Jane Addams

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Jane Addams

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | 2008 | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Jane Addams 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 ). Based on the university settlements begun in England by Samuel Barnett , 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 and pacifist (see pacifism ) movements, and was a strong opponent of the Spanish-American War. She was the recipient (jointly with Nicholas Murray Butler ) 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).

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Addams, Jane

The Oxford Companion to American Military History | 2000 | | © The Oxford Companion to American Military History 2000, originally published by Oxford University Press 2000. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Addams, Jane (1860–1935), American social reformer, settlement house founder, pacifist, and writer.Addams was born 6 September 1860 in Cedarville, Illinois. Heir to her father's political sensibilities, Jane Addams's early heroes were Abraham Lincoln and Giuseppe Mazzini. A member of the first generation of college women, she found a way to put her social gospel and piety directly to work with the founding (with Ellen Gates Starr) of Hull House, a settlement house in Chicago's immigrant ghetto. In 1889, Addams claimed that democratic political governance was, in fact, a form of civic housekeeping: she became a leading social reformer of the era and a founder of modern social work.

Jane Addams's world was turned upside down with the outbreak of World War I. Her defense of radicals and anarchists, her brave and often lonely devotion to pacifism and opposition to “the idea of war” as well as its terrible reality, placed her outside the American mainstream and brought down derision and abuse. In 1915, Addams, Emily Greene Balch, and others helped to create the Woman's Peace Party, which called for “continuous mediation.” This was the forerunner to the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, founded in 1919, of which Jane Addams was a founding mother and president from its inception in 1915 to her death. An advocate of women's suffrage, Addams in her articles, speeches, and books traced the powerful role women must play in promoting peace as an imperative to preserve human life. Her understanding of feminism set it in “unalterable” opposition to militarism.

Unfairly and inaccurately called a traitor and a Bolshevik, Addams never reneged on her commitments to civil liberties or to pacifism. Her joint recognition (with Nicholas Murray Butler) for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 and her embodiment of the notion of service helped restore her stature as one of America's foremost humanitarians.

Bibliography

Christopher Lasch, ed., The Social Thought of Jane Addams, 1965.
Daniel Levine , Jane Addams and the Liberal Tradition, 1980.

Jean Bethke Elshtain

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John Whiteclay Chambers II. "Addams, Jane." The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Oxford University Press. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. 14 Nov. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

John Whiteclay Chambers II. "Addams, Jane." The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Oxford University Press. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. (November 14, 2009). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O126-AddamsJane.html

John Whiteclay Chambers II. "Addams, Jane." The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Oxford University Press. 2000. Retrieved November 14, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O126-AddamsJane.html

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Free newspaper and magazine articles

Free Article Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy.(Book review)
Magazine article from: The Historian; 6/22/2008
Free Article A Useful Woman: The Early Life of Jane Addams.(Review)
Magazine article from: The Historian; 1/1/2001
Free Article Honoring Jane Addams a WILPF commitment to gay rights.(Women's International League for Peace and Freedom)
Magazine article from: Peace and Freedom; 1/1/2009

Facts and information from other sites

Related articles from newspapers, magazines, and more

Outing Jane Addams: Was the founder of Hull House a lesbian? And does it matter?
Newspaper article from: Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL); 2/6/2007; 700+ words ; ...above a marble fireplace at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum shows a calm...supporter of pioneering social reformer Jane Addams? Would it be more accurate to...House in the form of the new "Was Jane Addams a Lesbian? Project" in which...
Jane Addams: our WILPF heroine.
Magazine article from: Peace and Freedom; 3/22/2004; ; 700+ words ; ...as widely known and respected as Jane Addams. There are many reasons for Addams...the Jane Club. Hull House made Jane Addams famous. Her work in the settlement...In other words, Hull House took Jane Addams into the public sphere, making...
Jane Addams: A Writer's Life
Magazine article from: Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society; 4/1/2006; ; 700+ words ; Jane Addams: A Writer's Life. By Katherine Joslin...bib., index. Cloth $35.00). Jane Addams crossed boundaries repeatedly. A woman...Joslin pushes beyond the popular image of Jane Addams as "the frail yet eager young women from...
Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy.(Book review)
Magazine article from: The Historian; 6/22/2008; ; 700+ words ; Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy. By...2005. Pp. xvi, 412. $35.00.) Jane Addams, the Progressive reformer, public...Even a reader who knows the outlines of Jane Addams's life--the tragic early loss of...
Jane Addams Book Award winners.(2003 Jane Addams Children's Book Awards)
Magazine article from: International Peace Update; 7/1/2003; ; 700+ words ; Winners of the 2003 Jane Addams Children's Book Awards were announced on April 28 by the Jane Addams Peace Association. Organized on...Freedom is funded by JAPA. The Jane Addams Children's Book Awards annually...
JANE ADDAMS OUR PERSON OF THE YEAR.
Magazine article from: Cobblestone; 3/1/1999; 700+ words ; ...Williams, Ulysses S. Grant, or Jane Addams should be our Person of the Year...When the entries were counted, Jane Addams was our readers' choice. It is...winners in this issue focusing on Jane Addams and her contributions to the United...
Jane Addams and the social claim.
Magazine article from: Public Interest; 9/22/2001; ; 700+ words ; ...middle age or older have heard of Jane Addams. Didn't she have something to...I was at long last writing my "Jane Addams book." This vague sense of familiarity...history now than they once did, but Jane Addams fell from public consciousness...
Jane Addams center of discussion
Newspaper article from: Windy City Times; 5/14/2008; ; 618 words ; Was Jane Addams a lesbian? Does that matter? And should Adams be posthumously...s keynote speaker was Louise W. Knight, author of the Jane Addams biography, Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy. It's widely known that...
A Useful Woman: The Early Life of Jane Addams.(Review)
Magazine article from: The Historian; 1/1/2001; ; 700+ words ; ...Useful Woman: The Early Life of Jane Addams. By Gioia Diliberto. (New York...1999. Pp. 318. $26.00.) Jane Addams was perhaps the most influential...House," the author delves into Jane Addams's family background, upbringing...
LT. GOV. QUINN WRITES TO EDITOR REGARDING JANE ADDAMS DAY
News Wire article from: US Fed News Service, Including US State News; 12/6/2006; 559 words ; ...years ago, on Dec. 10, 1931, Jane Addams was honored with the first Nobel...public service, by celebrating Jane Addams Day, Illinois' first-ever commemorative...new state holiday, I hoped that Jane Addams Day would be a celebration of citizenship...
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