The Life of Jane Addams

Jane Addams, a pioneering social worker, helped bring attention to the possibility of revolutionizing America's attitude toward the poor. Not only does she remain a rich source of provocative social theory to this day, her accomplishments affected the philosophical, sociological, and political thought. Addams was an activist of courage and a thinker of originality. Jane Addams embodied the purest moral standards of society which were best demonstrated by her founding of the Hull-House and her societal contributions, culminating with the winning of the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize.

Jane Addams was born on September 6, 1860, the eighth child of a prominent family in the small town of Cedarville, Illinois. Of the nine children born to her parents, John and Sarah Addams, only four would reach maturity. Pregnant with her ninth child at the age of forty-nine, Sarah Addams died in 1863, leaving two-year-old Jane, ten-year-old James Weber and three older daughters--Mary, Martha, and Alice.

Five years after Sarah's death, John Addams married Anna Haldeman, a widow from nearby Freeport who had two sons, eighteen-year-old Henry and seven-year-old George. Jane welcomed the arrival of George, who was almost the same age as she, but she resented her new stepmother at first. The little girl was used to being pampered by her older siblings and the family servants, and she was taken aback by Anna Addams's unfamiliar habits. The new Mrs. Addams was determined to enforce order in the somewhat unruly household, and she had a quick temper. When she arrived in her new home, she began at once to reorganize it, insisting on formal mealtime behavior, scrupulously orderly rooms, and strict discipline among the children.

Anna Addams was, however, intelligent, cultivated, and basically kind. An avid reader and a talented musician, she often entertained the youngsters by reading plays and novels aloud to them, playing the guitar, and singing folk songs. The children soon became accustomed to her ways, and after a few months she won the hearts of both Jane and her siblings. Although Jane grew found of "Ma," as she began to call her stepmother, she continued to look to her father and sister Martha for advice and approval. When Martha suddenly died of typhoid fever at the age of sixteen, five-year-old Jane became more dependent than ever on her adored father.

At the age of sixteen, Addams was an attractive young woman. College was an exception rather than a rule for women in the 1870s, but John Addams approved of higher education for women, and Jane wanted to go. In 1877, seventeen years old, Jane boarded a train at Cedarville station, and set off for Rockford Seminary, a "female college" in Rockford, Illinois. Like the twenty-two other women in her freshman class, Addams felt singled out for special opportunity, and she was determined to make the most of it. A few years later, after organizing a chess club, a debating society, an amateur theatrical group and editing/writing for the Rockford Seminary Magazine, Jane graduated and returned home to Cedarville. Jane Addams intended to carry out her plan of attending the Women's Medical College in the fall of 1881 largely because she had to her father she would. Jane soon realized that medical school was not for her as she found she was incapable of concentrating on her classes, an "utter failure" and "unable to work at the best of myself." In February of 1882, she dropped out and entered a hospital, suffering from severe back pain as well as depression. That April, Jane underwent an operation to straighten her spine caused by an earlier childhood diagnosis, tuberculosis of the spine.

As part of young Jane's rejuvenation, her stepmother and a few other women took her on a trek through Europe, proving to be excellent therapy. Addams's European tour improved her health and expanded her cultural horizons. Even more important, however, was what it showed her about a side of life she had never known. A few months after the American women had crossed the Atlantic, she and her companions found themselves in London. There, Jane recalls she "received an ineradicable impression" of the "wretchedness" of the poor. Escorted by a tour guide to the slums of east London, the group saw crowds of poor residents bidding on spoiled vegetables discarded by the city grocers. Addam's strongest impression, she said, was of hands, "myriads of hands, empty, pathetic, nerveless and workworn, showing white in uncertain light of the street, and clutching forward for food which was already unfit to eat."

After her visit to the East End, Addams "went about London furtively, afraid to look down narrow streets and alleys lest they disclose again this hideous human need, bewildered that the world should be going on as usual." Her world, she realized, did not expect her to even remember these people's misery, much less do anything about it. Well-off and free to do as she chose, Addams nevertheless felt trapped. She knew she wanted to help people, but how? The more she saw Europe's cultural riches and the squalor of its slums, factories, and mines, the less she was able to see a clear path toward serving humanity. After almost two years of travel, she returned spiritually more confused than when she had left it.

Still perplexed about her role in life, Jane Addams returned to the United States in 1885, spending her next two years in Baltimore. She wrote a few essays about her trip for the Rockford Seminary Magazine, studied the art books from Europe, went to concerts, lectures, and parties, and reread journals she had kept during her trip. None of these lifted her spirits, so in the winter of 1887, Jane and a few friends including Ellen Starr returned to England. She was in awe of the city's vast cathedrals with carvings and statues illustrating the history of humanity's quest for spiritual enlightenment. Gazing around the magnificent house of worship in Germany, she envisioned a "cathedral of humanity" that would be "capacious enough to house a fellowship of common purpose and beautiful enough to persuade men to hold fast the vision of human solidarity." Jane and company returned to the United States in 1888 where she would begin to turn her ideas into a reality.

In 1889, Addams and Starr moved into a boardinghouse in Chicago where their first task was to round up support for their scheme. Addams intended to use her inheritance to pay most of the expenses, but she hoped to get both moral and financial support from Chicago's religious establishment. She became a member of the Fourth Presbyterian Church, attending Bible lectures and teaching a Sunday-school class. Fourth Presbyterian's congregation included