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Twenty Years at Hull House

3.44 of 5 stars 3.44 · rating details · 388 ratings · 42 reviews

Major work from the American social worker, sociologist, philosopher and reformer, known in America as the "mother of social work."

Paperback, 248 pages

Published March 1st 2006 by Dodo Press (first published 1911)

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Aug 16, 2012 Jane Mettee rated it 4 of 5 stars

I found an old (1945) copy at a sale. As a public health nurse I have always heard about Hull House, a settlement house in Chicago. Jane Addams with her friend Ellen Starr founded the Hull House in 1989. The purpose was to provide social, public health, and advocacy services to the low income people (mostly immigrants) in the area. Hull House is recognized as the model for social service reform in this country. Accomplishments include improving sanitation (ie:garbage collection and sewage dispos...more

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Jul 01, 2010 Frank Stein rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first part of this book is simply beautiful. In it Addams provides a strange and insightful look at what it was like to grow up the daughter of a well-off miller in rural Cedarville, Illinois in the 19th century. Surprisingly for a Victorian-era social reformer, she's eminently relatable and self-reflective. She describes in detail things like a nightmare she had as a young girl where everyone in the world was dead except her, and the world depended upon her solitary work as a blacksmith to...more The first part of this book is simply beautiful. In it Addams provides a strange and insightful look at what it was like to grow up the daughter of a well-off miller in rural Cedarville, Illinois in the 19th century. Surprisingly for a Victorian-era social reformer, she's eminently relatable and self-reflective. She describes in detail things like a nightmare she had as a young girl where everyone in the world was dead except her, and the world depended upon her solitary work as a blacksmith to start it up again. She is able to recognize in this the early delusions of grandeur so common to children, and a sense of her own impotence she carried into the women's seminary and beyond. She discusses how her later educational tours of Europe furthered her charitable and democratic sensibilities (along with her hope for a non-religious "cathedral of humanity" to unite all mankind), and yet she also realizes that this excessive education was only part of what Tolstoy called "the snare of preparation," that chilling sense that infinite training only impedes real life and action. Addams saw that she (and the other over-educated and underemployed women of her generation) needed real vigorous action, especially in public life, to feel like worthwhile members of society. So, she starts the Hull Street Settlement House. Overall, it is the best psychological description of what motivated a Progressive reformer, or just a charitable life, that I've ever read.

Unfortunately, the other half of the book tends to ramble. She certainly has loads of interesting stories, from the time Hull House challenged its corrupt local aldermen in the Chicago city elections, to the time they set up a "Museum of Labor" to teach immigrant children about their parents' crafts in the Old World, to the time she visited that Mecca of reformers, Tolstoy's farm at Yasnaya Polyana in Russia (he eats a porridge of gruel with them after coming in from working on the farm with his peasants. He is less than personable). But most of these stories have a predictable pattern; they are finished in two pages and then move on to an almost completely unrelated one. Some, like her attempts to pass a law forbidding pharmacies from selling cocaine to minors, are interesting, others, less so.

I highly recommend reading the first half, and the second you can take or leave. It's 50% a classic. (less)

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Jun 15, 2012 Cyndi rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: school, historical

Jane Addams looks back on 20 years at Hull House a settlement house in Chicago that she founded to ameliorate the effects of industrialization and immigration. These houses were set up in different cities throughout the country by people who were either rich or had access to money and wanted to dedicate their lives to charity. Addams championed the downtrodden, victimized and oppressed who were taken advantage of by unscrupulous bosses, people and even criminals. Conditions faced by immigrants i...more Jane Addams looks back on 20 years at Hull House a settlement house in Chicago that she founded to ameliorate the effects of industrialization and immigration. These houses were set up in different cities throughout the country by people who were either rich or had access to money and wanted to dedicate their lives to charity. Addams championed the downtrodden, victimized and oppressed who were taken advantage of by unscrupulous bosses, people and even criminals. Conditions faced by immigrants included horrible living and working conditions, poor and sometimes poisoned foods, girls led into prostitution, no access to education, children who did not have places to play except a dirty alley, extremely low wages that offered no way to get out of poverty, long work hours and the list goes on.

The book is hard to read at times and is more scholarly than story but it is told by Addams herself as she recalls what she tried to accomplish. She was viewed as a radical by some although I get the feeling that she really didn't think of herself as a radical. I could see how one might think of her given the time period when women did not lead out and were not supposed to express their opinions in public. Others viewed her as a saint when they were given help at a crucial time in their life.

