Addams, Jane (1860-1935)

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Item Relations

Participated in (14)
Member of (10)
Received by (2854)
Written by (3220)
Mentions (196)
Member of (1)
Participated in (2)
Related to (2)
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American Association for Labor Legislation

American Commission on Conditions in Ireland

American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology

Citizen's Anti-Crime Committee

International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace (ICWPP)

League for the Protection of Immigrants

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education

The Committee for the Extension of Municipal Suffrage for Chicago Women

Richard T. Ely to Jane Addams, January [11-30?], 1901

Mary Dorsey Anderson Hill to Jane Addams, January 23, 1901

Jenkin Lloyd Jones to Jane Addams, February 11, 1901

William Vaughn Moody to Jane Addams, February 12, 1901

Frederick H. Rowe to Jane Addams, February 13, 1901

Frederic Harrison to Jane Addams, February 15, 1901

Frederic Harrison to Jane Addams, February 25, 1901

Richard T. Ely to Jane Addams, February 28, 1901

Henry Carter Adams to Jane Addams, March 7, 1901

Jacob A. Riis to Jane Addams, March 9, 1901

Edmund J. James to Jane Addams, March 14, 1901

Pyotr Kropotkin to Jane Addams, March 14, 1901

Emma Goldman to Jane Addams, April 7, 1901

Richard T. Ely to Jane Addams, April 19, 1901

Rollin Lynde Hartt to Jane Addams, April 27, 1901

James Weber Linn to Jane Addams, April 28, 1901

Richard T. Ely to Jane Addams, January 28, 1902

John Heyl Vincent, "A Birthday Memorandum, 1832-1902," February 24, 1902

John Heyl Vincent to Jane Addams, February 24, 1902

Susan Parrish Wharton to Jane Addams, March 1, 1902

Helena S. Dudley to Jane Addams, April 30, 1902

J. David Thompson to Jane Addams, April 4, 1902

Sophia Engel Van Dine to Jane Addams, April 16, 1902

Samuel Milton Jones to Jane Addams, April 25, 1902

Stanley R. McCormick to Jane Addams, April 28, 1902

Richard T. Ely to Jane Addams, April 29, 1902

Katherine R. Pettit to Jane Addams, May 1, 1902

Alice N. Lincoln to Jane Addams, June 29, 1902

Richard T. Ely to Jane Addams, July 5, 1902

Richard T. Ely to Jane Addams, July 21, 1902

Edward B. Nitchie to Jane Addams, July 23, 1902

Richard T. Ely to Jane Addams, July 26, 1902

Alice Hamilton to Jane Addams, August 1, 1902

Samuel Milton Jones to Jane Addams, August 15, 1902

Earl Barnes to Jane Addams, August 24, 1902

Earl Dean Howard to Jane Addams, January 16, 1903

Lena C. Leland to Jane Addams, May 7, [1903?]

Edward Howard Griggs to Jane Addams, June 19, 1903

A. H. Nelson to Jane Addams, January 11, 1907

Florence Kelley to Jane Addams, January 23, 1907

Joseph Berg Esenwein to Jane Addams, September 18, 1907

Francis Reynolds Dickinson to Jane Addams, September 26, 1907

Robert Adger Bowen to Jane Addams, September 27, 1907

Richard C. Cabot to Jane Addams, October 1, 1907

Louis F. Post to Jane Addams, October 1, 1907

Martha Carey Thomas to Jane Addams, October 5, 1907

Jenkin Lloyd Jones to Jane Addams, October 9, 1907

Richard C. Cabot to Jane Addams, October 15, 1907

Martha Carey Thomas to Jane Addams, October 21, 1907

Henry Churchill King to Frederick H. Deknatel, January 18, 1908

Browse all documents Received by "Addams, Jane (1860-1935)"

