well-deserved public recognition for her efforts. Among her many awards was her recognition in 1922 by the New York Times as one of the Twelve Greatest Living American Women.

Wald died on September 1, 1940. Her settlement house remains in operation in the twenty-first century and continues to offer social services and arts programming to more than one hundred thousand New Yorkers every year.

Once Hull-House proved itself a worthy cause, Addams and Starr had little problem securing monetary donations to help keep it running.

Free medical care was provided, as was relief for the unemployed. Addams made sure Hull-House clients received education not only in academic subjects but also in skills necessary for daily life. She and others taught immigrants the English language and how to count money and perform simple math calculations. She taught them how to read so that they would know if someone—a landlord, a merchant—was trying to take advantage of them. She made sure they learned how to use the political system to their advantage so that city taxes would be used to help those who truly needed it rather than those who were close friends with local politicians.

One building at a time, the Hull-House settlement grew. The first building added to it was an art gallery, followed by a public kitchen, a coffee house, and a gymnasium. Next came a swimming pool, a cooperative boarding club for girls, a book bindery, an art studio, a music school, and a drama group. Lastly came a public library, an employment bureau, and a labor museum. While parents were inside learning life skills such as cooking and sewing, their babies were in the nursery, and their older children were on the playground or in classes and clubs of their own.

Through the decades, Hull-House continued to provide a safe gathering place for its neighborhood citizens. Under various leaderships and directorships, the settlement project experienced funding and policy conflicts, but these issues always managed to be resolved. In 1961, the University of Illinois at Chicago decided it would build its campus on the site where Hull-House stood. Although the neighborhood fought the decision, Hull-House officially closed its doors in 1963. At that same time, ten thousand urban Americans were evicted from their homes, forced to find somewhere else to live.

Addams goes national

When it became clear that the "experiment" of Hull-House was a success, settlement houses began appearing in every major city across the country. Social reformers used Hull-House as a meeting place. National campaigns on issues such as women's suffrage (right to vote) were planned and developed there. Hull-House far exceeded the expectations of Starr and Addams.

Addams also exceeded her expectations for herself as her reputation grew. In 1905, she was appointed to the Chicago Board of Education and elected as Chairperson of the School Management Committee. Three years later, she helped found the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy (charitable giving). She became the first woman president of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections in 1909. That same year, Addams helped establish the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to promote equality between the races; the organization is still active in the twenty-first century. From 1911 to 1914, Addams was vice president of the National American Women's Suffrage Association, one of the key women's organizations of the era. All the while, she remained at the center of social reform in her beloved Chicago. Addams headed investigations involving city sanitation issues and even accepted a position as garbage inspector for the Nineteenth Ward. (Cities were divided into areas called wards for political and civic reasons.) For her efforts in that position, she received an annual sum of $1,000.

Through it all, a feminist

With roots reaching back to the days when her father taught her that all people were equal, Addams's feminist philosophy motivated her throughout her life, including her endeavors at Hull-House. She believed women should have voting rights. Taking the idea of feminism one step further than most of her peers did during the early twentieth century, she encouraged women to create their own opportunities for growth and development.

Addams was also a pacifist (someone who does not believe in violence of any kind). She traveled the country speaking out on the importance of peace. She gave lectures against America's involvement in World War I (1914–18) and was made chairperson of the Women's Peace Party in 1915. Shortly after that, she was elected president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom; she held that position until 1929 and was honorary president until her death in 1935.

Addams's public disapproval of America's involvement in the war brought attacks upon her in newspapers and political magazines. As recorded on Spartacus Schoolnet, former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919; served 1901–9; see entry) called Addams and her colleagues "hysterical pacifists," and even some of her former supporters rejected her. Addams did not let the controversy weaken her position; she chose instead to work with soon-to-be-elected U.S. president Herbert Hoover (1874–1964; served 1929–33) in a program that provided food supplies to the women and children of America's enemies in the war. For her many tireless humanitarian efforts, Addams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.

Despite her many social and political activities, Addams found time to write. The activist and reformer authored numerous magazine articles on social reform issues and published seven books on social reform and pacifism. Never having married or had children of her own, Addams died, surrounded by friends, on May 21, 1935, three days after an operation revealed that she had cancer.

For More Information

BOOKS

Addams, Jane. The Second Twenty Years at Hull-House. New York: Macmillan, 1930.

Addams, Jane. Twenty Years at Hull-House. New York: Macmillan, 1910. Reprint, New York: Signet Classics, 1999.

Davis, Allen F. American Heroine: The Life and Legend of Jane Addams. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. Reprint, Chicago: Ivan Dee, 2000.

Elshtain, Jean Bethke, ed. The Jane Addams Reader. New York: Basic Books, 2002.

WEB SITES

Harvard University Library: Open Collections Program. "Jane Addams (1860–1935)." Women Working, 1800–1930.http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/people_addams.html (accessed on August 17, 2006).

Henry Street Settlement.http://www.henrystreet.org/site/PageServer (accessed on August 17, 2006).

"Jane Addams." Spartacus Schoolnet.http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAaddams.htm (accessed on August 17, 2006).

"Jane Addams—Biography." Nobelprize.org.http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1931/addams-bio.html (accessed on August 17, 2006).

Krain, Jacob B. "Lillian Wald." The Jewish Magazine.http://www.jewishmag.com/51mag/wald/lillianwald.htm (accessed on August 17, 2006).

"Lillian D. Wald." National Association for Home Care & Hospice.http://www.nahc.org/NAHC/Val/Columns/SC10-4.html (accessed on August 17, 2006).

PBS. "People & Events: Jane Addams (1860–1935)." American Experience: Chicago, City of the Century.http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/chicago/peopleevents/p_addams.html (accessed on August 17, 2006).

Ryan, Alan. "Founding Mother." The New York Review of Books.http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18951 (accessed on August 17, 2006).

University of Illinois at Chicago. Urban Experience in Chicago: Hull-House and Its Neighborhoods, 1889–1963.http://www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/urbanexp/ (accessed on August 17, 2006).