I especially enjoyed the parts of our she attempted to bring beautiful things into a section of the city that was dirty and broken down. Addams fought for sanitation efforts by the city and organized residents to clean up streets. She had a park built for children and at Hull House she organized art shows where immigrants could display their work but also with museums she brought art to the residents. Musical programs were held at the house as were lectures and classes to help in whatever areas the residents needed be it cooking, childcare, or philosophy. Addams did not have an agenda other than to help the poor and realized that the way she would find fulfillment may not be the same as another and did not judge others. In the process she found that often she was blessed. One of the most touching moments for me was when describing how young people were often ashamed of their parents who did not change their old country ways although they were now in America. Addams set up demonstrations of how things were done in the old country such as spinning when she realized that this was done differently depending on where you came from and what tools were accesible. As this young girl saw the admiration of others as they watched her work and realized that her mother was a person of skill and did not know the depth of her being, she changed and treated her mother better and a relationship was born.

I don't agree with everything of the Progressive Era and personally think that the intial movement was founded on pure motives but that government should not be involved to the extent they are. There is much that each individual can do to help others. Some programs are necessary but it is from this time period and specific activists that government programs were born that have gotten out of control in their scope and aims.(less)

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Feb 14, 2013 Dayla rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography-or-autobriography, early-feminism, encore-stage

She taught the poor Shakespeare, and they loved it. Great work by one of my favorite feminists during an era when feminists were not welcome most places.

Lincoln wrote to Ms. Addams, saying that she and her father were "The double D Addams." Lincoln noticed everything.

I am always surprised when a school is named Jane Addams, and no one seems to know a thing about Jane Addams.

Hopefully, someone at all the schools will fall in love with Jane Addams once her story is uncovered. This book does a g...more

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Aug 22, 2011 Dusty rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: graduate-school, personal-canon, read-in-2011

More than just a chronicle of the first two decades of Hull-House, the experimental social improvement site Jane Addams established in the late 19th century in one of Chicago's many impoverished immigrant quarters, this book is a spirited defense of pluralistic and democratic ideals. It is a plea for world citizens to hold their nations accountable when they run astray of democracy. And unfortunately, though under-served urban neighborhoods are increasingly populated by African Americans and Lat...more

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Sep 05, 2011 Elise rated it 4 of 5 stars

Well, since Nick read this book about a year ago, and was deeply influenced by Jane Addams's thinking, TYAHH has been on my short list for awhile. Because Addams has become so important to Nick, he's talked about her with me a lot; as a result, reading TYAHH for the first time felt like a familiar experience. Perhaps I'd be giving an additional star if my reading were a mind-blowing first encounter with JA; however, that's not to say that I didn't enjoy the book. My favorite chapters were the on...more

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Mar 07, 2011 Jessica rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of the most amazing women in history, Jane Addams led an extraordinary life dedicated to helping those around her. This beautiful piece is an incredible look into her brainchild, the Hull House in Chicago. It was here that Jane, along with Ellen Gates Starr, reinvented community activism through their fight for equality for the immigrants of the region. This is an in-depth look at the trials and successes she encountered while building her settlement house from the ground up.

The beauty of t...more

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Aug 26, 2010 Nick Klagge rated it 5 of 5 stars

As with all of my very favorite books, it's difficult for me to put into words what "Twenty Years at Hull-House" meant to me.

Although I am not generally a big annotator, I was kicking myself for checking this out of the library and not having bought my own copy so that I couldn't underline, write notes, etc. At the same time, I couldn't keep myself from reading it until I bought a copy. All in all this was not too upsetting, because I definitely intend to read this book again in the future, pro...more As with all of my very favorite books, it's difficult for me to put into words what "Twenty Years at Hull-House" meant to me.

Although I am not generally a big annotator, I was kicking myself for checking this out of the library and not having bought my own copy so that I couldn't underline, write notes, etc. At the same time, I couldn't keep myself from reading it until I bought a copy. All in all this was not too upsetting, because I definitely intend to read this book again in the future, probably more than once.

The clearest thing that I can say is that Jane Addams is the first historical figure I have ever encountered who I really consider to be a role model. There are plenty of historical figures who I admire, respect, or even look up to, but what makes JA different for me is that I see in her the best possible version of my own type of character. She is someone who I feel I can truly aspire to be like because to be like her wouldn't require any fundamental changes to my values, beliefs, or circumstances; only to make the most of them. When I read her writing, on nearly every subject, I find myself both agreeing and feeling like she is expanding my understanding, sort of like talking to a good friend.