Jane Addams to Richard T. Ely, January 10, 1901

Jane Addams to Sarah Alice Addams Haldeman, January 10, 1901

Jane Addams to Sarah Alice Addams Haldeman, January 14, 1901

Jane Addams to Stella R. Sax, January 14, 1901

Jane Addams to Anita McCormick Blaine, January 17, 1901

Jane Addams to Sarah Alice Addams Haldeman, January 30, 1901

In Memory of Alzina Parsons Stevens, February 1901

Jane Addams to Florence Kelley, February 1, 1901

Jane Addams to Sarah Alice Addams Haldeman, February 3, 1901

Jane Addams to William Vaughan Moody, February 9, 1901

Jane Addams to Florence Kelley, February 10, 1901

Jane Addams to Sarah Alice Addams Haldeman, February 14, 1901

Jane Addams to Charles Hammond Blatchford, February 17, 1901

Jane Addams to Charles Hammond Blatchford, February 19, 1901

Jane Addams to Richard T. Ely, February 26, 1901

Jane Addams to Anita McCormick Blaine, February 28, 1901

Jane Addams to Sarah Alice Addams Haldeman, January 26, 1902

Jane Addams to Sarah Alice Addams Haldeman, January 31, 1902

Jane Addams to Anita McCormick Blaine, February 6, 1902

Jane Addams to Sarah Alice Addams Haldeman, February 11, 1902

Jane Addams to Anita McCormick Blaine, February 1902

Jane Addams to Sarah Alice Addams Haldeman, February 14, 1902

Jane Addams to Louis R. Ehrich, February 26, 1902

Jane Addams to Mary Rozet Smith, March 16, 1902

Jane Addams to Mary Rozet Smith, May 3, 1902

Elective or Appointive School Board, February 1, 1906

Jane Addams to Macmillan Company, December 4, 1906

Jane Addams to George P. Brett, December 12, 1906

Jane Addams to Anita McCormick Blaine, December 14, 1906

Jane Addams to George P. Brett, December 14, 1906

Jane Addams to Frank G. Logan, December 15, 1906

Jane Addams to Julius Rosenwald, December 15, 1906

Jane Addams to Anita McCormick Blaine, December 27, 1906

Jane Addams to Lillian D. Wald, December 27, 1906

Jane Addams to Sarah Alice Addams Haldeman, July or August 27, 1907

Jane Addams to Madeleine Wallin Sikes, August 28, 1907

Jane Addams to Anita McCormick Blaine, September 4, 1907

Effect of Familiarity, September 5, 1907

Jane Addams to Graham Taylor, September 6, 1907

Jane Addams to Sarah Alice Addams Haldeman, September 10, 1907

Jane Addams to Luther S. Dickey, September 11, 1907

Testimonial of Raymond Robins, September 11, 1907

Jane Addams to Edward Bok, September 14, 1907

Jane Addams to Ellen Gates Starr, September 14, 1907

Jane Addams to Sarah Alice Addams Haldeman, September 15, 1907

Jane Addams to James Graham Phelps Stokes, December 28, 1907

Jane Addams to Peter Christian Lutkin, January 3, 1908

Jane Addams to Sarah Alice Addams Haldeman, January 7, [1908]

Addams to Breasted 1-31-1914-page-001.jpg

Jane Addams to James Henry Breasted, January 31, 1914

Browse all documents Written by "Addams, Jane (1860-1935)"

Mary Rozet Smith to Florence Kelley, October 22, 1901

The Message of a Good Woman; Review of Democracy and Social Ethics, April 16, 1902

Employer and Employee, August 25, 1902

William S. Booth to Jane Addams, May 24, 1902

Richard T. Ely to Alice Hamilton and Jane Addams, May 11, 1904

Degree for Jane Addams, May 31, 1904

Mary Rozet Smith to Lillian D. Wald, ca. June [15-28?], 1904

Aylmer Maude to Mary Rozet Smith, August 2, 1904

Women's Peace Meeting, October 22, 1904

Mary Rozet Smith to Florence Kelley, October 15, 1905

Cordenio A. Severance to James A. Tawney, January 9, 1906

Charles P. Neill to Sophonisba Breckinridge, January 29, 1906

James A. Tawney to Sophonisba Breckinridge, January 31, 1906

Ben B. Lindsey to Julian W. Mack, June 18, 1906

Rockefeller Millions for Children Spurned, June 25, 1906

Frederick H. Deknatel to Julia Henriette Gulliver, November 23, 1906

H. O. Hammond to Christian Socialist Editor, ca. 1907

William James to Jane Addams, January 24, 1907

Memorandum to President Theodore Roosevelt on the work of Committee of One Hundred, May 21, 1907

