Biography: Jane Addams
Addams was born to a well-off and locally
prominent family in Cedarville, Illinois. She completed college
and went on to study medicine when ill-health caused her to leave
school. During the 1880 she traveled with Ellen Gates Starr, a
former classmate at the Rockford Female Seminary with whom she was
said to have had a romantic friendship. In England, the pair
discovered settlement houses, houses found in city slums occupied
by social workers who provided services to the local community.
Back in the United States in 1889, Addams and
Starr founded Hull House in Chicago. By 1900, Hull House
flourished as a popular center of political, educational and
social activity. Due to the success of Hull House Addams became
well-known and a nationwide settlement house movement began.
Addams published books about the effects of
industrialization on immigrants and the working poor as well as
two books that chronicled Hull House. A pacifist in the tradition
of Leo Tolstoy, she also considered herself an anarchist and
strongly opposed U.S. participation in World War I. She helped
found the American Union Against Militarism, the American Civil
Liberties Union, headed the Woman's Peace Party and published the
controversial book Peace and Bread in Time of War. She
received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.
Addams shared her life for 40 years with Mary
Rozet Smith.
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