I would strongly encourage anyone to read this book. It's actually old enough that it's in the public domain and available for free online (http://digital.library.upenn.edu/wome...), but I'll warn you that you might wish you had a margin to take notes in. I'd also encourage reading the entry on her in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy online, which was the first place where I really encountered her (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/add...).

She speaks much more eloquently for herself, but I'll give a little description of what I find so compelling here. She lived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and founded a "settlement" called Hull-House in the immigrant slums of Chicago. It's not easy to give a concise definition of a settlement, because part of what's important is that it be multifarious and always open to experimentation, but at its most basic the idea is that it is a place where people from privileged backgrounds live in an underprivileged neighborhood, hopefully to the benefit of both. Hull-House was a center for all sorts of social, intellectual, and artistic programs, really an innovator in many things that have today the government has taken on.

I like JA for her pragmatism. She spends a fair amount of time in the book talking about Tolstoy, who took a much more extreme position on poverty (and walked the walk), but ends up finding herself parting ways with him. I also like her for her commitment to applied work. In some ways this may have been forced on her by cultural circumstances (being a woman in the early twentieth century), but I also think it's an important part of her character. As the SEP article shows, she was an accomplished philosopher in her own right, as creative a thinker as her friend John Dewey (for example). In my opinion she walked the perfect line between intellectual and practitioner.

Aside from my deep admiration for JA herself, I also took away from this book an interesting perspective on American history. Much of her writing on social issues seemed almost shockingly modern to me in its concerns--for instance the passages on public education. She also spends a significant amount of time writing about Abraham Lincoln, who was a major intellectual and character influence on her, and this section drew for me a sense of continuity from Lincoln and abolitionism through the Progressive era that I had never seen or thought about before. (less)

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Sep 13, 2012 Zigforas rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: social-work, non-fiction, biography-memoir

A modest, thoughtful look at Chicago's innovative Hull House Settlement as well as a fascinating glimpse into the personal development and accomplishments of Jane Addams. I wound up really liking and relating to Jane Addams as a person--occasionally, her reflections on her own foibles, naivete, and growth are hilarious. And the political and community work done by Hull-House--the empowerment framework in which it was done, before there was the word 'empowerment'-- was astonishing. I should have...more A modest, thoughtful look at Chicago's innovative Hull House Settlement as well as a fascinating glimpse into the personal development and accomplishments of Jane Addams. I wound up really liking and relating to Jane Addams as a person--occasionally, her reflections on her own foibles, naivete, and growth are hilarious. And the political and community work done by Hull-House--the empowerment framework in which it was done, before there was the word 'empowerment'-- was astonishing. I should have read this book a long time ago.

"Whatever may have been the perils of self-tradition, I certainly did not escape them, for it required eight years--from the time I left Rockford in the summer of 1881 until Hull-House was opened in the autumn of 1889--to formulate my convictions even in the least satisfactory manner, much less to reduce them to a plan for action. During most of that time I was absolutely at sea so far as any moral purpose was concerned, clinging only to the desire to live in a really living world and refusing to be content with a shadowy intellectual or aesthetic reflection of it" (p. 64).

"My memory merges this early conversation on religious doctrine into one which took place later when I put before my father the situation in which I found myself at boarding school when under great evangelical pressure, and once again I heard his testimony in favor of 'mental integrity above everything else'" (p. 15).

"To return to my last year at school, it was inevitable that the pressure toward religious profession should increase as graduating day approached. So curious, however, are the paths of moral development that several times during subsequent experiences I have felt that this passive resistance of mine, this clinging to an individual conviction, was the best moral training I received at Rockford College" (p. 56).

On privilege: "In spite of my distrust of 'advantages' I was apparently not yet so cured but that I wanted more of them" (p. 77).

"I had confidence that although life itself might contain many difficulties, the period of mere passive receptivity had come to an end, and I had at last finished with the ever-lasting 'preparation for life,' however ill-prepared I might be. It was not until years afterward that I came upon Tolstoy's phrase 'the snare of preparation,' which he insists we spread before the feet of young people, hopelessly entangling them in a curious inactivity at the very period of life when they are longing to construct the world anew and to conform it to their own ideals " (p. 88).

