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69-666: Jane Addams , the trail's namesake, was born in Stephenson County. The trail's endpoints are Freeport, Illinois and the Illinois- Wisconsin state line, where it becomes the Badger State Trail . The trail passes through Orangeville and is one segment of the 575-mile (925 km) Grand Illinois Trail . This trail or long-distance path-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Illinois -related article

138-546: A "radical pragmatist ", she was arguably the first woman public philosopher in the United States. In the Progressive Era , when even presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson identified themselves as reformers and might be seen as social activists, Addams was one of the most prominent reformers. An advocate for world peace , and recognized as the founder of the social work profession in

207-667: A buffer to the Irish residing to the north and the French Canadians to the northwest." Italians resided within the inner core of the Hull House Neighborhood ... from the river on the east end, on out to the western ends of what came to be known as Little Italy . Greeks and Jews, along with the remnants of other immigrant groups, began their exodus from the neighborhood in the early 20th century. Only Italians continued as an intact and thriving community through

276-511: A changing cultural environment and was learning the skills at Rockford to lead the future settlement movement. Whilst at Rockford, her readings of Thomas Carlyle , John Ruskin , Leo Tolstoy and others became significant influences. After graduating from Rockford in 1881, with a collegiate certificate and membership in Phi Beta Kappa , she still hoped to attend Smith to earn a proper B.A. That summer, her father died unexpectedly from

345-434: A child to function with the other children, considering she had a limp and could not run as well. As a child, she thought she was ugly and later remembered wanting not to embarrass her father, when he was dressed in his Sunday best, by walking down the street with him. Jane Addams adored her father, John H. Addams , when she was a child, as she made clear in the stories in her memoir, Twenty Years at Hull House (1910). He

414-416: A comprehensive program of civic, cultural, recreational, and educational activities and attracted admiring visitors from all over the world, including William Lyon Mackenzie King , a graduate student from Harvard University who later became prime minister of Canada. In the 1890s Julia Lathrop , Florence Kelley , and other residents of the house made it a world center of social reform activity. Hull House used

483-472: A few of these women, including Mary Rozet Smith and Ellen Starr . Her relationships offered her the time and energy to pursue her social work while being supported emotionally and romantically. From her exclusively romantic relationships with women, she would most likely be described as a lesbian in contemporary terms, similar to many leading figures in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom of

552-497: A first wave of U.S. women to receive a college education. She excelled in this all women environment. She edited the college newspaper, was the valedictorian, participated in the debate club and led the class of 1881. Addams recognized that she and others who were engaged in post secondary education would have new opportunities and challenges. She expressed this in Bread Givers (1880), a speech she gave her junior year. She noted

621-513: A groundbreaking 1916 film of the same name . Addams and her colleagues originally intended Hull House as a transmission device to bring the values of the college-educated high culture to the masses, including the Efficiency Movement , a major movement in industrial nations in the early 20th century that sought to identify and eliminate waste in the economy and society, and to develop and implement best practices. However, over time,

690-448: A house. Historian Lilian Faderman wrote that Jane was in love and she addressed Mary as "My Ever Dear", "Darling" and "Dearest One", and concluded that they shared the intimacy of a married couple. They remained together until 1934, when Mary died of pneumonia, after 40 years together. It was said that, "Mary Smith became and always remained the highest and clearest note in the music that was Jane Addams' personal life". Together they owned

759-413: A lunchroom. Her adult night school was a forerunner of the continuing education classes offered by many universities today. In addition to making available social services and cultural events for the largely immigrant population of the neighborhood, Hull House afforded an opportunity for young social workers to acquire training. Eventually, Hull House became a 13-building settlement complex, which included

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828-547: A playground and a summer camp (known as Bowen Country Club ). One aspect of the Hull House that was very important to Jane Addams was the Art Program. The art program at Hull House allowed Addams to challenge the system of industrialized education, which "fitted" the individual to a specific job or position. She wanted the house to provide a space, time and tools to encourage people to think independently. She saw art as

