Hull house jane addams biography for kids pictures

Jane Addams was a peace activist and a leader of the settlement house movement in America. As one of the most distinguished of the first generation of college-educated women, she rejected marriage and motherhood in favor of a lifetime commitment to the poor and social reform. Inspired by English reformers who intentionally resided in lower-class slums, Addams, along with a college friend, Ellen Starr, moved in into an old mansion in an immigrant neighborhood of Chicago.

Jane addams childhood

She was the eighth of nine children and was born with a spinal defect that hampered her early physical growth before it was rectified by surgery. Young Addams graduated as valedictorian of Rockford Female Seminary at age 17 in Addams responded to the needs of the community by establishing a nursery, dispensary, kindergarten, playground, gymnasium and cooperative housing for young working women.

As an experiment in group living, Hull-House attracted male and female reformers dedicated to social service. Having quickly found that the needs of the neighborhood could not be met unless city and state laws were reformed, Addams challenged both boss rule in the immigrant neighborhood of Hull-House and indifference to the needs of the poor in the state legislature.

Addams and other Hull-House residents sponsored legislation to abolish child labor, establish juvenile courts, limit the hours of working women, recognize labor unions, make school attendance compulsory and ensure safe working conditions in factories.

Jane addams quotes

The Progressive party adopted many of these reforms as part of its platform in Addams publicized Hull-House and the causes she believed in by lecturing and writing. In her autobiography, 20 Years at Hull-House , she argued that society should both respect the values and traditions of immigrants and help the newcomers adjust to American institutions.

A new social ethic was needed, she said, to stem social conflict and address the problems of urban life and industrial capitalism. Although tolerant of other ideas and social philosophies, Addams believed in Christian morality and the virtue of learning by doing. Because Addams was convinced that war sapped the reform impulse, encouraged political repression and benefited only munitions makers, she opposed World War I.

She unsuccessfully tried to persuade President Woodrow Wilson to call a conference to mediate a negotiated end to hostilities.