"The Settlement casts aside none of those things which cultivated men have come to consider reasonable and goodly, but it insists that those belong as well to that great body of people who, because of toilsome and underpaid labor, are unable to procure them for themselves. Added to this is a profound conviction that the common stock of intellectual enjoyment should not be difficult of access because of the economic position of him who would approach it, that those 'best results of civilization' upon which depend the finer and freer aspects of living must be incorporated into our common life and have free mobility through all elements of society if we would have our democracy endure" (p. 452).(less)

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Jul 04, 2012 Claudia rated it 5 of 5 stars

A book that is as relevant today as the era it chronicles.

It is a Herculean effort fraught with all manner of frustrations to alleviate human suffering in times of economic deprivation.

Just to supply many thousands of people with the bottom rung of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs is difficult, but to educate, enrich the mind and elevate the spirit during times of economic hardship is insuperable.

Throughout the history of the industrialized world humans are caught in a whirlpool of misery while te...more A book that is as relevant today as the era it chronicles.

It is a Herculean effort fraught with all manner of frustrations to alleviate human suffering in times of economic deprivation.

Just to supply many thousands of people with the bottom rung of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs is difficult, but to educate, enrich the mind and elevate the spirit during times of economic hardship is insuperable.

Throughout the history of the industrialized world humans are caught in a whirlpool of misery while tending the machines that make our goods and process our food. Sometimes it is a time of feast with the machines running full bore tended to by frazzled humans. At other times the machines are idle and humans are out of work. Either way, there are numerous social problems attendant to each scenario.

As the 1800's gave way to the 1900's, Jane Addams established Hull House in Chicago to assist the largely rural immigrant labor pool who came to this country and had trouble adjusting to urban living and employment in the factories. She created a haven of art, books, education and viable social programs to make their difficult lives a bit more tolerable. Jane and a dedicated staff of "old souls" became the voice for those who could not speak English or who were just too tired from back breaking work. Among the reforms she is credited with enacting was the 8 hour workday and child labor reform. Children as young as 4 were working in sweat shops.

While conditions today are not as bad, there are too many people living from paycheck to paycheck, too many living below the poverty line, too many unemployed and too many without adequate medical and dental care. Jane speaks to us from over a hundred years ago and shows that one oasis in an industrial jungle can make a huge impact. We have to wonder how much better things could be if every community had a Hull House.

A fascinating read that also delves into the problems social workers face overcoming cultural differences, the difficulty trying to motivate people to stand up on their own hind feet and fight and to carry on, and to influence politicians to enact laws to protect workers while the politicians jobs depend on keeping the factory owners happy who have a vested interest in maintaing the status quo.

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Jun 07, 2011 Suzy rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Elise, Meagan, Teri

Recommended to Suzy by: Nick

Reading about the creation and evolution of one of America's greatest "settlements" was very interesting on several different levels. Being in a similar line of work, I was intrigued to note how many differences and similarities there are between serving the poor, mostly immigrant, class one hundred years ago and now. Many of their problems then are their problems now, but one big difference is that it was the likes of Jane Addams who worked hard and took great personal risks to persuade governm...more

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Jul 27, 2009 Cheryl rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The book is not light reading, but is not a difficult read, either. I found the material extremely informative and enlightening, especially since I have spent more than 20 years as a State PTA leader. The events of this book overlap and deal with many of the same issues as why the National PTA was founded...child labor issues, poor public education, the importance of the arts, an understanding of other cultures, etc. Jane Addams has long been one of my socio-political heroines. She put into acti...more The book is not light reading, but is not a difficult read, either. I found the material extremely informative and enlightening, especially since I have spent more than 20 years as a State PTA leader. The events of this book overlap and deal with many of the same issues as why the National PTA was founded...child labor issues, poor public education, the importance of the arts, an understanding of other cultures, etc. Jane Addams has long been one of my socio-political heroines. She put into action her concerns with society...making her a true hero in my estimation!