Mrs. W. C. Dennes Pledge Regarding Intoxicating Liquors, November 15, 1907

Western Union Telegraph Co. to Viola Percy Conklin, March 17, 1908

Irving Fisher to American Association for the Advancement of Science, April 22, 1908

John Sanborn Phillips to Ida Minerva Tarbell, May 7, 1908 (fragment)

Albert H. Loeb to Jane Addams, May 19,1908

Unknown (B. F.) to the Editor of the New York Evening Post, May 29, 1908

Olga Averbuch to Harold L. Ickes, September 23, 1908

National Conference of Charities and Corrections, The National Bulletin, November 12, 1908 (excerpts)

Irene Osgood, Receipt, November 19, 1908

Rudowitz Conference participants list, December 1908

Lucia O. Ford to Brand Whitlock, February 8, 1909

Address to the Second National Peace Congress, March 12, 1909 (excerpt)

Theodore Dreiser to James Edward West, June 30, 1910

Waldo R. Browne to Louise DeKoven Bowen, August 10, 1910

Gino Speranza, Outline of proposed work for the Committee on Crime and Immigration, January 18, 1911

Woman's Home Mission Review of Twenty Years at Hull-House, February 1911

Grace Abbott to Gino C. Speranza, March 6, 1911

Sophonisba P. Breckinridge to Noah Baxter Feagin, April 3, 1911

Ben B. Lindsey to Owen R. Lovejoy, April 10, 1911

Louise DeKoven Bowen to Julia C. Lathrop, August 18, 1911

Ben B. Lindsey to Julia C. Lathrop, August 24, 1911

Mary Rozet Smith to Esther Loeb Kohn, September 16, 1911

Ben B. Lindsey to Julia C. Lathrop, October 24, 1911

Interview with Mrs. Anna V. Morrison, December 26, 1911

Isaac N. Seligman to Lillian D. Wald, 1912

Jane Addams Blazes Trail of Suffrage, April 2, 1912

Louise deKoven Bowen to Crystal Eastman, April 23, 1912

At Last a Genuinely Independent Newspaper, ca. August 1912

Roosevelt Women "Tricked into It," August 20, 1912

Frank Harper to Frances A. Kellor, August 22, 1912

Browse all documents that mention "Addams, Jane (1860-1935)"

Political Refugee Defense League

Jane Addams' Emergency Breast Surgery (1923)

George Albert Bellamy to Jane Addams, March 8, 1912

Knapp, Valeria Addams (1830-1914)

Comments

Birth Date

1860-09-06

Death Date

1935-05-21

Birthplace

Cedarville, IL

Biographical Text

Laura Jane Addams was born in 1860 to affluent parents, John Huy Addams and Sarah Weber Addams in Cedarville, IL, Her mother died when she was only two years old, and her father remarried in 1868. Addams was a bright child who was tutored by her father. Jane Addams enrolled in Rockford Female Seminary in 1877 and excelled in her studies. She was recognized as a leader at the College, serving as class president for four years and as valedictorian at her 1881 graduation. Addams had hopes to go to Smith College and eventually to medical school and to serve society, but the 1881 death of her father changed her circumstances.

Addams instead was needed at home, to serve as a companion for her step-mother, Anna Haldeman Addams. The pair moved to Philadelphia where Addams attempted to pursue her dream at the Women's Medical College of Philadelphia, but she was unable to do so. She traveled abroad with her step-mother, studying language and art history, but found herself in a depression as societal roles pressed upon her plans for her future.

