Jane Addams: Pioneer of social reform and peace activism

Jane Addams

An Agent for Meaningful Social Change, Yesterday and Today

The variation of the established type is at the root of all change."

Jane Addams (Spirit of Youth 8)

Jane Addams was a pioneer in social work, an active opponent of war, and a driver of reforms in politics and education during the last quarter of the nineteenth and first quarter of the twentieth centuries. Yet, today, many of the social problems she fought so fiercely to overcome, still exist. Revisiting Jane Addams' personal background, ideals, writings, and achievements furnishes insight into why her activism might be of value at the start of the twenty-first century in dealing with some of today's most serious societal ills.

Personal Background review of key events in and circumstances of Jane Addams' life helps to understand her beliefs and accomplishments. Laura Jane Addams was born on September 6, 1960, in Cedarville, Illinois (Elshtain Dream of American Democracy xiii). She was the eighth child of a successful businessman. When her mother died before Jane was three years of age, her father, a very principled man, became the major influence in her life (Neumann xii).

In Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy: A Life, Elshtain furnishes a detailed chronology of Addams' life. In 1877, Addams enrolled in the Rockford Seminary, graduating in 1881. Her father died in the same year, and she enrolled in the Woman's Medical College in Philadelphia. She experienced a breakdown in her physical health during the next year, forcing her to spend some time as an invalid. Between 1883 and 1885, Addams toured England and the European Continent. She made a second trip to Europe in 1887 and 1888. In 1889, Addams opened Hull House, a settlement house for immigrants in one of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods. In 1895, she was selected to be the garbage inspector for one of Chicago's political wards. In 1896, she visited England and Russia, where she met Tolstoy, a Russian novelist. In 1898, Adams opposed the acquisition of the Philippine Islands by the United States and in 1901 she defended Abraham Isaak, who was an anarchist accused of assassinating President McKinley. She served on the Chicago School Board from 1905 to 1909, served as a delegate to the first National Peace Congress in 1907, and served as a delegate to the national convention of the Progressive Party. In 1915, Addams attended the First Congress of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in The Hague then, in 1919, presided over the Second Congress of the organization. She attended four more of the organization's congresses from 1921 to 1929, even after suffering a heart attack in 1926. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1930. Addams died on May 21, 1935, of cancer and was buried in her town of birth, Cedarville, Illinois.

In Jane Addams: A Centennial Reader, Neumann provides additional detail about factors in Addams' early life that may have influenced her later social and political activism. Neumann writes that her father was active in politics, having served eight terms in the Senate for the State of Illinois. Addams majored in classical studies at Rockford Seminary and, while enrolled at that institution, she became interested in biology. Her serious illness which confined her during the winter of 1881 involved a spinal defect complicated by the psychological impact of the death of her father. It was on the advice of doctors that Addams traveled to Europe where Neumann describes her as being "restless." But it was during her second trip to Europe in 1887 and 1888 that Addams seemed to find a purpose in working for the benefit of the poor. In London, she visited Toynbee Hall, a settlement house located in an East End slum in which university students worked with the poor to improve the quality of their lives. In Against the Tide: Women Reformers in American Society, Cimbala and Miller describe the philosophy underlying Toynbee Hall; that is, the founders believed that middle and upper class university students had an obligation to become involved in the lives of the less fortunate and that the poor deserved a better quality of life. Addams' conception of Hull House evolved from her experiences at Toynbee Hall.

Cimbala and Miller, in Against the Tide: Women Reformers in American Society, emphasize the influence that Jane Addams' father and mother had on her life. Her mother, although only alive for the first several years of Addams' life, exhibited kindness and generosity toward the poor thereby serving as a role model. Addams' father, according to these authors was "a wealthy landowner, miller, banker, investor and state legislator," a man possessing "moral rectitude and civic-mindedness" (86). Upon his death, he left Addams' with a substantial inheritance accompanied by an intense desire to change the world for the better, although her desire was tempered by a perception of expectations of her that constrained her from taking action. Her studies of Tolstoy, Marx, Emerson, and others helped to formulate her commitment to work for the benefit of the poor and suffering.

Jane Addams was an enigma. She opposed the entry of the United States into World War I, but she also opposed the peace treaty signed at Versailles because she thought that it laid the foundation for conflict in the future. In "Jane Addams and the Social Claim," Elshtain attributes Addams' "fall from grace" to her opposition to the war. Her feelings about the government, including sanctioned public hysteria and assaults on immigrants, reduced her trust in the state as a tool for benefiting society yet, according to Elshtain, she admired President Hoover and worked with him in providing food for people in a devastated Europe after the war.