897-485: A pragmatic center for living in and establishing good relations with the neighborhood. Among the aims of Hull House was to give privileged, educated young people contact with the real life of the majority of the population. Residents of Hull House conducted investigations on housing, midwifery , fatigue, tuberculosis, typhoid , garbage collection, cocaine, and truancy . The core Hull House residents were well-educated women bound together by their commitment to labour unions,

966-525: A sudden case of appendicitis . Each child inherited roughly $ 50,000 (equivalent to $ 1.58 million in 2016). That fall, Addams, her sister Alice, Alice's husband Harry, and their stepmother, Anna Haldeman Addams, moved to Philadelphia so that the three young people could pursue medical educations. Harry was already trained in medicine and did further studies at the University of Pennsylvania . Jane and Alice completed their first year of medical school at

1035-542: A summer house in Bar Harbor, Maine . When apart, they would write to each other at least once a day – sometimes twice. Addams would write to Smith, "I miss you dreadfully and am yours 'til death". The letters also show that the women saw themselves as a married couple: "There is reason in the habit of married folks keeping together", Addams wrote to Smith. Addams's religious beliefs were shaped by her wide reading and life experience. She saw her settlement work as part of

1104-602: A two-year tour of Europe with her stepmother, traveling some of the time with friends and family who joined them. Addams decided that she did not have to become a doctor to be able to help the poor. Upon her return home in June 1887, she lived with her stepmother in Cedarville and spent winters with her in Baltimore. Addams, still filled with vague ambition, sank into depression, unsure of her future and feeling useless leading

1173-665: A woman to marry and devote her life to family. In the summer of 1887, Addams read in a magazine about the new idea of starting a settlement house . She decided to visit the world's first, Toynbee Hall , in London . She and several friends, including Ellen Gates Starr , traveled in Europe from December 1887 through the summer of 1888. After watching a bullfight in Madrid , fascinated by what she saw as an exotic tradition, Addams condemned this fascination and her inability to feel outraged at

1242-519: A wool factory. He was the president of The Second National Bank of Freeport, Illinois . He remarried in 1868 when Addams was eight years old. His second wife was Anna Hosteler Haldeman, the widow of a miller in Freeport. During her childhood, Addams had big dreams of doing something useful in the world. As a voracious reader, she became interested in the poor from her reading of Charles Dickens . Inspired by his works and by her own mother's kindness to

1311-619: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Jane Addams Laura Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 – May 21, 1935) was an American settlement activist , reformer , social worker, sociologist , public administrator , philosopher, and author. She was a leader in the history of social work and Women's suffrage . In 1889, Addams co-founded Hull House , one of America's most famous settlement houses , in Chicago, Illinois, providing extensive social services to poor, largely immigrant families. Philosophically

1380-539: The Chicago Board of Health and served as the first vice-president of the Playground Association of America. In 1912, Addams published A New Conscience and Ancient Evil , about prostitution. This book was extremely popular. Addams believed that prostitution was a result of kidnapping only. Her book later inspired Stella Wynne Herron 's 1916 short story Shoes , which Lois Weber adapted into

1449-535: The National Consumers League and the suffrage movement . Dr. Harriett Alleyne Rice joined Hull House to provide medical treatment for poor families. Its facilities included a night school for adults, clubs for older children, a public kitchen, an art gallery , a gym , a girls' club, a bathhouse, a book bindery , a music school , a drama group and a theater, apartments, a library, meeting rooms for discussion, clubs, an employment bureau, and

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1518-553: The Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania , but Jane's health problems, a spinal operation and a nervous breakdown prevented her from completing the degree. She was filled with sadness at her failure. Her stepmother Anna was also ill, so the entire family canceled their plans to stay two years and returned to Cedarville. her brother-in-law Harry performed surgery on her back, to straighten it. He then advised that she not pursue studies but, instead, travel. In August 1883, she set off for

1587-562: The Woman's Peace Party and was elected national chairman. Addams was invited by European women peace activists to preside over the International Congress of Women in The Hague, April 28–30, 1915, and was chosen to head the commission to find an end to the war. This included meeting ten leaders in neutral countries as well as those at war to discuss mediation. This was the first significant international effort against