During her years after college, Addams developed her ideas about democracy, charity, and class that helped inform her work with Hull-House. In 1888 Addams toured Europe again, this time with her Rockford College friend, Ellen Gates Starr, where the two came upon the "settlement house" Toynbee Hall for the first time. Addams and Starr determined to create their own settlement house in Chicago, using much of Addams's inheritance from her father to fund the effort. They located a site, in Chicago's 19th Ward, and set up Hull-House in 1890, offering classes and services to their immigrant neighbors.

At Hull-House, Addams worked together to make the settlement a success. Starr focused on the administrative work while Addams was the public face of the settlement. Addams sought assistance from the influential Chicago Women's Club, and rapidly became known in the city for her useful works. She attracted volunteers and financial support for her work, which she used to provide more services to her neighbors.

Addams was a prolific writer and she wrote about the benefits the settlement work brought to the middle-class workers and well as to the neighbors, gaining a reputation as a progressive thinker that made Hull-House the best known settlement, albeit one that's democratic character made it unique in its operation. Hull-House created a place where social reform activists, chiefly, but not solely women, were able to collaborate and make effective change in laws, economics, and health care.

Addams built relationships with wealthy funders, such as Louise deKoven Bowen and Mary Rozet Smith that helped to expand Hull-House's capabilities far past what her own limited wealth could support. Addams used Hull-House as a pulpit from which she could attempt to change the way society treated workers and the less fortunate. After 1900 she became increasingly involved in city, and then national politics and became a well-traveled and sought-after speaker.

Addams had a rich writing career, taking her lectures and editing them into a series of topical books. She published:

Democracy and Social Ethics (1902), Newer Ideals of Peace (1907), The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets (1909), Twenty Years at Hull-House with Autobiographical Notes (1910), A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil (1912), The Long Road of Woman’s Memory, (1916), Peace and Bread in Time of War (1922), The Second Twenty Years at Hull-House, September 1909 to September 1929, With a Record of a Growing Consciousness (1930), The Excellent Becomes the Permanent (1932), and My Friend, Julia Lathrop. New York: Macmillan (1935).

Addams sometimes found the practical application of her theories difficult because there was no shared goal amongst activists. Addams served on the Chicago Board of Education from 1905-1909, finding that putting her theories on mediation into practical use were difficult. She found it difficult to deal with partisans who had no taste for compromise. When she became involved in the suffrage movement, Addams likewise avoided supporting any of the warring factions in the movement, staying above the fray. In 1912, Addams was briefly drawn into politics, when she supported Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party campaign for president, but after his defeat she withdrew from active participation.

With the outbreak of World War I, Addams's strong and consistent calls for peace put her in the public spotlight. She called for mediation between the warring countries, not armed conflict and did not adjust her rhetoric when the United States entered the war. Addams was accused of being a partisan, a traitor, or a naive fool, but she ignored all attacks and threw herself into organizing for peace. Addams worked with other women in the United States and abroad to lobby for peace, with the Woman's Peace Party and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Addams believed that peace was a reform that women saw in a unique way and underscored her conviction that women needed an equal say in politics and society.

Addams devoted the remainder of her public life to peace activism, though she maintained her work with Hull-House throughout her life. She worked to support and publicize the work of peace organizations around the world, traveling around the world and working with women's organizations to encourage activism.

In 1931, Addams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (sharing the award with Nicholas Murray Butler), a vindication of her stalwart support for peace in the trying circumstances surrounding the war. By this time, Addams was winding down, her many health problems taking a toll on her ability to be as active as she once was. Addams died of abdominal cancer on May 21, 1935.

Addams never married; instead she had a life-long romantic attachment to Mary Rozet Smith. The two women were constant companions, traveled together and expressed their love in letters.

Map

Rights

Public domain

Contributor

Hajo, Cathy Moran

First appears

1901

Bibliography and Links

Mary Lynn Bryan, The Selected Papers of Jane Addams (2003-2009)

SNAC

Victoria Bissell Brown, "Jane Addams," Women Building Chicago, 1790-1990 (2001), pp. 14-22.

Citation

“Addams, Jane (1860-1935),” Jane Addams Digital Edition, accessed January 28, 2020, http://digital.janeaddams.ramapo.edu/items/show/5.

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