Jane Addams was born in
Cedarville,
Illinois on September 6, 1860. She
graduated from
Rockford College in 1882. In 1889, she founded the famous
social settlement
Hull House on
Chicago's
Near West Side where she worked
to her death in 1935. Through her work at Hull House, her writing, and her
international efforts for
world peace she became one of the country's most
prominent women.
Jane Addams and the residents of Hull House provided kindergartens and
daycare faculties for children of working mothers, an employment bureau, an
art gallery, libraries, and classes in music and art for the surrounding
neighborhood. Later the activities of Hull House broadened to include include the
Jane Club (a cooperative residence for working women), the first Little Theater in
America, a Labor Museum and a meeting place for trade union groups.
She founded the Chicago Federation of Settlements in 1894 and helped found, the
National Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers in 1911. She was
influential in the Consumers League, served as the first woman president of the
National Conference of Charities and Corrections/National Conference of Social
Work. ). She was chairman of the Labor Committee of the General Federation of
Women's Clubs, vice-president of the Campfire Girls, on the executive board of
the National Playground Association, the National Child Labor Committee and
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (founded
1909). In addition, she actively supported the campaign for woman suffrage and the
founding of the American Civil Liberties Union (1920).
Jane Addams was also active in the peace movement. She participated in the
International Congress of Women at the Hague in 1915. She worked with, and
was the first president of, the Women's Peace Party, which became the Women's
International League for Peace and Freedom. As a result of her work for peace
she received a Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.