Jane Addams Biography

Jane Addams was born on September 6, 1860 in Cedarville, Illinois. The eighth of nine children, young Jane endured many tragedies. Her mother died when she was two and a half. Four of her siblings did not survive infancy and another teenage sister died of typhoid fever. When Jane was four she was stricken with spinal tuberculosis, leaving her with a crooked spine.

In an age when less than one percent of females continued education after high school, Addams attended Rockford Female Seminary, graduating at the top of her class. The following summer, her prosperous father died suddenly of acute appendicitis. With a desire to help the ailing poor, Addams chose to apply some of her sizeable inheritance to study medicine. Her spinal problems, however, forced her to abandon her studies and she would spend the next few years soul searching while traveling extensively throughout Europe. 

After returning home, she focused her attention on reading. The newly translated works of Leo Tolstoy, expounding upon compassion for the poor, resonated deeply with Addams. A magazine article about a settlement house in London’s East End also caught her attention. Toynbee Hall, as it was named, adopted the mission of bringing the rich and poor together in an interdependent community. Intrigued, Addams returned to London to see it for herself. Before long, she convinced a good friend from Rockford Female Seminary, Ellen Gates Starr, to co-create a similar home in an ethnically diverse and poverty-plagued part of Chicago. The home, named Hull House, became America’s first settlement house.

The home, named Hull House, became America’s first settlement house.

Hull House quickly became a veritable hive of activity. A kindergarten was the first service offered at Hull House followed by classes in English, cooking, and cultural assimilation. The home would eventually add many more buildings that would include a job-placement center, community center, library, public kitchen, gymnasium, night school classes, art gallery, music school, and a theater. Even medical treatment was offered.

Addams, in the meantime, continued to address a whole host of social issues. Residents at the settlement conducted investigations into labor fatigue, child labor, midwifery practices, inadequate street sanitation, housing problems, causes of school truancy, conditions causing tuberculosis and typhoid, and the legal practice at the time of cocaine sales to minors.

The findings of these investigations increasingly led Addams to seek reforms through legislative campaigns at all levels of government. Addams and the settlement advocated and lobbied for reforms in the areas of healthcare, immigration policy, labor, playgrounds and kindergartens, juvenile justice, sanitation, and women’s suffrage.

Addams’ energy and effectiveness placed her skills in increasing demand. In 1907, she was a founding member of the National Child Labor Committee, which was instrumental in the passage of a Federal Child Labor Law in 1916. Addams became the first woman president of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections. In 1909, Addams was among the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. From 1911 to 1914, she served as Vice President of the National American Women’s Suffrage Association (a merger of NWSA and AWSA) under President Anna Howard Shaw who was groomed by Susan B. Anthony.

Jane Addams 1940 10¢ Stamp, Famous American Series

Source: U.S. Post Office

During World War I, Addams extended the breadth of her vast ambitions to include the promotion of international peace. In a principled but very unpopular move, she protested against the U.S. entry into the war. One month after the war began 1,500 women silently marched down Fifth Avenue in New York City in protest. Five months later the movement had crystallized into the Woman’s Peace Party (WPP) with Addams as president. Soon thereafter suffragists from four European nations invited women from across the globe to attend the International Congress of Women in The Hague. The congress likewise elected Addams president of what became the International Committee of Women for a Permanent Peace and eventually the Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom (WILPF).

On behalf of the committee, Addams traveled to eight European nations, promoting peaceful resolutions to the war. Back in the U.S., she came under withering criticism for her pacifism as America entered the war in April of 1917. After World War I, Addams was critical of the Treaty of Versailles, prophetically warning that its humiliating demands would lead to yet another war.

Despite the assaults on her character and a new spate of health challenges, she kept her resolve. In 1920, she was a co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1926, Addams sustained a heart attack but nevertheless continued to promote world peace. In addition to her WILPF presidency, she served on the boards of three other international peace organizations. In October 1931, she helped present a national petition to President Hoover, urging him in vain to accept the vision of complete global disarmament. Two months later Addams became the first American woman awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

On May 18, 1935 an operation revealed Addams had cancer. She died three days later. The funeral service was held in the courtyard of Hull-House. Thousands of people attended to pay their respects to “Saint Jane.”