Stillman, in Creating the American State: The Moral Reformers and the Modern Administrative World They Made, provides additional insight into Jane Addams' feelings about her father and herself. Demonstrating her respect and love for her father, Addams' wrote in Twenty Years at Hull-House that he was "the cord which not only held fast my supreme affection, but also drew me into the moral concerns of life" (qtd. In Stillman 83). Her especially intense efforts to identify with her father resulted in her feelings of personal inferiority when she compared herself with him. Due to her own physical problems, including being pigeon-toed and having a curved back which produced an abnormal walk, she felt intense shame when she was in public with her father. Stillman lists other health problems which only exacerbated Addams' negative self-image. These included possible spinal tuberculosis, which resulted in high levels of pain and obesity; sciatica rheumatism, pleuropneumonia, tuberculosis of the kidney; diabetes; breast cancer; heart disease; an ovarian cyst; and, ovarian cancer, which ultimately caused her death. Complicating her health problems, Addams had to deal with very difficult family relationships during her life.

Writings

Jane Addams was a prolific writer. Elshtain, in Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy: A Life, provides a list of books written by Jane Addams, including Democracy and Social Ethics (1902); Newer Ideals of Peace (1907); The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets (1909); Twenty Years at Hull House (1910); A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil (1912); Women at the Hague: The International Congress of Women and Its Results (1915), which was co-authored with two other women; The Long Road of Women's Memory (1916); Peace and Bread in Time of War (1922); The Second Twenty Years at Hull House: September 1909 to September 1929 with a Record of Growing Consciousness (1930); The Excellent Becomes the Permanent (1932); My Friend, Julia Lathrop (1935); and Forty Years at Hull House (1935). Elshtain reports that, in addition to Addams' long list of published books, she also wrote more than 500 essays, editorials, columns in periodicals, and speeches.

Achievements

The breadth of Jane Addams' achievements was explored in describing her personal background, ideals, and writings. Perhaps the list of "Hull House firsts" furnished by Elshtain in Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy: A Life (xix) provides the greatest insight into the depth and impact of her work. These "firsts" include the first social settlement, the first public baths, the first public playground, the first public gymnasium, the first public swimming pool, the first little theater in the United States, the first classes for preparing for citizenship in the United States, the first public kitchen, the first college extension courses, the first group work school, the first loan program for paintings and free art exhibits, the first fresh-air school, and the first Boy Scout troop. She also initiated the first exploratory investigations into wide ranging issues involving truancy, typhoid fever, cocaine, children's reading, newsboys, sanitation, tuberculosis, midwifery, infant mortality, and the social value of the saloon. She initiated investigations which later produced the first model for a tenement code and provided support for establishment of several labor unions. Except where noted, the foregoing achievements were firsts for the city of Chicago.

Jane Addams' legacy has been sullied by several factors including, as stated earlier, her opposition to the entry of the United States into World War I. According to Elshtain, in "Jane Addams and the Social Claim," the government's New Deal welfare programs replaced Addams' settlement house concept. Settlement houses that were left were changed significantly. In Creating the American State: The Moral Reformers and the Modern Administrative World They Made, Stillman provides additional insight into the fate of settlement houses. He writes that from the 1930s to the 1960s, the country established federal social insurance programs that were usually under-funded, were diminished in relative importance as they were subordinated to other programs, were administered in a poor fashion, and did not exhibit comprehensive approaches for challenges posed by family issues. Elshtain, again in "Jane Addams and the Social Claim," writes that Addams' anti-war, pacifist views were considered to be naive as the United States was in conflict with Nazi and Soviet tyrannies. Her desire to help immigrants was attacked by people who harbored hostilities against those from other lands. And some criticized her for her efforts to "homogenize" cultures rather than demonstrating respect for multiculturalism.

Conclusion

In the introductory comments, Jane Addams was described as a pioneer in social work, an active opponent of war, and a driver of reforms in politics and education during the last quarter of the nineteenth and first quarter of the twentieth centuries, and the comment was made that many of the social problems she fought so fiercely to overcome still exist today. Societal challenges in the United States at the start of the twenty-first century are not all that different from those Addams confronted a century ago: increasing numbers of families falling into poverty, declining morality, increasing militarism by the United States such as that being exhibited in Iraq and Afghanistan, and increasingly negative views of immigrants. Perhaps a return to and revitalization of Jane Addams' ideals would be of value in achieving positive social change today.