One intersting thing about the book is to see how much things stay the same the more that we change. Does this situation sound at all vaguely familiar?...The situation is that President McKinley has been assassinated by a foreigner with anarchical leanings. A newspaper man of foreign origins in Chicago had been writing a lot of pieces that were antagonistic to the way government was running and had some anarchist leanings. He, along with many other foreigners were arrested immediately following the assassination. Here is Jane Addams description of the situation:
'Perhaps it was but my hysterical symptom of the universal excitement, but it certainly seemed to me more than I could bear when a group of individualistic friends, who had come to ask for help, said: "You see what comes of your boasted law; the authorities won't even allow an attorney, nor will they accept bail for these men, against whom nothing can be proved, although the veriest criminals are not denied such a right." Challenged by an anarchist, one is always sensitive for the honor of legally constituted society, and I replied that of course then men could have an attorney, that the assassin himself would eventually be furnished with one, that the fact that a man was an anarchist had nothing to do with his rights before the law! I was met with the retort that that might do for a theory, but that the fact still remained that these men had been absolutely isolated, seeing no one but policemen, who constantly frightened them with tales of public clamor and threatened lynching.'
(Addams, Jane. Twenty Years at Hull-House. 1910. New York: Penguin Books Ltd. 279-280.)

It is a sad statement about a government who upholds the Constitution of the United States with its Bill of Rights as the greatest, most imspired document for governing a people (and I firmly believe that it is), and yet fundamental civil liberties can be so disregarded by those in power in out nation. What a shame!(less)

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Jul 23, 2008 Erin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: work-related, activism-and-social-justice, feminism-and-gender-roles-and-diffe, non-fiction, books-i-own, history-and-politics, good-reading-at-work, sociology-and-social-phenomenon, memoir-auto-biography-biography

This tiny little book took me months to get through and I could not usually read more than 10 or so pages in 1 sitting. But, it was very worth trudging through. It is dense, but it is so historically packed with info on the history of social services, labor movements, women's rights, immigration, poverty, democracy, grassroots organizing, and Chicago and the mid-west. The "settlement movement" as it is referred to in the book, encompasses the many social services that exist today, but highlights...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Juliet rated it 5 of 5 stars

A chronicle of the first twenty years at Hull-House through Jane Addams' words and experience, this book is a remarkable record of an imperfectly beautiful social movement. Told humbly but with much detail and feeling, the text was a bit challenging and dry at first but once I warmed to it, I couldn't put it down. More to ponder, especially in comparison to our lives today and how far, or not, we've grown.

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Mar 15, 2012 Stephen rated it 2 of 5 stars

I truly believe that I should be given some sort of prize for reading this book. It was an incredible bore and many times I found myself half way down the page when, to my chagrin, I would realize I'd been thinking about what I'd make for dinner and I'd have to start all over again at the top. Other times I just plunged ahead. There were a few amusing bits such as when Miss Addams gloats over her achievement of getting Chicago drug stores to stop selling cocaine to children.

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Nov 02, 2009 Patty rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-for-class

Beautifully written and thematically dense. The scene in which Addams describes the impoverished people of London bidding on rotten vegetables, their pale hands clutching at food that should rightly have been on a trash heap, will stay with me for a very long time.

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Nov 06, 2010 Lexish rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have always been interested in the settlement house movement and wrote a paper on it in high school. I believe I read this book back then, but couldn't remember it. Unless one is interested in settlement houses I'm not sure how much attention it would capture, but I enjoyed reading it again.

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Apr 08, 2009 Kathleen Collins rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was assigned for class, but so intersting from a historical viewpoint. There is a whole section that I read about the state of Chicago in the late 1800's that is completely applicable today.

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Feb 27, 2012 Peter rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is an important book, though often a sluggish read. Addams was a social reformer, after all, but not an artist - her prose is often excessively wordy and awkward, especially when she's describing more abstract topics. But when she writes specific anecdotes about Hull-House residents and associates, the passages are wonderfully vivid and moving. And her discussions of meeting Tolstoy and, later, fighting against claims that Hull-House promoted anarchy (as damning then as an accusation of Com...more

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Dec 31, 2012 Bree rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is a great testament of America during a great transition of when we, as a people were defining who and what makes an American. Good read and great insights!!!

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Nov 21, 2010 Heather rated it 4 of 5 stars

really good historical memoir about the founding of hull house settlement in chicago. jane addams is an amazing women.
all social workers should read this book.

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Aug 02, 2011 Kristin added it · review of another edition

I didn't enjoy reading this book, I thought it was boring and hard to read. Some part of the book was interesting but I didn't enjoy it.

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Dec 02, 2012 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jane Addams did amazing work for the poor of Chicago. It was interesting to read her thoughts on her own work.

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Mar 11, 2010 Charlotte marked it as to-read

Shelves: chicago-history

New York Public Library listed this as one of the best "protest and progress" books of the century.

