(1860–1935). Founder of Chicago's Hull House, Jane Addams was a pioneer in the field of social work. She devoted her life to helping the poor and promoting world peace.

Early life

Jane Addams was born into a wealthy family on September 6, 1860, in Cedarville, Illinois. She attended Rockford Female Seminary and received her bachelor's degree in 1882 when the school became Rockford College. While traveling and studying in Europe in the 1880s, she visited Toynbee Hall, a house in a poor London neighborhood where university graduates lived while they taught the local people and helped them in other ways. Toynbee Hall was the world's first social settlement. Addams resolved to take the idea back home.

Hull House

Using money she had inherited, Jane Addams acquired a rundown mansion on the West Side of Chicago in 1889. She and her friend Ellen Gates Starr named the building after its original owner, Charles Hull. They opened it to a community of recent immigrants who were struggling to make their way in American society.

Among the Hull House workers were many wealthy people and university professors and students. Under Addams' direction, they ran a day care center, a kindergarten, a gymnasium, a community kitchen, and an employment agency. They offered housing for young working women. They sponsored lectures and college-level classes for adults. They taught art, music, and crafts such as bookbinding. Hull House also had a drama program with its own theater and a library. The institution eventually expanded into 13 buildings.

In addition to the help it gave to Chicago's immigrant population, Hull House also offered training for young social workers and was a source of research for social scientists. Addams herself wrote several books, most notably a memoir, Twenty Years at Hull-House, which was published in 1910. Hull House became the country's best-known settlement house and Addams the most honored social worker.

Social concerns

Seeking to extend her influence, Addams supported many reform movements for the benefit of women, children, and the poor. She pushed Chicago politicians to establish the first juvenile court in the world. She campaigned for laws to make sure children were not put to work but got schooling instead. She wanted women to gain the right to vote, partly because she believed women would support laws to benefit poor families.

Quest for peace

Addams believed that the way to resolve disputes was through discussion and compromise rather than violence. She served as president of the International Congress of Women held in Europe in 1915. At the congress she was unsuccessful in an attempt to bring about discussion among the nations fighting World War I (1914–18). Because she wanted the United States to stay out of the conflict, many Americans considered her to be unpatriotic.

After the war, Addams continued to work for peace. She helped found the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in 1919 and served as its president until 1935. Her efforts to end war earned her the Nobel peace prize in 1931 (shared with Nicholas Murray Butler). She was the sixth woman, and the first American women, to win a Nobel prize.

Death

Addams lived at Hull House until her death on May 21, 1935. At the time, the settlement covered an entire city block. Despite worldwide protests, most of the buildings in the Hull House group were demolished in 1963 to make way for the new Chicago campus of the University of Illinois. The original Hull mansion was preserved, however, as a museum honoring Addams and her work.