1656-480: The " social Christian " movement. Addams learned about social Christianity from the co-founders of Toynbee Hall , Samuel and Henrietta Barnett. The Barnetts held a great interest in converting others to Christianity, but they believed that Christians should be more engaged with the world and, in the words of one of the leaders of the social Christian movement in England, W. H. Fremantle, "imbue all human relations with

1725-454: The "change which has taken place   ... in the ambition and aspirations of women." In the process of developing their intellect and direct labor, something new was emerging. Educated women of her generation wished "not to be a man nor like a man" but claim "the same right to independent thought and action." Each young woman was gaining "a new confidence in her possibilities, and a fresher hope in her steady progress." At 20, Addams recognized

1794-624: The "garbage wars"; in 1894 she became the first woman appointed as sanitary inspector of Chicago's 19th Ward. With the help of the Hull House Women's Club, within a year over 1,000 health department violations were reported to city council and garbage collection reduced death and disease. Addams had long discussions with philosopher John Dewey in which they redefined democracy in terms of pragmatism and civic activism, with an emphasis more on duty and less on rights. The two leading perspectives that distinguished Addams and her coalition from

1863-684: The Butler Art Gallery or the Bowen Country Club often hosted these classes, but more informal lessons would often be taught outdoors. Addams, with the help of Ellen Gates Starr, founded the Chicago Public School Art Society (CPSAS) in response to the positive reaction the art classes for children caused. The CPSAS provided public schools with reproductions of world-renowned pieces of art, hired artists to teach children how to create art, and also took

1932-549: The Cedarville poor, Addams decided to become a doctor so that she could live and work among the poor. Addams's father encouraged her to pursue higher education but close to home. She was eager to attend the new college for women, Smith College in Massachusetts; but her father required her to attend nearby Rockford Female Seminary (now Rockford University ), in Rockford, Illinois . Her experience at Rockford put her in

2001-662: The Extension Division of the University of Chicago . She declined offers from the university to become directly affiliated with it, including an offer from Albion Small , chair of the Department of Sociology, of a graduate faculty position. She declined in order to maintain her independent role outside of academia. Her goal was to teach adults not enrolled in formal academic institutions, because of their poverty and/or lack of credentials. Furthermore, she wanted no university controls over her political activism. Addams

2070-699: The Great Depression, World War II, and well beyond the ultimate demise of Hull House proper in 1963. Hull House became America's best known settlement house. Addams used it to generate system-directed change, on the principle that to keep families safe, community and societal conditions had to be improved. The neighborhood was controlled by local political bosses. Starr and Addams developed three "ethical principles" for social settlements: "to teach by example, to practice cooperation, and to practice social democracy, that is, egalitarian, or democratic, social relations across class lines." Thus Hull House offered

2139-521: The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, "Some social settlements were linked to religious institutions. Others, like Hull-House [co-founded by Addams], were secular." Hilda Satt Polacheck, a former resident of Hull House, stated that Addams firmly believed in religious freedom and bringing people of all faiths into the social, secular fold of Hull House. The one exception, she notes, was the annual Christmas Party, although Addams left

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2208-526: The Progressive-Era ideology she championed. In A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil (1912) she dissected the social pathology of sex slavery, prostitution and other sexual behaviors among working-class women in American industrial centers from 1890 to 1910. Addams's autobiographical persona manifests her ideology and supports her popularized public activist persona as the "Mother of Social Work", in

2277-673: The U.S. annexation of the Philippines . A staunch supporter of the Progressive Party, she nominated Theodore Roosevelt for the presidency during the Party Convention , held in Chicago in August 1912. She signed up on the party platform, even though it called for building more battleships . She went on to speak and campaign extensively for Roosevelt's 1912 presidential campaign. In January 1915, she became involved in

2346-606: The United States, in 1931 Addams became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize . Earlier, Addams was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from Yale University in 1910, becoming the first woman to receive an honorary degree from the school. In 1920, she was a co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Addams helped America address and focus on issues that were of concern to mothers or extensions of

2415-409: The city bureaucracy to ignore health, sanitation, and building codes. Linking environmental justice and municipal reform, she eventually defeated the bosses and fostered a more equitable distribution of city services and modernized inspection practices. Addams spoke of the "undoubted powers of public recreation to bring together the classes of a community in the keeping them apart." Addams worked with