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Sep 14, 2012 Kathryn Reagan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: required

I love Jane Addams, but her writing is dull.

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Nov 24, 2011 Lisa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: immigrant, nonfiction, queer, literary-memoir

Jane Addams is one of my heroes!

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Jul 25, 2012 Amyem added it · review of another edition

Shelves: bookcrossing, 60-book-challenge-2012

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/1...

I enjoyed the opening chapters a bit more than the vast bulk of it but that was mostly due to being woefully ignorant of the Settlement movement and also little description given of it; perhaps assuming that the reader would already know. However, the deeper I got into it, the more I began to understand and really marvel at what was created at Hull House. Though it felt somewhat incomplete, it was still totally fascinating.

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Oct 28, 2012 Deb Kochman rated it 4 of 5 stars

Addams autobiography, Twenty Years at Hull House, traces her life from schoolgirl to academic to influential Chicagoan to international feminist speaker. It recounts the inspiration behind Hull House, its founding years, its successes as well as its tragedies and portrays the life work of Jane Addams, a woman “sickened by advantages,” who sought to use education as a force for social change.

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Jun 11, 2009 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed it, but it would probably be dull to those who don't want to do inner city social work.

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Oct 22, 2008 Starbubbles rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: progressive-era, history

This book discusses the motivations leading Jane Addams toward social reform and settlement housing. Jane Addams describes the projects of Hull House in the first 20 years of its existance as well as the people who came to help and those it helped. It's a very interesting book which is a must read for anyone who is interested in social reform.

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About Jane Addams

Jane Addams was born in Cedarville, Illinois. Her mother died when she was two, and she was raised by her father and, later, a stepmother. She graduated from Rockford Female Seminary in 1881, among the first students to take a course of study equivalent to that of men at other institutions. Her father, whom she admired tremendously, died that same year, 1881.

Jane Addams attended Woman's Medical Co...more Jane Addams was born in Cedarville, Illinois. Her mother died when she was two, and she was raised by her father and, later, a stepmother. She graduated from Rockford Female Seminary in 1881, among the first students to take a course of study equivalent to that of men at other institutions. Her father, whom she admired tremendously, died that same year, 1881.

Jane Addams attended Woman's Medical College in Pennsylvania, but she left the college, probably due to her ill health and her chronic back pain. Jane Addams toured Europe 1883-5 and then lived in Baltimore 1885-7, but did not figure out what she wanted to do with her education and her skills.

In 1888, on a visit to England with her Rockford classmate Ellen Gates Starr, Jane Addams visited Toynbee Settlement Hall and London's East End. Jane Addams and Ellen Starr planned to start an American equivalent of that settlement house. After their return they chose Hull mansion, a building which had, though originally built at the edge of the city, become surrounded by an immigrant neighborhood and had been used as a warehouse.

Using an experimental model of reform -- trying solutions to see what would work -- and committed to full- and part-time residents to keep in touch with the neighborhood's real needs, Jane Addams built Hull-House into an institution known worldwide. Addams wrote articles, lectured widely and did most of the fund-raising personally and served on many social work, social welfare and settlement house boards and commissions.

Jane Addams also became involved in wider efforts for social reform, including housing and sanitation issues, factory inspection, rights of immigrants, women and children, pacifism and the 8-hour day. She served as a Vice President of the National Woman Suffrage Association from 1911-1914.

In 1912, Jane Addams campaigned for the Progressive Party and its presidential candidate, Teddy Roosevelt. She worked with the Peace Party, helped found and served as president (1919-1935) of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

In 1931 Jane Addams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, shared with Nicholas Murray Butler, but her health was too fragile to attend the European ceremonies to accept the prize. She was the second woman to be awarded that honor.

By Jone Johnson Lewis, About.com
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More about Jane Addams...

Books by Jane Addams

The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets (1912)

Extraordinary Women: Jane Adams: Twenty Years at Hull House

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“In the unceasing ebb and flow of justice and oppression we must all dig channels as best we may, that at the propitious moment somewhat of the swelling tide may be conducted to the barren places of life.” — 10 people liked it

“Perhaps nothing is so fraught with significance as the human hand, this oldest tool with which man has dug his way from savagery, and with which he is constantly groping forward.” — 1 person liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/132936.Twenty_Years_at_Hull_House?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348269052l/132936.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/132936.Twenty_Years_at_Hull_House?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Twenty Years at Hull House by Jane Addams[/url]

Twenty Years at Hull House

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