Jane Addams

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Jane Addams

Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 – May 21, 1935) was an American social worker, sociologist, philosopher and reformer, known in America as the "mother of social work".

Life

From the time she was very young, Jane Addams was a humble person with great aspirations to help resolve human injustice. Born in Cedarville, Illinois, she was one of the youngest in a large family. Her mother died when she was 2 and Jane, raised at that time by an older sister, almost idolized her father. She had a severe curvature of the back and viewed herself as being quite ugly. Her father, a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, was a state senator and a community leader. When guests visited the church they attended, she would pretend to be part of her uncle's family as she did not wish others to know that such a great man as her father could have such a horrid child. On one occation when she had a beautiful new dress, her dad suggested she not wear it to church because others would feel badly not to have something so fine.

Although only 4 at the time, she remembers her father weeping at the death of Abraham Lincoln. There were many families in the community who had lost family members during the great war to free the slaves and they were well respected. One elderly couple lost 5 sons in the war and their last son shortly there after, remaining childless. Later Jane Addams worked to prevent war from breaking out in Europe. (It is not clear whether her pacifism is related to her father's identification of himself as a Quaker, a religion which has traditionally stood for pacifism.)

When only 7, he father took her to visit a mill town. Jane was deeply moved by the squallor of the homes there. At that time she determined that when she grew up she would live in a nice house but it would not be with other nice houses, but rather it would be among houses like these. She had compassion to help those people. Later when she and Ellen Gates Starr visited Toynbee Hall in the East End of London, she saw a settlement house in action and decided that she would fulfill her dream from long ago. Returning to America, the two women co-founded Hull House in Chicago, Illinois in 1889. It was one of the first settlement houses in the United States, and it provided welfare for a neighborhood's poor and a center for social reform.

Work

Jane Addams was educated in the United States and Europe, graduating from the Rockford Female Seminary (now Rockford College) in Rockford, Illinois. While studying there she was encouraged to be a missionary. Ironically, although she didn't become a missionary in the traditional sense, she probably had more positive influence on the society than most missionaries ever would.

At its height, Hull House was visited each week by around two thousand people. Its facilities included a night school for adults; kindergarten classes; clubs for older children; a public kitchen; an art gallery; a coffeehouse; a gymnasium; a girls club; a swimming pool; a book bindery; a music school; a drama group; a library; and labor-related divisions.

Hull House also served as a women's sociological institution. Addams was a friend and colleague to the early members of the Chicago School of Sociology, influencing their thought through her work in applied sociology and, in 1893, co-authoring the Hull-House Maps and Papers that came to define the interests and methodologies of the School. She worked with George Herbert Mead on social reform issues including women's rights and the 1910 Garment Workers' Strike. Although academic sociologists of the time defined her work as "social work", Addams did not consider herself a social worker. She combined the central concepts of symbolic interactionism with the theories of cultural feminism and pragmatism to form her sociological ideas. (Deegan, 1988)

In addition to her involvement in the American Anti-Imperialist League and the American Sociology Association, she was also a formative member of both the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1911 she helped to establish the National Foundation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers and became its first president. She was also a leader in women's suffrage and pacifist movements, and took part in the creation of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in 1915. In 1931 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, along with American educator Nicholas Murray Butler.

She began by starting art, literature and cooking clubs and progressed to providing a location for unions to meet. She attempted to address injustices as she saw them, dealing with everything from child labor to garbage collection and keeping the streets clean. She fought against women being sold into prostitution and worked to regulate the number of hours women should be allowed to work in factories. Not only did she herself arise early and work hard so others could not keep up with her pace, but she encouraged those around her to excel. “If you want to be surrounded by second-rate ability, you will dominate your settlement. If you want the best ability, you must allow great liberty of action among your residents.” She worked internationally to support women’s suffrage and to establish world peace. In Patriotism and Pacifism in War Time, she wrote, “This world crisis should be utilized for the creation of an international government to secure without war, those high ends which they now gallantly seek to obtain upon the battlefield. With such a creed can the pacifists of today be accused of selfishness when they urge upon the United States no isolation, nor indifference to moral issues and to the fate of liberty and democracy, but a strenuous endeavor to lead all nations of the earth into an organized international life worthy of civilized men.” She emphasized the role of women in the establishment of world peace and started the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in 1915. She was a founding member of both the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Although her father was a founding member of the Republican Party and she greatly admired Abraham Lincoln, many of her ideas were later considered part of the liberal political viewpoint. I do not believe that political association was as important to her as elimination of injustice. She was a woman of great integrity and was highly insulted when she was offered a bribe not to continue to support the unions. She carried out her efforts for world peace despite accusation of being a communist (which she emphatically denied, claiming that she did not even believe in socialism) and she held fast to her efforts despite expulsion from the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution). She was twice turned down by the Nobel Peace committee because she was too radical. However, at the very end of her life, she received the Nobel Peace Prize, but was too ill to accept it herself. She wrote many books and essays. Twenty Years and Hull-House includes biographical notes explaining how even as a young child her humanitarianism began to develop.

Legacy

Jane Addams on a US postage stamp of 1940

The work of Jane Addams is inspirational in its magnitude and her words bring awareness of the depth of heart this woman had for humanity. Her work brought about many changes crucial to the creation of an external environment where people could develop their internal potential. She said that without “ethics” and “righteousness” life becomes meaningless. She took responsibility when she saw injustice and as a result helped bring about changes in almost every aspect of life. In her essay about Democracy and Social Ethics, she said: “to pride one’s self on the results of personal effort when the time demands social adjustment, is utterly to fail to apprehend the situation. … a standard of social ethics is not attained by traveling a sequestered byway, but by mixing on the thronged and common road where all must turn out for one another, and at least see the size of one another’s burdens.” Although she began by creating a settlement house (Hull-House) in Chicago where the better educated could mingle with and bring a more refined culture to the poor, she quickly began to work toward helping enact legislation to improve the daily lives of the people she saw each day.

Publications

• Addams, J. 1902. Democracy and social ethics. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishers.
• Addams, J. 1905. Children in American street trades. New York, NY: National Child Labor Committee.
• Addams, J. 1907. New ideals of peace. Chautauqua, NY: Chautauqua Press.
• Addams, J. 1910. The Wage-earning Woman and the State. Boston, MA: Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government.
• Addams, J. 1911. Symposium: child labor on the stage. New York, NY: National Child Labor Committee.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Deegan, Mary, Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School, 1892-1918. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, Inc., 1988.

External links

• Harvard University Library Open Collections Program. Women Working, 1870-1930. Jane Addams (1860-1935). A full-text searchable online database with complete access to publications written by Jane Addams.

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