2484-415: The classes mingling socially to mutual benefit, as they had in early Christian circles seemed embodied in the new type of institution. The settlement house as Addams discovered was a space within which unexpected cultural connections could be made and where the narrow boundaries of culture, class, and education could be expanded. They doubled as community arts centers and social service facilities. They laid

2553-422: The contributors to use the house rent-free. Other contributors were Louise DeKoven Bowen , Mary Rozet Smith , Mary Wilmarth , and others. Addams and Starr were the first two occupants of the house, which would later become the residence of about 25 women. At its height, Hull House was visited each week by some 2,000 people. Hull House was a center for research, empirical analysis, study, and debate, as well as

2622-556: The conventional life expected of a well-to-do young woman. She wrote long letters to her friend from Rockford Seminary, Ellen Gates Starr , mostly about Christianity and books but sometimes about her despair. Her nephew was James Weber Linn (1876–1939) who taught English at the University of Chicago and served in the Illinois General Assembly . Linn also wrote books and newspaper articles. Meanwhile, Addams gathered inspiration from what she read. Fascinated by

2691-508: The domestic-work assigned to women, such as the needs of children, local public health, and world peace. In her essay "Utilization of Women in City Government", Addams noted the connection between the workings of government and the household, stating that many departments of government, such as sanitation and the schooling of children, could be traced back to traditional women's roles in the private sphere. When she died in 1935, Addams

2760-489: The early Christians and Tolstoy's book My Religion , she was baptized a Christian in the Cedarville Presbyterian Church in the summer of 1886. Reading Giuseppe Mazzini 's Duties of Man , she began to be inspired by the idea of democracy as a social ideal. Yet she felt confused about her role as a woman. John Stuart Mill 's The Subjection of Women made her question the social pressures on

2829-542: The first additions to Hull House. On the first floor of the new addition there was a branch of the Chicago Public Library , and the second was the Butler Art Gallery, which featured recreations of famous artwork as well as the work of local artists. Studio space within the art gallery provided both Hull House residents and the entire community with the opportunity to take art classes or to come in and hone their craft whenever they liked. As Hull House grew, and

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2898-613: The first model tenement code and the first factory laws. Along with her colleagues from Hull House, in 1901 Jane Addams founded what would become the Juvenile Protective Association . JPA provided the first probation officers for the first Juvenile Court in the United States until this became a government function. From 1907 until the 1940s, JPA engaged in many studies examining such subjects as racism, child labor and exploitation, drug abuse and prostitution in Chicago and their effects on child development. Through

2967-469: The focus changed from bringing art and culture to the neighborhood (as evidenced in the construction of the Butler Building) to responding to the needs of the community by providing childcare, educational opportunities, and large meeting spaces. Hull House became more than a proving ground for the new generation of college-educated, professional women: it also became part of the community in which it

3036-438: The foundations for American civil society, a neutral space within which different communities and ideologies could learn from each other and seek common grounds for collective action. The role of the settlement house was an "unending effort to make culture and 'the issue of things' go together." The unending effort was the story of her own life, a struggle to reinvigorate her own culture by reconnecting with diversity and conflict of

3105-467: The immigrant communities in America's cities and with the necessities of social reform. In 1889 Addams and her college friend and paramour Ellen Gates Starr co-founded Hull House , a settlement house in Chicago. The run-down mansion had been built by Charles Hull in 1856 and needed repairs and upgrading. Addams at first paid for all of the capital expenses (repairing the roof of the porch, repainting

3174-474: The key to unlocking the diversity of the city through collective interaction, mutual self-discovery, recreation and the imagination. Art was integral to her vision of community, disrupting fixed ideas and stimulating the diversity and interaction on which a healthy society depends, based on a continual rewriting of cultural identities through variation and interculturalism . With funding from Edward Butler, Addams opened an art exhibition and studio space as one of

3243-468: The latest methodology (pioneering in statistical mapping) to study overcrowding, truancy, typhoid fever, cocaine, children's reading, newsboys, infant mortality, and midwifery. Starting with efforts to improve the immediate neighborhood, the Hull House group became involved in city and statewide campaigns for better housing, improvements in public welfare, stricter child-labor laws, and protection of working women. Addams brought in prominent visitors from around

