Browse · Jane Addams Digital Edition

The Subtle Problems of Charity, February 1899

Addams discusses the problems that charity workers face when they bring middle-class assumptions about the poor to their efforts to practically help them.

Charity Labor Poverty Social Work

Statement on $2.50 Weekly Wage, April 4, 1901

Women argue against setting a weekly salary of $2,50 because it was not sufficient to health and well-being.

Labor Lectures Poverty

The Business Woman's Opportunity for Philanthropy, November 19, 1901

Newspaper coverage of Addams' November 19 address to the Chicago Business Woman's Club linking child labor to laziness in adults.

Child Labor Hull-House Lectures Philanthropy

The Social Results of Charitable Effort, November 17, 1902 (excerpt)

Addams discusses the need to understand the poor in order to solve the problems of poverty.

Charity Immigrants Lectures Poverty Settlement Movement Social Work

Chicago Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Houses, "Newsboy Conditions in Chicago," 1903

A 28-page illustrated pamphlet outlining the work and social conditions of newsboys and newsgirls, based on a two-day intensive investigation. In it the Committee proposes revisions in child labor laws to curb the worst excesses.

Child Labor Children Gambling Legislation Social Welfare

To Live on $12 a Week, October 23, 1903

Addams describes how a man can support his family on $12 per week.

Finances Poverty

New Methods in Philanthropy, November 7, 1903 (excerpts) Also known as Address to the Catholic Women's League, November 7, 1903 (excerpts)

Addams speaks to the Catholic Women's League about the ways the poor are harmed by unthinking charitable efforts.

Child Labor Lectures Philanthropy Poverty

Jane Addams's Own Story of Her Work: How the Work at Hull-House Has Grown (Third of Three Installments), May 1906

Addams lays out the expansion of Hull-House programs and buildings from 1890 to 1905.

Charity Hull-House Immigrants Settlements Unemployment

John Rayborn to Jane Addams and Margaret Dreier Robins, January 27, 1908

Rayborn asks Addams and Robins for assistance in finding a job and getting him and his family out of poverty.

Onsite Poverty Requests

Autobiographical Notes Upon Twenty Years at Hull-House: Problems of Poverty, July 1910

Addams describes the poverty of the Hull-House neighborhood in the early days of her work there. She discusses the lack of security and loneliness of the elderly, as well as child labor.

Child Labor Hull-House Labor Poverty Settlement Movement Social Welfare

Harriet E. Sigsbee to Jane Addams, October 19, 1910

Sigsbee compliments Addams on her article in American Magazine and comments on the relationship between poverty and crime.

Child Labor Poverty

Frances Collins Palmer to Jane Addams, January 24, 1911

Palmer asks Addams to help her discover the true circumstances of an impoverished family member living in Chicago.

Charity Finances Poverty Requests

Anonymous (Justice) to Chicago Tribune Editor, December 9, 1911

The author sympathizes with the McNamara brothers, who bombed the Los Angeles Times building in California in October 1910, because they were insane but criticizes the Chicago newspapers for responding with bigotry against the Irish community.

Free Speech Poverty Race