3312-658: The lead. No 'managing', no keeping dark and bringing things subtly to pass, just a radiating wisdom and power of judgement. Addams was elected president of the International Committee of Women for a Permanent Peace, established to continue the work of the Hague Congress, at a conference in 1919 in Zürich , Switzerland. The International Committee developed into the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Addams continued as president,

3381-689: The modernizers more concerned with efficiency were the need to extend to social and economic life the democratic structures and practices that had been limited to the political sphere, as in Addams's programmatic support of trade unions and second, their call for a new social ethic to supplant the individualist outlook as being no longer adequate in modern society. Addams's construction of womanhood involved daughterhood, sexuality, wifehood, and motherhood. In both of her autobiographical volumes, Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910) and The Second Twenty Years at Hull-House (1930), Addams's gender constructions parallel

3450-452: The relationship with the neighborhood deepened, that opportunity became less of a comfort to the poor and more of an outlet of expression and exchange of different cultures and diverse communities. Art and culture was becoming a bigger and more important part of the lives of immigrants within the 19th ward, and soon children caught on to the trend. These working-class children were offered instruction in all forms and levels of art. Places such as

3519-539: The religious side to the church. The Bible served Addams as both a source of inspiration for her life of service and a manual for pursuing her calling. The emphasis on following Jesus' example and actively advancing the establishment of God's Kingdom on earth is also evident in Addams's work and the Social Gospel movement. In 1898, Addams joined the Anti-Imperialist League , in opposition to

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3588-523: The rooms, buying furniture) and most of the operating costs. However gifts from individuals supported the House beginning in its first year and Addams was able to reduce the proportion of her contributions, although the annual budget grew rapidly. Some wealthy women became long-term donors to the House, including Helen Culver , who managed her first cousin Charles Hull's estate, and who eventually allowed

3657-459: The sense that she represents herself as a celibate matron who served the suffering immigrant masses through Hull House, as if they were her own children. Although not a mother herself, Addams became the "mother to the nation", identified with motherhood in the sense of protective care of her people. Addams kept up her heavy schedule of public lectures around the country, especially at college campuses. In addition, she offered college courses through

3726-586: The source of women's power. This notion provided the foundation for the municipal or civil housekeeping role that Addams defined and gave added weight to the women's suffrage movement that Addams supported. Addams argued that women, as opposed to men, were trained in the delicate matters of human welfare and needed to build upon their traditional roles of housekeeping to be civic housekeepers. Enlarged housekeeping duties involved reform efforts regarding poisonous sewage, impure milk (which often carried tuberculosis), smoke-laden air, and unsafe factory conditions. Addams led

3795-495: The spirit of Christ's self-renouncing love". According to Christie and Gauvreau (2001), while the Christian settlement houses sought to Christianize, Jane Addams "had come to epitomize the force of secular humanism." Her image was, however, "reinvented" by the Christian churches. According to Joslin (2004), "The new humanism, as [Addams] interprets it comes from a secular, and not a religious, pattern of belief". According to

3864-408: The spirit of youth. Hull House featured multiple programs in art and drama, kindergarten classes, boys' and girls' clubs, language classes, reading groups, college extension courses, along with public baths, a gymnasium, a labor museum and playground, all within a free-speech atmosphere. They were all designed to foster democratic cooperation, collective action and downplay individualism. She helped pass

3933-667: The students on field trips to Chicago's many art museums. The Hull House neighborhood was a mix of European ethnic groups that had immigrated to Chicago around the start of the 20th century. That mix was the ground where Hull House's inner social and philanthropic elitists tested their theories and challenged the establishment. The ethnic mix is recorded by the Bethlehem-Howard Neighborhood Center: "Germans and Jews resided south of that inner core (south of Twelfth Street) ... The Greek delta formed by Harrison, Halsted Street , and Blue Island Streets served as

4002-412: The suffering of the horses and bulls. At first, Addams told no one about her dream to start a settlement house; but, she felt increasingly guilty for not acting on her dream. Believing that sharing her dream might help her to act on it, she told Ellen Gates Starr. Starr loved the idea and agreed to join Addams in starting a settlement house. Addams and another friend traveled to London without Starr, who

4071-418: The time. Her first romantic partner was Ellen Starr , with whom she founded Hull House, who she met when both were students at Rockford Female Seminary. In 1889, the two visited Toynbee Hall together and started their settlement house project, purchasing a house in Chicago. Her second romantic partner was Mary Rozet Smith , who was wealthy and supported Addams's work at Hull House, and with whom she shared

4140-440: The war. Addams, along with co-delegates Emily Balch and Alice Hamilton , documented their experiences of this venture, published as a book, Women at The Hague ( University of Illinois ). In her journal, Balch recorded her impression of Jane Addams (April 1915): Miss Addams shines, so respectful of everyone's views, so eager to understand and sympathize, so patient of anarchy and even ego, yet always there, strong, wise and in

4209-450: The world and had close links with leading Chicago intellectuals and philanthropists. In 1912, she helped start the new Progressive Party and supported the presidential campaign of Theodore Roosevelt . "Addams' philosophy combined feminist sensibilities with an unwavering commitment to social improvement through cooperative efforts. Although she sympathized with feminists, socialists, and pacifists, Addams refused to be labeled. This refusal

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4278-435: The years, their mission has now become improving the social and emotional well-being and functioning of vulnerable children so they can reach their fullest potential at home, in school, and in their communities. Addams and her colleagues documented the communal geography of typhoid fever and reported that poor workers were bearing the brunt of the illness. She identified the political corruption and business avarice that caused

4347-504: Was a founding member of the Illinois Republican Party , served as an Illinois State Senator (1855–70), and supported his friend Abraham Lincoln in his candidacies for senator (1854) and the presidency (1860). He kept a letter from Lincoln in his desk, and Addams loved to look at it as a child. Her father was an agricultural businessman with large timber, cattle, and agricultural holdings; flour and timber mills and

4416-571: Was appointed to serve on the Chicago Board of Education . Addams was a charter member of the American Sociological Society , founded in 1905. She gave papers to it in 1912, 1915, and 1919. She was the most prominent woman member during her lifetime. Generally, Addams was close to a wide set of other women and was very good at eliciting their involvement from different classes in Hull House's programs. Nevertheless, throughout her life Addams did have romantic relationships with

4485-431: Was busy. Visiting Toynbee Hall, Addams was enchanted. She described it as "a community of University men who live there, have their recreation clubs and society all among the poor people, yet, in the same style in which they would live in their own circle. It is so free of 'professional doing good,' so unaffectedly sincere and so productive of good results in its classes and libraries seems perfectly ideal." Addams's dream of

4554-431: Was cared for mostly by her older sisters. By the time Addams was eight, four of her siblings had died: three in infancy and one at the age of 16. Addams spent her childhood playing outdoors, reading indoors, and attending Sunday school . When she was four she contracted tuberculosis of the spine, known as Potts's disease , which caused a curvature in her spine and lifelong health problems. This made it complicated as

4623-498: Was founded, and its development reveals a shared history. Addams called on women, especially middle-class women with leisure time and energy as well as rich philanthropists, to exercise their civic duty to become involved in municipal affairs as a matter of "civic housekeeping". Addams thereby enlarged the concept of civic duty to include roles for women beyond motherhood (which involved child rearing). Women's lives revolved around "responsibility, care, and obligation", which represented

4692-600: Was pragmatic rather than ideological." Hull House stressed the importance of the role of children in the Americanization process of new immigrants. This philosophy also fostered the play movement and the research and service fields of leisure, youth, and human services. Addams argued in The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets (1909) that play and recreation programs are needed because cities are destroying

4761-465: Was the best-known female public figure in the United States. Born in Cedarville, Illinois , Jane Addams was the youngest of eight children born into a prosperous northern Illinois family of English-American descent which traced back to colonial Pennsylvania. In 1863, when Addams was two years old, her mother, Sarah Addams ( née Weber), died while pregnant with her ninth child. Thereafter Addams

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